MY LIFE - DECEMBER
Social Experiment #294 - Wednesday, December 4, 2002
There are a couple of things that you shouldn't say to me, especially if you're family and even more so if they involve my ex, Tab.
For starters, don't say anything about her weight. My cousin Ryan decided that Thanksgiving was a good time to tell me that, in his words, "your girlfriend was fat."
First off, he had a lot of nerve to say that to me to my face. That's an area that I never want to get into because there's no way for you to win, but I really don't want to deal with a relative saying that kind of thing. It was rude, disrespectful, and completely out of line. Everyone who knows me knows that the last thing I ever wanted to discuss was Tab's weight, especially in that manner.
I looked at him and told him that one of these days, someone was going to just absolutely kick his ass unless he learned to watch what he said and that was the end of it. I wasn't going to get sucked into any kind of fight with him just because he had nothing better to do.
This continues the perceived notion that I have something against Tab. I don't know how many times I need to repeat myself, but there is no hate towards her. None. I keep telling everyone that, yet everyone continues to assume that there's some disrespect between us. There isn't. I am getting tired of her being referred to as psychobitch or any other name. It was mildly amusing at first, now it's just annoying.
To clarify: I DO NOT HATE TAB.
I hope that ends it.
Another thing is to ask me repeatedly why my sister Teresa isn't more involved with the family as a whole. I must have said this a dozen times as well on Thanksgiving, but it's because of our dad. She can't be around him. She inevitably breaks down and then the whole night goes to hell. The assumption is she doesn't want to bring her boyfriend around. That's not true.
Otherwise, Thanksgiving was a blast this year. Everyone seemed to genuinely care about us and what was going on, not to mention the several questions about my sudden appearance change.
That threw me for a minute because I had to think about when I had cut my hair. I couldn't remember if it had been before or after Easter, but I remembered it had been before. The last time these people had seen me, I was still wearing a hat all the time and my hair was much longer.
The assumption on my hair was I was trying to be more in-style. That wasn't the case, but I wasn't going to try and argue this with a bunch of people who find the current style to be the most important thing on the face of the earth.
My family as a whole is very fashion conscious. I have an aunt in her late 30's who has a leopard print purse. It was quite a thing to watch her sling this thing around like she was 20 instead of her actual age. There's a lot of materialism in my family, mostly in my aunts. I have one aunt who lives in Strongsville. She has a house, hell property, that is absolutely amazing. Another aunt has a house in Fairview Park overlooking the Metroparks. My other aunt has a house in Cleveland, but she's not exactly skimping on the materialistic things either.
I always go there and feel like such a small person. All these people have all this money, then there's us where we're not exactly poor, but we don't nearly approach the level that they're on. It's something to see actually.
It used to really bother me too when I was younger. Now it's just like, okay, you do whatever it is that makes you happy.
Other than the few offending comments, most of them made by Ryan who at 13 never seems to change, it was a good night. It was just trying to handle my cousin that got kind of tiring. He still thinks he's the funniest thing and the dumbest things will make him laugh.
It's amazing how funny sneezing and blowing snot all over his hands was to him. I couldn't even look at him, but he thought it was the funniest thing ever.
I really don't have much of an opinion on the whole Jim Thome situation. I seem to be one of the few who has a doomsday projection for the future of the Indians and Cleveland sports teams in general.
You can say what you want to say, I don't watch sports just to see my team win. I watch them because I like them. It's more enjoyable when my team is winning, but it's not necessary for me to be a fan. You see, I'm not what's called a bandwagon fan. I don't get on a team's side just because they're winning or they have a player I like. I support one team in each sport and it's the same team I've always supported in each case.
I have hometown pride. My teams are all Cleveland teams. I'm not one of those fans who goes with the best team in a sport. I didn't jump on the St. Louis Rams ship when they started winning like mad unlike a lot of people. I was busy rooting for the Browns even though they stunk. This year, there have been up and down games, but for the most part, I don't see the sense in just giving up all hope just because they laid an egg against Carolina.
Same with the Indians. I followed them all year, even when it was clear that they were out of it. I don't gain anything from them when they win, so why should I get all bent out of shape when they lose? Losing Jim Thome wasn't what I wanted to see, but it was HIM who made the decision to sign with Philadelphia. Not the Indians, not the fans, and not the city's. He made it on his own.
The whole thing with money in sports is ridiculous. Yes, they get paid way too much money to play a game, but who are you to criticize them? Athletes do the same thing that every other person does. They go for the best offer, whether it be more money or not. You wouldn't turn down a higher paying job, would you? Then don't get on a pro athlete's case just because he did that.
We all spend so much time, so much energy nitpicking about these athletes. Do we not have better things to do? I may not have liked a decision that was made, but the fact remains that it was made the way it was and there's nothing I can do to change that. I'm not going to spend my life scrutinizing these things either. As much as I would love to be able to go around and claim that my sports team is the best around, I'm not going to go cry a river just because that isn't the case. I like the Browns. I like the Indians. God forbid I like the Cavs. That's who I am and that's what I'm proud of.
