Small words. Simple sentences. Easy to digest.

Come gather round the gas-fueled indoor fireplace and I will try to explain this as succinctly as possible. 

If you think you understand what it is like to walk a mile in anyone else's shoes, richer, poorer, a different gender, race, size... You. Have. No. Idea. 

While you are at it, just do this thing real quick. A Google search. You're already on the Internet, hello!

Look up, however you'd like, just a few things, three at the most, about the effects of poverty, violence and ignorance on ALL of society.

Yes, shocking, I know. Experienes different than our own may yet affect our own experiences. Can you imagine the concept?! (Ohkay, I'll stop being sarcastic.)

Really though. Could all the OLD, RICH, RELIGIOUS, WHITE MEN please shut the fuck up about how it is to be poor, black, gay, female or speak with an accent?! Honestly, just shut up. Not because you need to just shut up but because you need to LISTEN for a change. 

There. I'm done. That's all for today.

Stuck

I joke that I should rename this blog 'Where bad moods go to die.' And I should. And it is. 

Today will officially be over in a few hours. Tomorrow, a new one begins. All I can do is wake up in the morning, put my feet on the ground and stomp at the obstacles as hard as I can. Those that fall will fall. Those that don't, well, I stomped as hard as I could. 

The moment I thought my tool bitch days were over...

Wrong! So wrong. What was I even thinking?

Sure, I'm excited the old Dodge is running again. It makes Mr. Buffie happy and we share a love for horsepower. But seriously, I am ready to retire from Tool Bitch status for good. 

When dad was here, he and Mr. B were under the car, fixing (sort of) a transmission fluid leak. And I make the big dumb mistake of wandering into the garage. One 'hey, hand me a 7/16 shallow socket' turns into a sweaty, mosquito-infested two hours of 'I need a rubber mallet' and 'can you find that wrench I just had,' 'you need to hold the light here for a second (or ten minutes).'

And in spite of my insistence that Tool Bitch was done with their greasy grossness, my protests were ignored. Instead the two of them gang up on me, threatening to make me eat thank-you-drive-thru for dinner and trying to imply that working on a car that hasn't been driven in four years is somehow a favor to me. No, no. I need no favors. I have three other vehicles I can drive, thanks. 

I did eventually get a real dinner. But I smelled like old fuel and I wasn't too happy about it. Daddy's little gear head may like her internal combustion engines, but she's paid her dues being elbow-deep in cleaning solvent, with a wire brush, scrubbing gunk of all manner of sharp and awkward to hold objects when she could have been inside an air conditioned house happily playing Barbie with her Siamese cat. 

I guess I'm always going to be Tool Bitch. It's time to accept my station in life on that front. But can I get a goo-proof suit and an air-filtration mask, both in pink please? I think I've earned it by now.

Wellbutrin Aggression

A few months, weeks, months, something ago, Mr. Buffie was chirping in my lobes that I'm emotional and bitchy even though I practically walk around with a Cymbalta drip.

Two, maybe three visits ago, I told the shrink he was on my case and she was like, fuck all, you don't seem as bad as you have been. Her mouth didn't say 'fuck all' but her eyes did. Cymbalta is a tricky med and she needed time to research a cocktail companion for it that wouldn't side-effect me into zombification or kill me with serotonin syndrome.

Welcome to Wellbutrin.

First few weeks, eh, don't really notice much. A bit more energy maybe. Definitely more manic, which I seriously don't like. But something new has cropped up. Wellbutrin aggression.

If all my family and friends were to make lists of the top 100 most aggressive people they knew, I don't think I'd make it onto a single person's list. That probably isn't the case so much these days.

I've always been a snot. Maybe even a brat. I'm an only child. That's what we do. It's who we are. What are parents going to do if there are no other kids around whose needs must be met? We onlys can hardly be blamed for it if we got all the things, all the attention, all the time.

Now if you're feeling sorry for Mr. Buffie, fucking stop it.

He knew immediately that I am a princess. How? I told him. I'm a princess. Oh, you want to date me? Well, jump through these flaming hoops first, prove you are employed, housed, vehicular'd and worthy, then I'll discuss it with my parents and consider it.

Snotty? Yes. Aggressive? Not even. More like matter-of-fact, simple, silly.

Lately though. Tonight for example, on the way home from some local Italian place that isn't going to last until Halloween, he told me that dad is thinking of upgrading his still practically new Mercedes. RAGE! I saw red. I actually screamed. Mr. B knew WHY I was mad but he couldn't figure out how I arrived at /that much/ mad.  (Daddy and I are close but our relationship, especially when it comes to money, is complicated.)

Next time I see my dad, he better hope he's not in anything newer than 2010 or made in Germany or I am going to beat him with a tire iron and take away his wallet.

