Tag: crazy

The Current State

Okay, so I have several theories about our current Grabber-in-Chief, and each one is scarier than the last. Specifically:

  • He’s a little boy who delights in kicking ant hills so he can watch all the little ants scurry around in panic and fury. Why else would he change his views so radically, from one moment to the next, without any reasonable explanation? Even his own staff does not know what the heck he’s going to do, or who he will fire, next.

  • He is so far gone, mentally, that he doesn’t have a clue about what he’s doing. He’s completely unhinged. He’s loopy. Mad as a hatter. He’s off his nut. Brace yourself, folks, because there’s nobody flying this here plane.

  • He’s the purest, most distilled form of stupid on the face of the earth. He makes W look like a genius. He has absolutely no concept of the consequences of his actions, and is utterly incapable of seeing that he needs to rely on expert advice. Never before has this country been expected to bask in the murky waters of such unprecedented incompetence.

  • He is evil incarnate. He doesn’t care who or what he destroys, as long as the end result is personal profit. He has no moral compass whatsoever. We are doomed.

Duck and cover, people, because my worst fear is that the real answer is: all of the above.

mushroom cloud

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Are You FREAKING Kidding Me?

Let’s just say, (hypothetically) that I received an e-mail from someone who isn’t even in my chain of command, and it said, (hypothetically), “Please allow yourself to do cleaning duties toward the end of your shift. I found a long strand of hair on the inside of the toilet rim.”

First of all… ALLOW myself? Like I’m, what? Possessed by demons who absolutely will not tolerate me keeping track of every strand of hair that might be in the room? Or is this simply friendly advice on how to win the psychic battle with my more slovenly self?

If this actually had happened, I would be (hypothetically) not the only person in my workplace who thinks that this person has a major screw loose. If you have so little to worry about that you have to make a federal case out of a single strand of hair, then I want your life for even a day.

But I’m all about solutions. So if this insane scenario were to happen, here’s the suggestion I’d make to management:

I think all bridgetenders, even the bald ones (so as not to show favoritism) should be required to wear hair nets during their entire shift. Hair net dispensers could be placed at all entrances, and the employee would not be allowed to clock in without donning one. A hair net log book could be kept, both a paper copy and on the computer, and both bridge operators would be required to sign it on shift change, verifying that hair nets were being worn. Of course, special hair net disposal procedures would have to be implemented to avoid a hazmat situation.

DNA samples should be required during the employment process so that if there is a question as to the offending hair’s origin, that may be quickly and quite expensively resolved. Anyone who refuses to provide said sample should be wrestled to the ground and shaved from head to toe. If they claim some sort of exemption for aesthetic reasons, they should be required to encase their entire head in a plastic bag until such time as they choose to comply.

Further, “hair nets in place” should be added to the supervisory site visit form, and supervisors should be more stealthy when approaching the bridges so that they can catch and fire people who are out of uniform. Therefore, the alarm system should be disabled, because otherwise we could all have advanced warning and put the hair nets on as you approach.

Better yet, let’s install secret surveillance cameras and hire a staff member to monitor us at all times. A sensor should also be set up to detect stray hairs and send an electric shock into the operator’s chair if any violations occur. And any stray hairs left at the end of one’s shift should require removal by using the offender’s tongue, attached for the first offense, detached for the second.

I think we can all agree that it is high time that management started taking things more seriously up in this mo’ fo’, so I look forward to your usual prompt and proactive resolution measures. Thanks ever so much.

shaving head

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One Very Close Shave

So, I’ve been house hunting in the cutthroat Seattle market. After three rejected bids, two of which were soul-crushing, I was sorely tempted to give up. But I don’t really have that luxury. If I don’t lock down a steady mortgage payment, my rent is bound to increase way beyond my means. So I resigned myself to seeing this putrid process to its bitter end.

It’s kind of like being nauseous on the interstate during rush hour. You want to pull over and barf, but you fear for your life. So you take the risk, instead, of possibly vomiting down the front of your shirt while going 70 miles per hour, and just pray that that doesn’t happen. Yup. That’s house hunting in Seattle in a nutshell.

