global shit storm

I've been reading several articles lately on global warming and how the shit is hitting the fan a lot sooner than originally predicted. And that we are basically f*cked as a planet, unless we make some severe changes, like, RIGHTNOW. And I am reminded of a story that I must have heard as a kid in church or somewhere jesus-y.

I swear, this was a huge iceberg a second ago.

The story goes that there is a huge rain, and it starts to flood. The streets are filling with water such that regular cars cannot drive through them. A devout christian man is essentially trapped at his house because he has no vehicle. A guy comes with a big truck and offers to give him a ride to higher ground.  Homeboy says, "No thanks, I don't need a ride Mr. Stranger. God is going to save me."

Well, the rains keep coming and the water gets higher. Homeboy has to move into the second floor of his house because the water is so high.  A group in a boat comes by and offers him a ride to higher ground.  Homeboy says, "No thanks, I don't need a ride group of Strangers. God is going to save me."

The rains keep coming, and homeboy has to move to his roof due to flooding of the second floor. But he has faith. He just knows God will save him! And a helicopter comes by and offers to throw him a rope ladder to save him! And homeboy says, "No thanks, I don't need your helicopter ride. You see, GOD is going to save me!"

As you can imagine, Homeboy drowns. And when he gets to heaven, he comes before God and says, "God, I am a good Christian man, faithful my whole life. I prayed for you to save me, but you let me die! How could you do this?" To which God says, "You idiot. I sent you a truck, a boat and a helicopter! You refused all three!"

*facepalm*

I feel like that is what is happening with Global Warming. When the shit really starts to hit the fan, the evangelists are going to have a field day. But when they get to heaven and ask God why he didn't save them from the dying oceans, the horrific weather patterns, the crash of the ecosystem, he is going to say, "You idiot! I sent scientists telling you what was happening, congresspeople and senators to introduce bills that would limit emissions, and inventors to create products and services that would protect earth."

f*ckin idiots.

Douchery: Part Two

Remember that one time I joined Tinder? I was flabbergasted by the number of atrocious profile pix I encountered in the first 24 hours of membership. There were so many I didn't want to overwhelm by putting them all in one entry. You can see Douchery: Part One here, and read on to see the rest.

These are by far more horrifying than the ones you've already seen. *shudders*

Y'all keep in mind this is his MAIN PHOTO used to attract members of the opposite sex. Eww. I do not want to see your little black curlies peeking over the top of your pants nor do I need to see the outline of your manbits in the fabric. This is so much more offensive than your standard shirtless picture. Dear darling idiot Jacob, I almost hope you thought you were posting on Grindr not Tinder, because that is who it looks like you are trying to attract.

My guess is Sergio has a small penis. Why else would your main profile picture be a phallus gun? Also, if I were to go out with him I would be more than a little scared. If you advertise yourself as a gun, I worry that you are abusive, controlling, and an asshole. No, no, not all gun owners are these things, just like #notallmen rhetoric. But not all gun owners put their gun in a place their face should be.

Look, I am not a prude (well, maybe a little) and am cool with whatever y'all want to do to each other consensually in the privacy of your homes. But in "public"? In the everlasting world of the internets where things NEVER DISAPPEAR??? Obscene. And what is it with guys with armband/tribal tattoos wearing women's things? (see my prior post if you haven't already)

Yes, that is a man wiping his ass with the American flag. It was so unbelievable that I had to look twice too. Let me be clear - I am the first to fight for free speech. My mother is a librarian, for chrisssakes. I have never been through a nudescope at the airport because I feel it violates my rights. I have the most extremely opposite views of Westboro Baptists but would fight for their right to speak their minds; and I love that we live in a country where we can all say what we want and not go to jail for it. All that being said, I do not want to see someone basically taking a dump in front of me on a dating site.

So maybe it is reallyreallyreally important that you let me know you own a gun, or that you shit on America. You can have up to six pictures, put it in as number three or four. Or even better, write about it in your bio. I know, you only get 500 words in the bio section and a picture is worth 1000, but sometimes brevity is best.

mad props to the DMV (you saw that right, I said DMV)

What is a trip to the DMV? Typically, one imagines soul-less vaguely human-shaped blobs or something ala The Simpsons/Marge's sisters who could give a rat's ass about you, your life, or anything at all and day wasted waiting.