And there's a dickhead in our neighborhood who has been severely butthurt for the past six months about the retiree across the road who parks his POS Suburban in the street because there's not enough room for it in his driveway between his boat trailer and his wife's little econocrap. And their garage is too full of old people crap for the boat trailer or the wife's car to fit in there.

What does dickhead do? He or she hoooonks every time they drive by. Morning, noon and night. It's a blue Ford Explorer. They drove by at 9:47 tonight.

You, whoever you are reading my shitty blog, anyway you know I have fibromyalgia which means I don't sleep well. And the retiree is a nice man who likes to go fishing at 4 a.m. but otherwise, he keeps to himself, doesn't hurt anyone. Next door to us is a quiet, young family with a special-needs toddler in addition to a baby. Across the street is a woman recovering from a heart attack. Across the corner street is an older, single woman who keeps her house and lawn perfect and doesn't bother a soul.

So Honking Dickhead is irritating all of us with this BULLSHIT because they have to move a few feet into the other lane to go around 4 a.m. Fisherman's Suburban?! IS IT REALLY THAT MUCH OF A PROBLEM, DICKHEAD? I don't think Fisherman is getting your point, either. Because you've been doing this for a long time now and let me look out the window... Hey, there's a big white Suburban right there, legally parked in the street. Current tags, operational, fully inflated tires and all.

Wellbutrin has had enough of the honking. Wellbutrin doesn't want them to honk anymore. Wellbutrin is just about to set up camp in the driveway and shoot out their motherfucking tires if I hear one more honk within 15 miles of this whole damn town. The scope on my .22 rifle is ridiculously accurate and the high-capacity magazine will give me more than enough opportunity to perforate that mostly-plastic SUV and if tires don't send the honker a message, maybe shooting out the glass will? Maybe I'll make myself a set of stop-sticks with some gutter nails and a nice piece of wood, painted black so they don't see it at 9:47 in the p.m.

Wellbutrin aggression is just getting warmed up. My middle finger has never been so busy. Shitty drivers, you are all STILL on blast, btw. After the uninsured wonder twins made short work of Sir Hiss and my truck last fall, I remain convinced Mr. Buffie and I are the only people in Kansas City with insured vehicles. I operate my car under the assumption that no one else on the road has it. If someone so much as sneezes near Ramon, Imma be on the evening news. "Crazed suburban fat woman was jailed today after using a very large purse to beat a man..."

Those are a few examples. I feel like I should try to sleep but frankly, I'm still kind of pissed off about the Italian restaurant (I told him it was a bad idea) and my dad's pending NEEDLESS vehicle upgrade and the honking, and the people whose driving was so terrible, I was a legit 10 minutes late to work this morning, my brain is a soup of irritability, I can't even...

If you're the honking asshole in the blue Ford Explorer, I joke about shooting at your car. As a responsible gun owner, I will only shoot at you if you try to break into my house or try to steal my purse or threaten me/my family/my cats physically in some way. HOWEVER, your days of disturbing my peace are numbered. I haven't decided yet how to deal with you (law enforcement in these burbs is a joke, it's all about grabbing cash, not protecting nor serving) but when I do, let's hope for your sake I'm off the Wellbutrin.

Shit is dangerously close to getting real, f'real. I've been depressed before. I've been manic before. I've been angry before. But typically not all at the same time, not for such long periods and never at this level of intensity.

Wits end... That's where Wellbutrin Aggression lives. And I'm there.

The answer is: Mr. Buffie.

The question is: Who is the secret love-child of Jessica Simpson and Adam from Mythbusters?

But how is this possible you ask?  I'm not sure but I think it might have involved a black hole and an alternate universe.  Let that soak in for a moment...


Mr. Buffie has just discovered that Apple upgraded their earbuds.  He's listening to them on my iPhone, which is identical (except for color) to HIS iPhone.

And he's asking me if it has EQ and I'm like, I dunno, look under settings.  (He's listening to music on my Pandora app.)  So he pokes at the phone, then shows me the screen, which is my social media app folder and he says, "Where?"  "SETTINGS, on the Home screen.  Press the Home button."  He pokes at my phone a few more times.  "The HOME BUTTON!"  He looks at me, still confused.  "THE ONLY BUTTON ON THE @#$%^&*&^%$#@ PHONE!!!"  He /STILL/ didn't figure it out.

Three different wrong choices later he FINALLY, F I N A L L Y figures it out.
Then just now, he goes all Jessica Simpson on me and asks, "Are you listening to Pandora?  Is this Pandora that you have on here?"  Uhm, it says PANDORA right across the top of the app.  Is this chicken, what I have or is it fish?