But I kept putting my rejected and dejected little self out there. I saw a ton of dumps. I also saw a lot of really nice houses that were ultimately competitively bid right out of my price range. Then I came across bid number 4. This was a nice enough house, but not so nice that it would break the bank. More than enough room. Fenced back yard, sort of. New kitchen appliances. A lot further out than I ever intended to commute. And carpet, unfortunately, and the smallest bathtub I’ve ever seen in my life, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers, right?

As we were leaving the house, the woman who lives across the street called us over. She said, “You know, they’re hiding mold.” Oh goody. A neighbor who is bat shit crazy. I definitely didn’t get a mold vibe from this house, but that’s what inspections are for.

So I put in my bid. And I was the only one who did, so I won! I have the crazy neighbor to thank, no doubt. She most likely scared everyone else off. Trust me to have a guardian angel who is nutty.

The next step was the inspection. The house was built in 1920, so I knew there’d be a few issues, but I really didn’t anticipate anything major. I resigned myself to the two page long list of cosmetic repairs I had already compiled. This house was going to be work, no doubt about it. Sigh.

On inspection day, I was thrilled to notice that there is a great big tree between my front porch and the crazy lady’s house. I had thought I’d have to stay in the back yard to avoid her. Maybe not. This was good news.

While I measured rooms and calculated how much paint I’d need to make that lovely old picket fence white again, the inspector crawled into the attic and into the crawl space beneath the house. He came out looking grim. But I let him complete the inspection, knowing he’d give me a full rundown afterward.

Oh, and he did. Did he ever.

First of all, there was a two-inch thick carpet of rat poop in the attic and below the house. Knowing that for every cup of rat poop, there’s usually three cups of rat pee, I began to have visions of hantavirus dancing in my head. They’d have to hire professionals to pull out all the insulation and the vapor barrier and remove all that soil…

But wait. There’s more. Apparently, the clean out cap was missing on a pipe under the house, so every time someone had flushed the toilet for, oh, YEARS, the sewage was sprayed all under the house. Yummy. Nothing like a hazmat situation to make you want to move right in!

And then there was the rotted joist, and the abandoned section of chimney that was crumbling and threatening to rain bricks upon my head at any moment. And none of the wiring was up to code. And the sink was leaking.

And crazy woman was not the only character in the neighborhood. I tried to introduce myself to a few neighbors, and got a really hostile vibe.

Needless to say, my little voice was telling me that this was not the house for me. But such was my desperation that I still tried to ignore it. I wanted this whole process to be over.

Fortunately, I have the best realtor on earth in Cris LeCompte. While I fitfully slept, he found another, much better house for me to look at, because the situation was bothering him, too. And when I saw it, I had no reservations. My little voice was no longer screaming in my ear. So I bid on it.

I also withdrew my bid on the rat house. And it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. Yes, I had to spend $420 for the inspection, but that saved me from spending $295,000 on a nightmare of a money pit, so I consider it money well spent.

Now I’m buying a house that feels like a home. Woo hoo! More on that in another entry!

CloseShave

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What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d utter: I just put a profile on one of those computer dating websites. Yep. It’s come to that.

And so it begins. For the first hour or so, it was kind of exciting. About 30 men read my profile. But then none of them contacted me, and I suddenly realized I had just been rejected 30 times. Ouch.

Then I became aware that I was doing the exact same thing at a dizzying pace. I was looking at tons of profiles, and skipping over most of them based on arbitrary things. Conservative. Uneducated. Thinks books are “Okay, I guess.” Looking for someone athletic. (Pity.) Smokes. (ABSOLUTELY NOT.) Scary, scary serial killer looking photograph. (I can’t help it. I have to trust my instincts.) Still has kids living at home. (Run!!!!)

