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There a hundred things I could blame this on:
The other day, I had to go into work four hours early so that they could install a new heating system (aside: my boss told me I should bring a book with me while they work...Lord knows I wouldn't have been able to find one in the comic BOOK store), only to enter the alarm code for the wrong store. And since no one told me how to deactivate the alarm (including the rude bitch at the alarm company that I called), I couldn't turn it off for ten minutes. Oh, the alarm company made sure the police didn't come, and they didn't even call my boss, but it didn't matter, since I had to call my boss, since no one at the alarm company knew how to clear the alarm so I could enter the code. It could be that my ability to trust a guy has been severely damaged by a couple of years' worth of people telling me they missed me, but then making up or finding excuses not to spend time with me, at the last minute. It could be the amount of times I had to censor myself at work this weekend, like when my coworker said "Man, you can furnish your entire house with Hello Kitty, these days. There are Hello Kitty refrigerators, Hello Kitty beds, Hello Kitty televisions. I had to stop at The Hello Kitty backpack, otherwise my entire house would be this huge, pink space." And I was halfway through saying "Like your mom's gaping vagina." when I noticed there were three kids under ten in the store, so I ended up saying "Like your mom's gaping vacuum cleaner." Or maybe it was that a four year old kid spent the entire time in the store screaming "I want this mommy, I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant it." while his seven year old brother quietly placed his new baseball cards in his new baseball card sleeves. The scene elevated until the mom decided to throw herself on the grenade, take the little one outside and reprimand him while the older child finished gingerly placing his cards in the sleeves. The woman was not even a foot away from the door, when the seven year old looked up. He looked at me, then at my coworker, then walked deliberately to the door, and opened it to say "Mom, you're such a fucken bitch, how could you leave me alone in there." I guess I would have been okay to use the word vagina. Whatever the reason, I've been super irritable for the last three days. And some of it may be the latest guy I've broken up with. When my roommate first heard I was dating again, he asked "Is this one old enough to drive a car." To which I replied, "This one's old enough to drink. Shit, motherfucker just got out of rehab a month ago." Because I know how to pick 'em. Or, to be fair, I know how to be picked. He didn't want to meet me at work Wednesday because I work in a bar. Fine. He blew me off Thursday because he was afraid my friends and roommates might be drinking, and he didn't want to be tempted. Completely understandable. Friday, he was on his way over, but traffic was bad, so he turned around and went home (he lives about a fifteen minute drive away). Saturday, he really wanted to come after work, but he was just so tired. And today, we talked on the phone for about an hour, and made plans to go out for a late dinner, and then fuck. He called from his supposedly car to let me know that he didn't know if coming over was a good idea, as he was having a spot of indigestion. "Oh, I'm sure it's not indigestion." I said. "You're probably just queefing, you fucken pussy. Don't call me again." And I deleted his number from my phone. I find myself saying and doing these things more often. And while I feel I save these remarks for when they're justified, I'm pretty sure they lose me World's Most Understanding Friend status. But that's fine. I've been slicing off unreliable friends for the last few months, and, apart from this weekend's snarkiness, feeling better for it. But is it fair? I feel like the ridiculousness of the last couple of years has made me extremely impatient and intolerant of peoples' drama. I've moved from Little League Rules, where every player gets an at bat in every inning, to Family Feud tie-breaking round status: one strike and you're out. I'd like to be as zen as I used to be. I want to relearn how to slowcook love, instead of jamming lust in a microwave. I want a cure for my sense of immediacy, and I want it now.
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Yesterday, there was a fairly large comicon in Boston. Lots of artists with tables, lots of businesses with tables, including the stores I work for. I was on my way there when I realized I didn't have my admit free ticket, so I decided to wait around one of our stores until it opened, and pick up a spare ticket. While I waited, I perused the used bookstore down the street, and found $50 worth of used graphic novels that 1.) I wanted and 2.) were out of print. $50 being the amount I had set aside to buy trades at the comicon. I was relieved to discover, when I got to the con, that they had nothing I wanted.
As I flipped through a bunch of diffferent New Mutant/Academy X titles to remember continuity, I noticed for the first time something completely horrible. As a lover of obscure puns, a lizard owner, and a gay man who likes asses, how did I not notice that the the green gay mutant's name is Anole. And what sick bastard named him? My penis is made of razorblades.
I know this because now three people in as many years have complained that the outside of their ass burns when I fuck them. Granted, none of the people I've been in actual relationships with have ever had this complaint. And three people in three years is not a huge percentage for me, but it's enough to give me pause. Do I have paws? No. Retractable adamantium claws? Nope. Freddy Kreuger or Edward Scissorhands gloves? Under the bed in the box marked FOR EMERGENCY. My first thought was, maybe there's something burnilicious about the lube I use, but I just recently switched from KY to Astroglide. I asked the guy if he was allergic to latex, he said no. Things had been going fairly smoothly. Super closeted, but in such a way that he was actually straightish, not a big mo who was pretending to be straight. Big black dude with an appropriately puffy ass. He had a good sense of rhythm (And I don't mean "Black people can dance!", I mean when I pushed forward, he pushed back at just the right rate and angle.) So when he said "Ow. That...that hurts. Sorry, man. I can't do this any more tonight." I was appropriately despondent. "Mind staying bent over and letting me come on your back?" "No. I play safe." The lights were out in my room, so he couldn't see my facial expression. Also, he was facing the wrong way. "Do you have some sort of deep wound on your back that I can't see, or do you think semen absorbs into skin?" "I play safe." Sigh. "You probably don't blow either." "Nope." I knew he wasn't bullshitting, he was just a straight guy who liked to get fucked. I have no problem with this. "Sorry. I won't ask you to get me off, either. I know it's not fair." Wow, our sex failed, and yet he wasn't some sort of psycho or pussy, he was actually a considerate guy. "Is it safe to go outside?" Which, I assume, meant that he was worried that one or another of my roommates might be up and see him. But my roommates were all well asleep, or, at least, in their rooms. So we shook hands (straight guys don't kiss dudes, and I didn't want to kiss him anyway), and he said he'd call me next time he was horny. And maybe he was bullshitting then, I don't know. It doesn't really matter to me. Mainly because a more sexually secure, and hotter guy who I actually know from the real world e-mailed me while we were fucking. But has anyone else had the "It burns the outside of my ass when you fuck me" problem before? Or am I just helmet special? I went to the grocery store this afternoon to fill up my refrigerator with delicious goodness. The grocery store was chock full of annoying people. At one point, two early twenty-something Chinese women (I'm still being haunted by The Chinese...not Chinese Americans...Chinese) boxed me into an aisle with their carts, and then went into another aisle. When I moved one of their carriages to get by, the woman came back and yelled at me. What she yelled at me, I'm unsure, as I still don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese or Wu or anything that resembles any of these languages.