Besides, in my video games, all the Cleveland teams are the bomb. 48-0 over Pittsburgh in Madden 2003. 51-7 over Baltimore. That's all I need.
For those who really know me, what I'm going to say next is not going to be a surprise.
I'm really anal about grammar, spelling, and anything else dealing with writing.
I know, it's something I shouldn't worry about, especially when talking with people online, but it really eats at me when I talk to someone or read someone's profile online and they don't know how to spell or even write in a comprehensible way.
One thing I hate is when people write shit like "2day wuz a good day 4 me. ur all great ppl n i luv all of u." That shit just kills me. Not only does it take me longer to read it because I have to try and put all of the numbers and shit into proper context, but it just looks stupid. I'm not ripping on you if you write this way, just the style itself. Time is at a premium for most people, but writing that way does not make you that much cooler to me at all. It makes you look like a first grade drop-out.
I also don't like it when people just can't spell. I can't believe the number of spelling mistakes, not typing (cause that's a different ballgame in itself), but actual spelling mistakes. I've seen optimistic as "optamistic" and "optomistik." It's sad, it really is. Most people can't even spell simple words, yet they don't see the need to be in school?
Uh, yeah, you have a valid point. You can't spell "complicate" without looking it up, yet you don't need anymore schooling. Please, try another one on me.
The grammar thing is a smaller issue with me since I do tend to ignore it when I'm talking with someone, but when I write in here or in my journal on Bolt, I do try to at least make it look decent. Nothing throws off the flow of an entry more than someone who has no idea how to write.
Yes, I'm being anal, but that's the writer in me. I took my writing seriously when I was younger, and that's stuck with me as I've gotten older. I gave a shit about how I was writing. Maybe that's the big reason why it bothers me when so many people don't give a shit.
Oh, and perhaps the most irritating thing ever? WhEn PeOpLe WrItE lIkE tHiS. How the fuck do you do that? It takes me an eternity to type something like that, yet some people seem to be able to do it in seconds. It looks like shit, it's hard as hell to read, and it's just the most pointless thing in the world to do, yet most younger girls have seemed to adopt this as a cool way to write.
Maybe it's just me getting older though. I'm only 22, but sometimes it feels like I'm older than that when I talk to some people. It's just weird to me I guess. I never thought I'd see the day when talking to someone would make me feel old, but it's happened.
Those things do annoy the piss out of me though. Is it really that hard to write like a normal human? Or are we trying too hard to be different?
Whatever it is, it gives me one large fucking headache.
I have to say I'm glad that they finally finished salting the walkways around this place. The last couple of days have been real treacherous just walking to your car simply because the sidewalks and parking lot were all ice. I normally don't have a problem walking on ice, but it gets a little trickier when walking dogs.
I went down the steps from the room with Shade and Anubis leading the way, but that's about as easy as it got. Shade spotted a van with some kids getting out and made a sudden movement to go that way. This is not normally an issue since I can just yank him back.
Well, I went to yank him and found out too late that it wasn't going to work. I was standing right on a patch of ice when this all happened, so the moment he went to move, my feet went out from under me. I landed on my right hip and knee, hard mind you, and knew right away that walking was not going to be easy the rest of the night.
I managed to pull myself up to get into a position to pull him back towards me, this time on solid footing. We began to walk through the parking lot when I found yet another patch of ice, but this time I let the dogs pull me and slid across the patch before finding my footing again.
I could feel the throbbing sensation in my right leg, but they needed to go out so I had to just deal with it until I could get inside. Then, without warning, Shade bolted again, I tried to hold my ground, slid about 15 feet before regaining control of him, then felt an all-too familiar pulling sensation in my groin.
This was not going well.
After finally getting back into the room, avoiding the ice patches this time, I was able to sit down and fully appreciated how much my right hip, right knee, and groin were hurting. It's not as bad today, but I still feel it mostly in my knee when I walk.
If I hadn't crashed so quickly, I probably would've stayed outside longer with them since Shade just loves the snow. Monday when it was snowing like mad, I took them out while the cleaning was being done and we ran around like mad, slipping and sliding all over the place. It was a good time, I didn't get killed, and the dogs were too worn out afterwards to cause any trouble once back inside.
However, today, ice is not my friend. Just one look at my knee will tell you that.
Damn did that hurt.
STUPID COMMENT OF THE DAY
This actually goes back to last week, but this is the first time I'm getting to it. Early in the week, Nichole was ringing register when a couple came up to the counter to pay for the stuff they were buying. The guy was holding a box of condoms when the following comment came out of his mouth:
"These things taste like blueberry."
Two things. One, it sounded absolutely absurd coming out of his mouth, two, how in the hell did he know that one?
Come to think of it, I really don't want to know the answer to that.
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