If driving here is wrong, I don't want to keep right.
Would be the title of this daylog if I made node titles and did my writeups there. No desire to risk an E2 god deleting my writeup though. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, you are in luck, I'm moving on now.
Happy President's Day, first of all. I bought some new work shoes today. There was nothing wrong with my old work shoes. No one had made any disparaging comments about them. For those of you that know me, I'm hoping your curious.
"Brian, why would you buy new work shoes?"
It's unrequited's fault. Chatted with him before going to work today. He sent me more games in the mail, and asked if I got them. Since I only check snail mail every 3 or 4 days (tops) I had to go check.
I can't remember now what all I thought about as I drove to IHOP today. It takes me half an hour to get to work, and I've taken to not listening to music in the car. I just think and try not to kill anyone.
I bruised underneath the fingernail of my right index finger. I have no clue how. I hurt my hands a lot at IHOP. I must have done it Sunday, possibly Saturday, I worked a lot this weekend.
"Brian, can you get back to the shoes? I was really curious and I'm dying to know."
I just wanted to explain that I type mostly with four fingers and it kind of hurts to use my right index finger...so any pain in delaying the story is probably more mine than yours...
"The shoes. Please?"
It's pretty awesome writing in the voice of your friends and then just making shit up they'd never say. Anyway, I park outside of IHOP and start walking in. I look down.
Oh shit.
I'm wearing my comfortable sneakers I put on this morning to go check the snail mail.
Have you been to IHOP? Can you imagine the blue apron, the black slacks...and can you imagine my ratty, white, fucking sneakers?
I apologize for my lack of knowledge of pinyin...
Wa sha shaza!
To understand why I put on those sneakers you really need to get a feel for what a tired old man I've become, desperate for the most basic of comforts. That kind of sounded like I was going to go into a big explanation. Sorry to jerk you around.
Back to the shoes. (The Shoes would be it's own entertaining node and title, but I still think the driving line is the best material I've come up with since I logged last) So I wouldn't be surprised if I stood there outside of IHOP for like a minute. That's a really long time to just stand there wondering what the fuck you are supposed to do now. Finally I decided I had to go in and at least let my GM know I would have been on time if I wasn't such a retard. I was so embarrassed I went in the back door.
I buzzed at the back door and poor Queen of the Prep Cooks let me in. I go in to hear GM yelling at her.
"Hey, we don't let servers in the back, they need to come in the front."
"GM, look at my shoes."
He looks at my face not knowing what the hell I'm talking about, one of the trainers was standing there with him, I'm guessing I interrupted some conversation.
"GM, LOOK AT MY SHOES."
They do and they all bust out laughing.
"Yeah, so I'm retarded and I put these shoes on this morning to go get my mail and I forgot what I was wearing. Now I don't know what to do."
GM: "Well, you can't wear those."
(trainer just laughing)
"Right, but I live half an hour away, so it will be an hour before I can work if I go change them."
At which point he suggests I just buy new shoes from the Wall-Mart a little ways away and that's what I do.
Being a retard and being laughed at do not bother me at all. What bothers me is the mental collapse I can keep track of. Like days I had to work the office job AND IHOP were brutal for me. It seemed like so many things I had to remember. I forgot my office job badge one day that led to a $20 parking ticket. One day I forgot my belt. I fucking forgot to comb my hair one day.
Now let me cut off those of you welling up with empathy. Poor Brian, he's so heartbroke blah blah blah. I think I'm actually a much less likable character than all that. I think it's just a matter of what a spoiled life, and more specifically spoiled life I have lived in Vegas more than anything else. I just don't think my brain is used to having to think about all this shit it doesn't want to. I just want to play more Dragon Age! I want to know if anyone has played Rogue and if it's worth playing, or if Nethack is just better.
But people had a good laugh, and I hope you did too.
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So yesterday was Valentine's Day and it was a pretty special one for me. You see, as of yesterday, I've been fucking for as many years as I didn't fuck.