All the checkout lanes had lines of two or three people, and none of them looked ghastly, but one of them just had one besweatpantsed old lady whose groceries were just about done being scanned. Perfect. And the cashier and bagboy were reasonably attractive, and old enough to shave, drink, and probably rent a car. Perfecter. The cashier announced the lady's total $125.48. "Ok, then." The lady said, and opened her purse. In the movie version of my life, this is when you hear the sound of wind blowing; Not hurricane force, just the steady sound of troublesome air. A deep bell tolls in the distance. Maybe the upper and lower octaves on an organ start to play discordantly. The woman pulled out $150 in five dollar gift certificates. That's right, thirty gift certificates, each worth five dollars. Each one needing to have their number typed in to the computer, individually, and then needing to go through the printer, (and, of course, they are too thin to go through the printer smoothly) individually, to be voided. After the second GC went through, the woman apologized, and then went outside for ten minutes. FOR TEN MINUTES. I'd be more outraged had the poor cashier been able to finish during those ten minutes, but he wasn't, as it takes roughly a thirty seconds to get each GC inputted and voided. And there were thirty of them. About three minutes after the lady disappeared, the two Chinese women slammed their cart into mine. "It's going to be a long time." I said. "The woman in front of me paid with gift certificates." They eyed me warily. "Take check?" I replied, "Hippo." while nodding. They nodded back. I suspected they might. "I'm so sorry." The cashier said. "No one has ever done this to me before." "It's my fault. I have terrible luck, and it follows me around and infects other people's lives." He Spock-eyed me. "If it follows you around, how come she's in line in front of you?" "Touche," I looked for his nametag, "Duke." And then I snorted. Beneath his nametag was a button, which read I'm the slayer, ask me how. "Buffy fan, I take it?" He smiled awesomely. That's when one of the bitches behind me smacked my cart with her purse a few times. "Take check? Take check?" Duke and I looked at her dubiously. "Apparently that's the only phrase she knows." I said. "It certainly says all you need to know about her." Then I turned to her and said "Hippo, rutabaga, stop smacking my cart." And Duke scanned, and the bagboy bagged, and the old besweatpantsed woman did whatever it was she was doing out of our sight (probably laughing maniacally), and the bitch behind me went from smacking the carriage with her purse to opening and closing the top portion of my cart in a way that expressed her outrage. "You don't happen to know the Cantonese phrase for The next time you touch my cart, I'm going to smack you in the face with this box of frozen pirogies, do you?" He smiled. "No, I don't even know how to say impatient cunt." And then his face turned adorably red. "I'm sorry. That was...incredibly uncalled for." "Are you kidding? I'm tempted to give you my phone number now." Duke turned redder. "Take check!" Impatient Cunt yelled, slammed the side of my cart, and started taking her things off the conveyor belt. "Yea, yea, yea. You take a check." Of course, as soon as they left for another lane, Duke got done scanning the gift certificates. The old lady apologized (snickering under her breath, I'm sure), and took her receipt and change. And Duke scanned, and the bagboy bagged, and I thought to myself I could never fuck someone who's got the same name as my next-door-neighbors' dog. But I could grab pizza with him or something. A pesto pizza and a glass of rootbeer. I must be hungry. Good thing I'm buying groceries. Right, groceries. I'm in a grocery store. I smiled at Duke, who told me how much I owed him. "I'm sorry to do this to you, but I have to pay you in nickels." His eyes narrowed, menacingly. I smiled, smartassedly, as I pulled the bills out of my wallet. "So." He said. "About that phone number." Wednesday is the day the new comics come in. I get to work an hour and a half before the store opens and put out all the new issues, file away all the issues that the subscribers have ordered, and skim over the comics that I think people are going to ask about.
Once the store opens, it's usually non-stop until I have to leave for my other job (waiting tables on poetry night). During the midst of a particular rush, one of my coworkers was talking with a regular, and another apparent regular was staring transfixed at a display behind the counter. "Hey, you should help him." My coworker said. "Be careful, though, he's Deaf." Careful? I spent nearly an entire semester studying Deaf Education in college, and had many Deaf friends throughout high school and college. I can't fathom why anyone would need to be careful around Deaf people. "hi - ¿help you?" I signed. "Motherfucking piece of shit. Give me a goddamned" Bark "Magic card pack." I flinched a little bit, but got the man his Magic cards, rang up the sale, and gave him his receipt. Bark "Thank you." He said. I walked over to my coworker. "When you said he was Deaf, did you mean to say he had Tourette's?" He smiled. "Oh yea. Deaf. Tourette's. I always confuse the two." I can't figure out whether he's incredibly stupid, or fucking with me. |
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