FML!

On September 7th, the planet Mercury entered its retrograde cycle, which About.Astrology.com tells me means:

"The purpose of Mercury retrograde is to review and revise our life and our connection with reality. The timing of this universe is geared toward the Sun as it moves through the zodiac. Mercury has an orbit that at times gets ahead of the Sun allowing us to look into the future toward new and innovative ideas. However, we cannot continue in that vein until we come back to the present designated by the Sun and put our new ideas into manifestation. During the time that Mercury jumps ahead, we ultimately have to bring the ideas back into the present to test and evaluate to see how they fit into our life. As Mercury retrogrades back into the present, the connection with the Sun happens as we test drive our ideas and re-align with reality and the natural timing of the universe."

It sounds all nice and wonderful, mainly that I'll have time to reexamine my life and make positive changes. Great! Yeah, not so much. In practice it means crappy stuff that pisses you off happens all the time. Latest shining example? Getting from Point A to B without becoming a sweaty mess is now impossible.

Last night Phil Beickler hosted a potluck at his apartment. I drove up there. My car had been doing this kind of odd little cough before starting, but it always started up immediately so I was concerned but not worried. Well, the battery died while I was up at Beicklers, so first we tried to jump it from pushing (which was hilarious), then some random Nigerian in the parking lot tried to jump it for us, which also failed, then I at last found someone with jumper cables who was able to get the car started. I drove it back and left it charging in my parking lot for an hour. I sat in the car and pirated wireless from my neighbors.

This morning I decided not to mess around with the car, so I decided to take my bike, which has been sitting on my porch all summer. It was hideously dusty, so I wiped it down with paper towels. It is so dry right now outside that the damp paper towels I was using dried out before I finished! Thanks a lot, desert! I also had to pump up the tires, which were flat. Fine, did that. Then, when I was taking my bike down the stairs I caught the back of my heel on the pedals, which ripped a large part of skin about the size of a dime off the back of my heel. OUCH. It stings like a mofo and I bled like a stuck pig all the way to CCC class.

I come out of class to discover that my back bike tire is COMPLETELY flat. I rode the rim all the way back to the apartment with a bloody heel. I got back to discover Caroline eating lunch on the couch, who proceeded to make a HUGE deal out of my bleeding and tried to make me feel better by trying to console me, baby the injury and generally be really, really nice. Now, if anyone who is anyone knows me, they should know that I detest making a big deal out of injuries, in fact I would rather just deal with it myself. Furthermore, if I am in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mood it is best to just leave me alone to deal with it rather than attempt to be overly accommodating, which I immediately pick up on, which just makes me angrier. A lot of slamming of objects seemed to calm down the babying, for which I was thankful.

I used rubbing alcohol to wipe off the blood and sprayed the area liberally with Bactine spray. I now have a nice, pink Hello Kitty bandaid on there and it feels much better.

I return to my original topic, which was up yours, Mercury Retrograde! You think you can cow me? I don't think so! For all you people taking notes, retrograde ends on Sept. 29th, so its days are numbered!

Further Reinforcement That People are Stupid

As many of you may know, I am a moderator on the Tokidoki Forum. Tokidoki is a lifestyle brand designed by an Italian guy, Simone Legno. His colorful and inventive designs are inspired by Japanese anime traditions. The line got its big break with a LeSportSac handbag collaboration and has branched out significantly from there.

Anyway, about two years ago, Tokidoki had its own sub-forum on The Purse Forum (which is worthy of its own fatwa), but we were treated like ugly redheaded stepchildren compared to the big time groups like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hermes, etc. A group of us were sick of the 2nd class citizen treatment so we split off and formed our own forum under the tenets of freedom, liberty and justice for all (unfortunately we couldn't dress up like American Indians and throw tea in the harbor but we would have if we weren't virtual). Of course, as membership on the forum grew, we did have to put some rules in place.

The forum has a Buy/Sell/Trade section where people can post items (mostly handbags) that they are selling, or ask for specific patterns/styles that they are seeking. Due to an issue with scammers, we require that members have at least 50 posts before they can post bags for sale. This is posted clearly all over the regulations, the site itself, there's even a locked, stickied thread topic that reads "DO NOT START NEW THREADS UNLESS YOU HAVE 50 POSTS!" But, of course, there are idiots that don't bother to read the regulations or are totally out of it and just post shit willy nilly. Then I have to step in and delete their thread and notify them of their breach. The worst part is that I have to be POLITE to them because I'm a mod, I can't just say "You idiot. It's called reading; I suggest you check it out!"

There's this one user who keeps fucking up--she posted the same for sale thread twice, but she only has 4 posts. I keep finding that she's posted random shit in the wrong thread and it's pissing me off. She even responded to my (polite) PM with "oops, sorry! I didn't know how things worked around here! :)" Of course you didn't, you twit, because you didn't bother to learn!

Fatwa on online idiots. I love being a moderator because I do get quite a kick from coming in from on high, but it still chaps my ass when I run into stupid people.