Then came a deluge of men wanting to chat. Cool! But they were in other parts of the country. Why on earth would you want to talk to me? Ohhhhhhh. I get it. You want to “talk” to me. No thanks. I’m not going to take some hard-earned business away from a phone sex operator. Or here’s an idea. Go talk to your wife. I’m sure she’s right in the next room.

And I came across some crazy, crazy profiles that made me wonder what kind of men are walking the streets of this town. One said, “Any woman I’m interested in has to keep herself clean and smell nice.” It sort of reminded me of the serial killer in Silence of the Lambs. “It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again.”

Another listed a bunch of attributes and then said, “If you don’t have ALL these qualities, then you’re wasting my time. And I don’t take kindly to having my time wasted. But I really am a nice guy!” Oh yeah, I’m sure women are beating down his door!

But the most painful moments are when I read a profile of someone I think has potential, and I reach out to that person and he ignores me. I know if he’d just give me a chance, he’d see how great I am. But he can’t get past my body type or some random thing I say in my profile to see that. I feel like a poorly advertised product on some dusty shelf. “Buy me! I’m good! Really. You’d like me.”

I don’t know if I have the strength for this.

dating

That’s the Ticket

Okay, I don’t normally do this, but I’m strongly encouraging you to leave this page right this minute. You have GOT to see this. Seriously.

Just when you think people can’t be more insane, gullible, or stupid, you hear a story like this. And it has everything. Crazy looking people. Bizarre ideas. Jesus. A baby alligator. And best of all, it totally reinforces why I couldn’t wait to leave Jacksonville, Florida!

What are you waiting for? Click, already!

American Alligator, baby Photo No. 3 660

Alternate Realities

As a bridgetender I get ample opportunity to observe people. I sit up here in my not-exactly-ivory tower, watching them come and go. Most of them don’t even know I exist. That can be lonely, but it also gives me a certain amount of power, and it’s power that I haven’t earned, so I’ve never quite gotten used to it.

People will say the most intimate things as they walk down the sidewalk. I’m not intentionally eaves dropping, but voices do carry. They’ll also do the most bizarre things when they think they’re all alone, so during the early morning part of my shifts on Saturdays and Sundays in particular, when traffic is light and most people are sleeping in or sleeping it off, I’ve seen some quite interesting things.

The other day I saw a guy who appeared to be dancing down the sidewalk. As he got closer I realized that he wasn’t dancing. He was playing imaginary basketball. His dribbling and his overhead passes were particularly graceful. His layups needed some work. He seemed harmless enough, so I let him play on.

On the contrary, shouting man seemed a danger to himself and others. He was disheveled and sucking on a marijuana pipe as he walked along, screaming and gesticulating aggressively. I was tempted to let him be as well, until he straddled the railing into oncoming traffic. That made me call 911. They showed up rather quickly, tested his drugs, talked to him a while, and sent him on his not-so-merry way. That’s the thing about Seattle. The city seems to allow obviously disturbed people to roam free instead of getting them the help that they desperately need. That’s something I haven’t gotten accustomed to. I feel sorry for all the ragged dirty people I see on street corners, talking earnestly to themselves.

There’s another gentleman who is very clean cut, and for all appearances is a functional member of society. That is, until he reaches the informational placard at the top of one of my bridges. It’s tilted sort of like a podium, and he appears to use it as such. He’ll stand there, thumping it with his hands, and speaking loudly and earnestly to the river. There’s no one else around to hear him except me. Sometimes I wonder if he really is a preacher practicing his sermon. He’s too far away for me to hear what he’s saying. Eventually he’ll hop on his bike and ride away.

For the most part I’m a live and let live kind of girl. As long as they are not inviting potential disaster on me, the public, themselves or the bridge, I just kind of shake my head and let them do their unique things. I think all of us, to a certain extent, live in our own little worlds. The majority of us are just a little more adept at keeping it to ourselves.

nyt_audio_hallucination

[Image credit: differencebetween.info]

Jesus, Man…

In a recent chat with one of my blog friends I was reminded of this guy who used to walk hundreds of miles up and down the coast of Florida during my childhood. He wore a brown robe tied with twine, and sometimes wore sandals, but was often barefoot. And he dragged a HUGE heavy cross. He had long hair and always looked like he went weeks between baths. For all I know he covered other states, too. But I did see him in several parts of Florida over the years. We called him the Jesus Man.