There was no fucking this year, though, I had to work (because, you know, I'm just fucking all day on my days off...oh wait, that isn't me) and within the first hour of waiting tables that day I think I completely understand what women want. They just want their man to not worry about money for one day. Do not worry about what the cheapest way to order something is, do not worry about how much the extra toast costs, just at least say that money is no object, even if we both know it is.
We were really busy that morning. I got to stay late so I worked like 7.5 hours. That is a beating for an old man like me.
But back to V-Day, when I was finally getting off work Bulgarian Girl asked me what I was doing that night. I told her going home and doing laundry. She just laughed at me. People laugh at me a lot. It's a gift.
It got me thinking, though. Do women really think single guys care about not doing anything on Valentine's Day? We sure don't. Near as I can figure, V-Day is about men spending money on women. I don't even feel I can take myself out to dinner, why the hell would I think of taking a girl out on Valentine's Day? Okay, I have thought of actually using the gift cards my parents sent me to like Red Lobster and Outback and doing just that. But I've also thought of selling them.
So that was my last couple days. I'm going to jump back to right after my last daylog. This may end up being really random, but I've been jotting down notes whenever I think of something at all amusing or interesting to me.
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One of my friends on Face Book sometimes writes updates in the form "Dear (whatever)." Like: Dear Sun, please stop forsaking Las Vegas, some of us look better with a tan."
I'd like to borrow that format for a moment.
Dear Japanese Girls in Porn,
I am tired of your 70's bush, I am tired of the sounds you make, and I am tired of watching pixelated penises rape you. If you could please convince your Porn Overlords that the best way to make money off you is on specialty sites where the average porn browser will never come across you, I'd appreciate it.
I'm tired, and I can't afford to be. This was a thought I had on Friday when I did not get to stay late at IHOP and GM told me I looked tired. If he ever says, "Where is your sense of urgency?" all I hear is "Bust your ass harder, old man!"
Saturday I was at IHOP at 5:45am. I got up a little after 4am that day. I was cut off the floor around 1pm. We had a non-mandatory meeting at 3pm. Since I live so fucking far away I decided to dick around...including scraping a sticker off my car which I'll get to in a minute...until the meeting. After the meeting Black Guy invited me to "go get a drink" with Bulgarian Girl and him at a bar near by.
I learned Black Guy has the exact same birthday...he is the exact same age as my ex-girlfriend. Coincidence is fun.
I got home after 7pm that night only to remember I needed to go shopping again. Let's see, I have peanut butter and ramen. Sigh.
Yes I only ate two packages of ramen that day and some of OCD Girl's french fries when I went BACK to IHOP to return this coat that I had Bulgarian Girl steal for me.
"What?"
Didn't you read about my mental collapse? Try to keep up.
So I'm at the bar with Black Guy and I realize it was much hotter in the afternoon than it was at 5:45am and I forgot my damn coat at IHOP. Luckily Bulgarian Girl calls to find out where this bar is and she's still at IHOP. So I have Black Guy tell her to grab my coat. I end up describing where it is and kind of what it looks like.
So she brings this other coat. Fucking hell. So I take the coat back myself. As soon as I get to my car though I realize I HAD gotten my coat after my shift, and thrown it in my car and then gone back for the meeting. Go Brain! At least I got some IHOP fries out of the deal. Remember those scrambled eggs? Yeah, I was so happy OCD Girl indulged my fry lust. But I held myself back and only ate a few. So those fries and 2 things of ramen. My apologies to Mr. Positive. I'm trying to take care of myself, I promise.
Ok so back to the sticker. A security guard at my condo complex put this huge sticker on my window telling me when my car will be towed. I have a carport space assigned to me, but it's basically around the back of my condo. I talked to the home owners association and they found that this spot I've been parking in (right in front of my place) belongs to someone who they don't think is there and they'll make a note and it should be ok. So I thought this was a break down of communication, or the people who's spot it really was came back or something.