Patty and Selma

I had made an appointment, but was not hopeful. When I arrived I was greeted by a woman who looked like she didn't care who got what they came for or not. She barely waved her hand through the air (like some strange Queen's wave from an alternate universe) indicating that whomever was next should come to her counter while simultaneously pondering the meaning of life at the DMV (staring into space).  I walked up and handed her my paperwork. After a short and painless interview of why I was there, she gave me a number and told me to wait until I was called.

I looked for a seat, and saw that they were nearly all full. I sat in between a young woman who looked perturbed at life (as most teens are) and immersed in the music on her phone and on the other side two korean women chatting away about who knows what. I settled in for what I was sure would be a while, based on the number of people waiting.

Lo and behold, my number was called so quickly I barely had time to fill out the required form and update my facebook status.  The woman who filed the paperwork was fast, thorough, and smiled (!). I was almost sad to leave her to go wait in the picture line.

I jet over to the other side of the DMV to wait in the picture line, which was only about 5 or 6 people long. I got a little worried when the guy in front of me was tweaking and about an hour late for his next hit of whatever. He couldn't stand still, kept scrunching his shoulders up around his ears, looking around anxiously. He turned and smiled at me and said something unintelligible through about 50% missing and 50% rotting teeth.

He asks the people in front of him if they would mind if he went in front of them. They all took one look, and wisely let him ahead.  Things were going so smoothly! Almost too smoothly...

I get to the front of the line, and another lovely (!) DMV worker was sweetly taking pictures, complimenting people, and trying to make things go faster (!!!!!!).  She was the only one operating the cameras, and was attempting to make two of them go at the same time to get the line through faster. All was going so well when... oh no. Hourglass of death on the computer. My face broke the computer. And (according to darling DMV lady) was a really cute picture! Man!

She had to restart the computer, and then my file was vanished! Oh no! Would I have to go through the whole process again??? My heart sank. She handed my paperwork to another DMV'er who tried to fix things, then that woman had to hand it off to yet another DMV'er and my heart sank even lower... Just as my paper was going to float away not only into the ether of the DMV computer network but to the rows of neverending cubicles, my sweet Angel of the DMV photo-lady found my file on the restarted computer! Hurrah! The cute pic didn't save, so I had to take another one.  This one was not nearly as cute. The A/C wasn't exactly "working" in this area of the building so I was a little hot and bothered (read: sweaty) by this time, and am pretty sure slick tendrils of hair had plastered themselves to my face. This picture didn't break the computer however, probably because it was a bad picture. I think it is against DMV policy to have a good driver's license picture. Oh well, who cares? I was outta there IN LESS THAN ONE HOUR!!! So I gotta say, Mad Props to the Hollywood DMV for being efficient, nice, and providing free parking!!

patchouli.

aka barfouli. aka stinkouli. aka gagouli. aka worse-than-old-lady-perfume-ouli.

I apologize to anyone that might wear the stench perfume patchouli, but the malodor feels to me like someone hot boxed some incense in my nose and the hot box was made of stabby things up through my nostrils to my brain. And for some reason 99.99999% of the people that wear patchouli put so much on that you can smell it from about a mile away.

granted, any perfume that you can smell from over 20 feet away is an affront.  I think this every time I pass an old lady that has been wearing the same perfume her whole adult life and now can no longer smell it/takes a bath in it. But for some reason, when someone has slathered themselves in patchouli (as happened this evening) I feel as though I am being assaulted.

Tonight this woman was wearing being owned by patchouli and it was all I could do to be around her without gagging. I tried as politely as possible to keep my hand around my nose so I would smell my own hand rather than her, and also kept as far away as possible, taking care to hold my breath around her and then make sure to breathe OUT first before breathing IN after I had left her general vicinity (and by general vicinity I mean a 25 foot radius) so that any smell that had snuck up in my nose might be expelled before I had to breathe in.

seriously, I want to tell anyone that thinks patchouli smells nice. just don't. If you must enjoy it, buy the incense sticks and burn out in your yard/patio/balcony/wooded area. But PLEASE, PLEASE keep it away from me. It smells so fucking foul that it makes me want to run away from you. And you might be a very nice person.

gahhhh I feel violated...