I never spoke to the guy. We always assumed he was mentally ill. I mean, who does that? Sometimes he’d be walking in the pouring rain or the freezing cold or more often in the blistering heat. He was always alone.

I tried Googling him just now in hopes of attaching a picture. I didn’t find him, but what I did come across was rather eye-opening. There are several guys who do this. One has done it all over the world, apparently. And while their beliefs do not fall in line with mine, they don’t seem to be mentally ill. They’re just very, very dedicated to their evangelism. I certainly can’t fault these people for that. Their commitment to their cause is really impressive, to be honest.

I just hope that for the sake of these guys today, they are a little more PR savvy than the Jesus Man of my childhood was. He spent days and years and miles dragging a cross, and never spoke to anyone or got any publicity or seemed to further his cause in any way. Maybe people who were already Christians were heartened by seeing him, but I suspect no non-Christians were converted by observing this dirty, sweaty, grubby man grimly dragging a cross in the hot sun. Most of them probably thought the same thing I did: “Jesus, man, you’re crazy.”

At the risk of being relegated to hell, I have to say that there are lots of creative ways to get your point across. In this day and age it isn’t hard to reach a whole lot of people without half killing yourself in the process. Work smarter, not harder. There are also times when you’re simply beating your head against a brick wall. Continual wall beating is not dedication. It’s nutty. And I’m willing to bet Jesus would prefer you focus on his teachings rather than his martyrdom, but that’s just my non-Christian opinion. I suppose it depends on what kind of return you are seeking for your investment.

Cross

[Image credit: anniewald.com]

Schooled by a Sacred Lion

I’m in a state of transition and that’s putting it mildly. New job, new (to me) car, new city where I have never been and know not a soul. An epic drive across the country, seeing places I’ve never seen. Hurtling toward the unknown. What an adventure. What a trip!

Most of the time I’m excited. Friends have told me I’m brave, and that they admire me for doing this. But I have to admit that sometimes I’m scared shitless. All this change all at once can crash over me like a tsunami, and I panic. I doubt. I basically freak out. What the hell am I doing?

The other day I said to a friend, “Please remind me I’m not crazy. I feel like I’m jumping off a cliff without knowing what’s at the bottom.”

His response to me was, “Well, seems to me like you already know what’s at the bottom. This is more like ascending a cliff than jumping off. So put on those rock slippers, woman, and get to climbing!”

And just like that, my view of the situation was reframed. At least until the next tsunami. This is a wise friend, indeed. His name means “Sacred Lion”. His mother named him well.

 

lion

[Image credit: ireminisces.com]

I Love Your Mind

In this modern computer age I have quite a few friends that I haven’t met face to face. In many cases we are a half a world away from each other, and the likelihood of us ever breaking bread is pretty slim. Even so, they’re as dear to me as any partner in crime from college ever was. We banter, we chat, we meet on Facebook or in the virtual world of Second Life. We exchange e-mails. We skype. I have even made several friends through the comments here on my blog. I’ve also connected with distant relatives and reconnected with long lost friends on line. I love being alive at this point in history!

Granted, you can’t always trust what you learn on line. That girl of your dreams might be a fat old truck driver with bushy chest hair pushing out the top of his wife-beater shirt, and pedophiles and perverts love the internet even more than I do. I have met my fair share of crazies, believe you me. But generally speaking, crazy is hard to hide for long. It usually oozes out of the cracks in one’s façade fairly quickly.

But what I love most about meeting people this way is that you skip right over the assumptions and judgments that come along with the usual first impressions. You get past that two foot long beard because you aren’t aware it’s there. Obesity, deformity, race, bad taste in clothes, and really bad cologne do not factor in when you are getting to know someone on line. You aren’t meeting face to face. You are meeting mind to mind.