Then I read the fricking thing...it's marked that I parked in a handicap spot. What? Unless that space BECAME a handicap spot, there is no way.
That night I found out that is exactly what had happened. New handicap paint on the space. Now might be a good time for you to look up and watch Penn and Teller's Bullshit! episode on handicapped regulations.
There was a cat making this-cat-is-pissed-off noises outside my place a few nights ago. I wonder, just how many ways ARE there to skin a cat? I mean I know there is more than one, but just how many?
Suicide is the one decision you'll never regret.
You know PB and J is good because it has the letters BJ right in there.
How the hell do you decide when to just throw the jar of jelly away rather than to get more out of there? I just realized I've been domesticated by poverty.
I tried to get my laundry out of the dryer (btw if anyone knows a good way to get blue ink out of cloths, I'm a retarded bachelor and could use tips) the other night and I never made it. Ended up making myself a turkey and mayonnaise sandwich instead. Who designs a condo so you have to go through the kitchen to get to the laundry? At least I'm not my Friend with no Girlfriend, he has to go outside to get to his dryer.
Just once I'd like to see Face Book suggest I never become friends with someone. Or even suggest I unfriend someone.
I had someone tell me I had to have faith, and without faith people are miserable. I'm not even going to go off now. Really, anger is a gift and all, but I'd rather talk about strippers.
See on Monday (one week ago) I couldn't sleep. I made a bunch of little mistakes at my office job that day. There is plenty of time to correct mistakes at the office. I'm glad I wasn't waiting tables. All you have to do is forget to write down one ingredient on someone's Build Your Own Omelet and you may make a cook redo it.
Anyway Monday was a funny day. I think I probably slept 6 hours the night before, maybe a little less. It's certainly a stretch to call that sleep deprivation. I have said that I am sad to see the Manic-Depression classification go away. Bi-polar is just not as cool sounding. I was thinking though that Manic + Sleep Deprivation = Feral.
I felt feral on Monday.
I wrote a daylog that day, and it ended with the line "I need to find some girls." I wonder if it was that thought that led me to Treasures after work on Monday. It HAD been a while since I took full advantage of their free buffet.
I went and I paid $1 for my water and I tipped $1 and I ate their free buffet. It was pretty great, really. They had good potato salad, and I liked the bite sized, egg shaped corn dogs. The sausage was ok. The pussy was better.
Easy joke.
Even on days I've been in Treasures for their free buffet when there were a handful of girls around, it doesn't really seem like I'm doing anything bad to them. It's not like they look at a guy chowing down on the free buffet and get their hopes up.
This particular day it was REALLY dead. No girls on stage, some guy at the cash register was on his cell phone and just waved me in. But eventually a stripper came and talked to me. She was eating the buffet too.
Somehow I ended up talking about being an atheist and how I can't come to the logical conclusion that anything is good or evil. There is no right or wrong.
I was thinking about Doctor Positive (Mr. Positive's wife) and how she was asking where optimism comes from for an atheist. I think optimism and right and wrong and good and evil all come from feelings. I mean I can say that murder is wrong for our society. But why should our society be the standard? I feel there is something wrong with having sex with a child, but if you ask me if child molestation is wrong I just think, wrong for who? Before you say, "Everyone!" keep in mind Chris Rock's routine about the Kindergarten teacher that got naked with her kids and they all climbed all over each other. Where was she when I was in Kindergarten??
I agree with Mr. Rock completely. Where was she, indeed.
We can certainly feel a lot of things are wrong, and I have no problem with that. If we come to a logical conclusion about what is wrong, however, it seems relative to something. The only difference between me and atheists like (I would imagine) Richard Dawkins is that he uses mankind as the standard. What is good for mankind? I'm just not convinced that needs to be the standard. And maybe that is what leads to nihilism, not the atheism itself.
I think I'm just going to stop now, if you made it to the end this time, thank you, and pat yourself on the genitals, you did good.