Ginger and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I am calling fatwa on all of yesterday—hear me, o readers, Monday, July 20, 2009 was a really crappy day. First of all, I had to re-do my class schedule about eight times. Information on what classes to take is (no surprise here!) difficult to find on the T-Bird Registrar’s website and is poorly organized to boot. I then discovered that I had the class codes wrong for two classes, which resulted in more organization. I thought that I had everything figured out neatly until Panos kindly wrote me to let me know that I still had the wrong class code for Ops Management, and that it was only offered in the 2nd module, which means that now I have 4 classes in the 1st module and SEVEN, yes, that’s right, SEVEN in the second. Basically if I want to take Business Presentation, I’ll have that many classes. This is unacceptable. Additionally, there are about 150 people who need to take Ops Management and there is only one section. How about that? Sometimes I really hate this school and want to make a big, fat pile of money and drop out. I emailed Kay Keck and Paula Friesen about this; fat chance they’ll do anything, as per usual.

I then went to the gym, where my trainer proceeded to tell me that I used to be fat (again) and that I had many parts of my body that were “flabby.” Fuck you, man, seriously. Telling people that they are fat is not motivating, it is insulting and in fact, puts you into a shame spiral of depression that makes you considerably less likely to want to do anything except curl up on the couch with a pie and eat the whole thing. I told him to his face that he should 1) shut the fuck up and stop calling people fat and 2) that he had body dysmorphic disorder that he projected onto others.

Then, a little bit later, he asked me, “what’s that thing on your nose?” You know what that thing is on my nose? It’s a giant fucking zit. Thank you, Lindwell, for pointing out the huge, enormous, erupting and red zit on my nose. This thing is epic. It’s the Mt. Everest of zits. It may be the unholy union of two zits, in fact, making up for the fact that I haven’t had one in almost a year. This thing is like the One Ring of zits—one zit to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. I look like fucking Rudolph the Red Nosed fat, flabby reindeer. This day just keeps getting better! I was so annoyed at him that I started responding very loudly. I think my monologue went something like this:

“Oh, what is that thing on my nose? The giant, angry looking, red bump? I’ll tell you what it is, it’s a zit! Thank you so much for pointing it out to me, up until this very moment, I had no idea an enormous pimple was erupting on my nose! Excuse me, everyone! [At this point I start practically yelling at everyone in the gym] Lindwell has a very important announcement for everyone, he would like to you all to know that I have a giant zit on my nose and that it’s obvious! Next time, I’ll make sure to circle it and put an arrow so you don’t miss it!”

Was I being a brat? Yes. Was I still bitter about being called fat/flabby? Yes. Serves him right.

Oh, and then later, I realized that I lost one of my Tokidoki earrings, which were one of my favorites... I lost the Sandy so now I just have a sad Bastardino earring that's lonely.

Rise and Shine out my Ass

So my dad wakes me up every morning at 5:40am, which we have discussed several times already. Usually he just knocks on my door and says "time to get up!" but this morning he added a particularly insidious and irritating phrase that never fails to piss me off, "rise and shine!" Everyone knows I am not a morning person, but the usage of this phrase makes me feel as if I am being conscripted into someone else's sunshine, puppies and rainbows world of cheerful mornings filled with delightful warm breakfasts and leisurely paper reading. I feel as though I am being forced to conform with someone else's expectation of my morning demeanor. I have a similar problem with Caroline singing in the morning. I can hear it in my room and it is so terribly jolly that it has the opposite effect, plunging me into the foulest and most unpleasant mood imaginable. Caroline has a gorgeous, rich voice, and I absolutely look forward to hearing her sing with Global Sounds this fall, I just don't want to hear it when I wake up, thanks! Same goes for my dad: I think he's trying to put the best spin on a crappy situation (he doesn't like being up at 5:30am either) but seriously, dad, just knock and say "get up." The abruptness fits the shittiness of the situation.

Checkers Hyper Belongs in the 10th Circle of Hell Along With Carrefour Zhongguancuan

Some of you may recall the horrible experience that myself and others on the China trip had with the Carrefour market near the (evil) FX Hotel (also worthy of a declarative fatwa) in Beijing. Well, I have the South African equivalent right next door to my office: Checkers HYPER! Checkers is a supermarket that is in the Sandton City Mall, which is adjacent to Nelson Mandela Square. Checkers HYPER is kind of like a Wal-Mart Supercenter with food items and home goods items available for purchase. The store is messy, chaotic and lacks any comprehensive system of organization. Also typical to SA, the staff are somewhat indifferent and appear confused when you ask them for help (as if I have DARED to query them as to the location of a specific product in their store. How rude!).

I had to go in there on Tuesday because I needed to get a hot water bottle. It's just too damn cold here, so I have taken to using a hot water bottle when sitting and watching TV and then refilling and taking one to bed. Ahhh, bliss! But, first I had to acquire one. In news that may not shock you, there wasn't one section for hot water bottles, they had displays scattered about the store with various fancy ones. They had two different variations on fancy hot water bottles inside stuffed animals as well as some inside embroidered fleece covers. All I wanted was just a normal, basic rubber hot water bottle, but they didn't have it. I asked a staff member, and she said they didn't have it either, so I picked out one with a really tacky hot pink fleece cover with an embroidered fairy on it. So ugly! Of course, on the way to the checkout I found some standard, non covered bottles, but they were made of a cheap plastic similar to jelly shoes.

I waited in the line for a long time, and then the cashier closed the checkout before I got to the front so I had to go wait in ANOTHER line. This made me late for the gym, so I ended up not having time to go. I blame you, Checkers HYPER, for my lack of stomach definition!