Within three seconds of meeting an adolescent in Second Life, I can tell. They have no life experience, and therefore very little to contribute to a conversation. I move on. It also doesn’t take much time to determine if you have nothing in common with someone. If someone is pushy, aggressive or rude, they’ll usually be the same way in cyberspace.

But just as in real life, when you click with people, it has nothing to do with the physical. It’s their sense of humor, their integrity, their intelligence and their point of view that makes you like them. You have a better chance of meeting these gems on line, because you won’t discount them for their scary biker attire or their severe facial scarring.

Whether we’re willing to admit it or not, we’ve all dismissed someone due to our assumptions based on their appearance. What opportunities have we missed for life long friendships? The internet is the great equalizer in this instance, and I’m forever grateful for the many friends I’ve made through its agency.

read your mind

How to Become a Battered Woman

My whole life I’ve looked at battered women with sadness and pity, but I have to admit that I always viewed them with a certain level of disdain. I’d never let that happen to me. Never. How do you get in that position? How do you let someone disrespect you like that, harm you like that, and yet not walk away? I could never put up with that from anyone.

But I learned a very hard lesson recently, one that makes me look at battered women in a whole new light. What I’ve never realized is that it’s a quiet, creeping progression. It’s not like a woman gets beaten on the first date and decides that she’s going to live with that person happily ever after. No. You start off as one person, and somehow, slowly over time, you change. Then one day you look up and you say to yourself, “How did I get here?”

You see, it starts off so well at first. You are swept off your feet. You are charmed. You think you’ve found “the one”. You feel loved and protected and cherished and more attractive than you’ve ever felt in your whole life. Your heart is overflowing with happiness, and you dare to dream that you may actually have a bright future to look forward to after all. It’s like winning the lottery when you’ve never even had the confidence to buy a ticket.

That honeymoon stage can go on for a long time. Long enough to really get you hooked. And then one day he breaks through the first boundary. He loses his temper. But not like a typical couple’s quarrel. It’s epic. And all the more so because you never expected that he was capable of such behavior. What happened to the guy you fell in love with? You are kind of in shock. You don’t really know what to think. And the next day he acts as if nothing has happened.

You almost wonder if you imagined it. You make excuses. He was tired. You really were wrong. Everyone has a bad day now and then. Maybe you’re making too much of it. But there have been warning signs. He has spoken of other friends or relatives with anger, and he seems to hold on to that anger without ever moving on. But up until now, it was never directed at you.

Things settle down for a few days, maybe a week, and you really start to think it was just an anomaly. Then it happens again. Only this time, he says something that really, really hurts you. He picks something you’re vulnerable about and he sticks an emotional fork into it and twists. Boundary number two.

This time you’re pretty sure that you did nothing to deserve this. You didn’t realize he felt this way about you. You start to wonder about him, and how he can be so cruel. He saw you cry. He knows he hurt you. You wait for an apology, but it never comes.

The next few days he’s really, really nice to you. He gives you compliments. He makes you feel like you are the most wonderful person in the world. In the back of your mind you try to reconcile this with the cruel things he said earlier, but you can’t.

You tell yourself that he’s being really, really nice because he feels horrible about his behavior, and this is his way of apologizing. Not everyone is good at coming right out and saying things. Men, particularly, are not known for communicating feelings. So maybe this is how he does it. And as he showers you with compliments, you think this is good enough.

But over time, he shows his temper more quickly and more often. You find yourself thinking ahead so that you can avoid things that are likely to set him off. He hates the way you drive, so you let him drive. He wants the towels folded a certain way in the linen closet, and really, is that such a big deal? So you fold them his way.

As you start to accumulate more rules, your ability to function effectively becomes more and more compromised. For instance, he hates to be reminded of things as he’s heading out the door, so even though you know he’s going to forget something, you are hesitant to remind him. But then, he also hates forgetting things, so you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Another item on your decision tree is, “Has he started drinking yet?” If yes, abort inquiry.