All the single ladies put your hands up

Fuck you, Beyonce, you shouldn't even be putting your own hand up to your own song because *newsflash* you're NOT SINGLE.
Sigh...
Single AGAIN. And yes, I was dumped. 
And I'm in fucking bakersfield teaching.
And the idiots at the school office have their heads up their asses and don't do their work so I had a very stressful day.
And I'm hungry because I'm doing a fitness challenge (more on this later).
And there's a line at chipotle out the door, and they have stopped taking our orders because they have online orders to fill and the dumb lady behind me keeps thwapping me with her kid's blanket and/or her hair and she won't shut up talking to the little butterball Anthony.

Anthony! Look at Mommy! Anthony! The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout, down came the rain and WASHED the spider out! Out came the sun and dried up all the rai---

And then I turned around and punched her in the face.

OK, OK, so I didn't punch her in the face. But I really wanted to. Especially when she chastised her kid for not paying attention to her. Um, lady, he is maybe 12 months old. He has the attention span of a gnat. And you are clearly an idiot.

Don't fuck with me when I'm hungry.

I finally fed the beast (ahem) and became the beauty again.  (see what I did there? I loaded that with a compliment to myself.) And Anthony's dumb mama escaped a beat-down. At least for today...

the anti-review

Goddam Bakersfield.

So I got asked suckered into working in god-forsaken Bakersfield again teaching the kids how to walk with a book on their heads.

Maybe I'm becoming numb or stupid or just used to it, but I am not hating it as much as I was at first. Maybe also because it isn't the heat of summer anymore where it "cooled down" to a whopping 105 degrees at 8:12 at night.

So they still pay a bunch extra and put us up in a hotel the night before.  We usually just stay in the same hotel that we teach the classes. Makes it super easy to just roll out of bed and go to work.  Well, a couple of times the company travel agent has put us up in the Padre Hotel.  I don't know if she thinks she is doing us a favor putting us in Bakersfield's attempt at Vegas/posh/hip/boutique hotel, but in reality she is putting us in the worst hotel I have ever stayed in.  Its like they spent all their money on showy things to make it look fancy and then forgot to spend money on the things people actually need in a hotel room, like a comfortable bed.  Their beds feel like you are lying on concrete.  I do not exaggerate.

If that weren't bad enough, in the three times I have been forced to stay there, they have not once been able to accommodate us with two beds. We reserve two, but then conveniently they are always "sold out" and cannot give us two beds. The first time, we got a roll-away, and it was actually pretty comfy.

The second time, they were "so swamped" that they were out of roll-aways and could offer us a "cot." Which a sweaty smelly man brought up and and proceeded to dress with a bottom sheet and a thin cotton blanket.  No top sheet, no comforter, nothing.  Oh, there was a pillow. When I went to try to lie on it, I realized that it was only about 2 inches thick and you could feel all the coils as though you were going to get stabbed by them all night long.

The third time, they brought a roll-away, but there was one small glitch.  It was so sunken in in the middle that you were in the boat pose from yoga if you tried to lie down.

I won't even go into the other details that sucked in the room, which were many, but instead focus on the piece de resistance.  This wanna-be-Vegas hotel has a nightclub on the second floor.  A nightclub that has an outdoor area.  That is in the MIDDLE of the square shaped hotel.  So the sound gets stuck/funnels up to all the rooms surrounding the outdoor nightclub. And if you think they spent no money on beds, they spent even less on soundproofing.  Your luxury curtains and Kohler sink do nothing for me when I am trying to sleep on concrete in what sounds like the middle of a club.

And then after that restful night's sleep, get up and drive 15 minutes to get to work. Which may not seem like much, but when you've already driven an hour and 45 minutes to get to a hotel where you slept like on a rock, you really consider shopping for a gun.