Don’t misunderstand. You are no shrinking violet. You are not passive during his rages. When he shouts, you learn to shout back. Maybe you even kick him out of the house. But eventually you take him back, because the good times are so good. And he misses you. And maybe you feel sorry for him. You definitely feel sorry for yourself.

It doesn’t help that he can paint such pretty pictures of what your life will be like together. If this one hurdle can be jumped over, everything is going to be so great. The implication being that now he’s under a lot of pressure, but once things get better, he will get better too.

But his behavior is changing. He’s starting to learn from you. He begins to know what things really cause you pain. Do you hate to be considered stupid? Then brace yourself, because he will certainly make you feel stupid when he’s angry. Do you love your dogs more than life itself? Then he will hate your dogs and everything about your dogs and he will imply that you’re stupid for even having dogs.

Then one day he rages about your housekeeping skills, and your first thought is, “Great, now here’s a whole new set of rules, and I’m never going to be able to keep track of them all.” You look forward to a lifetime of desperately trying to keep everything neat as a pin to avoid conflict, and the concept exhausts you.

And the worst part is you watch him behave decently to total strangers, so you know he’s capable of decency. He just chooses to not behave that way with you. Why? What did you do to deserve this? He’ll be happy to tell you. This is all your fault. Nothing you do is right. You aren’t trying hard enough. You are hypersensitive. You’re crazy. You’re the one. And you start to wonder if that may be true.

Unfortunately, by now you can’t talk to anyone about it. You’re too embarrassed and ashamed. You don’t want to scare off your friends, and your family won’t understand why you don’t simply walk away. So you’re completely and utterly alone without any positive validation.

Then one day, finally, he loses it in front of a witness. Boundary number three. Maybe he shouts at you in the driveway in front of the neighbor. And you see the look of shock in that neighbor’s eyes. You remember that look. You used to get that look at first. And suddenly you realize that you are no longer shocked. You’re used to it. You have come to expect it. It has become the norm. When did that happen?

In between all the bad times, though, there are still very good times. And those become all the more precious and poignant because you don’t know when the next bad time will come along. You cling to those good times. You never want to let them go.

Therein lies the problem. In order to hold on to those good times, you have to hold onto the man, and unfortunately the bad times are also part of the man. You feel a thick blanket of depression descend upon you, because you begin to twist yourself into knots trying to figure out a way to accentuate the positive and avoid the negative. You convince yourself that if you can only come up with the right combination of…whatever it is, maybe you’ll get to keep the good guy and the bad guy will go away. But you can’t find that combination, and you therefore feel yourself sinking down into a depressing status quo.

And then one day he crosses boundary number four. A chair gets thrown. Oh, not at you. You’re probably not even in the room. And thank God your dogs aren’t there, either. But you hear the crash, you feel the fury, and you are terrified. Terrified in your own home. Because what happens when he crosses boundary number five?

It is easy to imagine what boundary number five would be like. I will never know if that boundary would have been crossed, because I chose to end things. I’d like to think that it wouldn’t have been crossed because he had no history of ever doing so, but the fact that I couldn’t be sure is what gave me the strength to walk away.

And even though intellectually I know I did the right thing, the insane thing is that I still feel as if I’m going off heroin cold turkey. I miss the good stuff. It was better than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. I’m in mourning for those pretty pictures of a future that I’ll never have, I’m terrified about how I’ll make it on my own, I practically have a panic attack when thinking of facing the holidays all alone, and I’m lonely to the point of physical pain. I feel lacerated, and I wonder if I’ll ever heal.

I have been to the rim of the abyss and I’ve looked down into it. I didn’t like what I saw. Because of that, I will never ever look at a battered woman with disdain again. Even though I’ve never been beaten myself (thank God), now I understand. I get it.

eggshells

[Image credit: narcissisticabuse.com]