But he can build a tool to repair an engineering flaw in the pulley system then repair the electric seat adjustment module in Sir Hiss in less than an hour, then change the rear brakes and fix a leaky seal on the truck and manage to have time to work my last nerve, watch endless car shows, read endless magazines and produce an hour-long news broadcast every day.

Oh wait, there's more!  He was giving ME shit a couple weeks ago for not having my email sync'd on my phone.  Because his AMERICA ONLINE EMAIL (nice one, gramps) is sync'd with HIS iPhone, so my face.  As if.  He used to carry a flip-phone with an actual rusty nail haphazardly epoxied into the antenna hole and it also had tape on it and damn, that thing is was busted. as. hell.  He didn't even have a mobile phone when we met.  I had a mobile phone AND a pager.  Yeah buddy.

Anyway, this man who lives in my house and makes loud, grouchy noises is equal parts absolute brilliant wizard and completely drooling moron and not much in between.  It's like evolution didn't happen in some parts of his genetic history.  There's still too much caveman in him or something.  And part alien.  Weirdo.

Hi.  I'm Mrs. Weirdo.

If it's a party, I'm there!

Except for political ones.  I'm a registered Independent and I think in the state of Missouri, that means I can't participate in primary elections.

But it doesn't matter because since I've been old enough to vote, I've only had choices between shitty and shittier.  Cynical but true.  Unless Gary Johnson runs in 2016, and then I am totez voting for him unless he picks a real fuckhead for veep.

Not yet have I known an individual in elected office who truly represented ME or wasn't ate up with fraud and stupid.

For the most part, I lean left.  I think a healthy society takes care of its members.  I want to be a member of a functioning, mostly peaceful, prospering group of people.  Don't you?

But...

There are some ways in which I'm 'on the right' and forever will be.  And I know it pisses off some of you but let me explain.

I saw this meme today.  What it says exactly isn't important but it shared some stats on 'unjustified homicides' and compared them to voter fraud.


I will say that recent headlines and general kerfuffle over 'voter fraud' (according to my own research, mind you, but if you're reading this, then you've got internet access same as me...) is a myth and there have not been, in my own searching, any significant events of voter fraud in decades.  Like... decades.  I'm no scientist but I can read.

However, there was a word in the meme that bothered me a bit.  "Unjustified homicides."  If it is indeed justified, it is self-defense, not homicide.  Just sayin'.  There's no such thing as 'justified homicide.'  Murder is murder and how do you define murder?  Killing someone who is not threatening your own life and/or killing someone with premeditated intent.  I think the latin term is mens rea.  Look it up if you don't know it.  You've got the extra three minutes if you're reading the crap I write.

And yes, I openly support the Second Amendment but I do agree there should be a screening process prior to ownership, however I don't know how I'd create an effective one.  But the impossibility of preventing every homicide is the problem.  Not the amendment itself.
(Thanks, law enforcement dad...  LoLz)

Most importantly I more than strongly encourage RESPONSIBLE ownership and feel that irresponsible acts, if caught and convicted, should be cause to remove one's 'right' to own a firearm.

Education in general needs to be required for the ability to own and operate certain, potentially dangerous things in addition to continued demonstration of safe use.  Removal from the legal public market will NOT eliminate guns.  (Need proof?  See history.  Google 'prohibition' and let me know how that worked out for liquor.)

Will a stricter screening process, pre-owership education and continuing education "prevent" all tragic deaths related to shooting?  No way.  Not even if everyone were perfect.  Humans will /always/ make mistakes.  Again, see history.  Google 'perfect human.'  Let me know how many examples you find.  Don't bother bringing up Jesus.  I'm talking about science, not religion.

And, in conclusion, may I please remind you that it does NOT say R.S.V.P on the Statue of Liberty!

Guest Blogger: Glambo Angelala shares her thoughts but not her cosmetics money

Hello.  I am Angela, friend to Buffie and 2 other people.  Buffie and I had a conversation about something very important and came to the conclusion that we are geniuses and people should listen to us.  I said nobody listens to us because we don't blog.  She was taking a very long break from her blog and I've never blogged about anything in my life.  This seemed to stir her blog juices because she blogged that very night.  Granted, she was not sober but she assures me it's best to blog when you're drunk. 

I confess!  I have a boyfriend.  He IS stupid but he’s the good kind of stupid.  That’s all I’m going to say about him.

Also, his name is whatever Buffie wants it to be.  He has me French pressing my coffee AT HOME!  See what I mean?!  Stupid!  He DID furnish me with a bean grinder, a French Press and a kettle so at least I didn't invest any of my cosmetics money.  That’s REALLY all I’m going to say on the matter.

I want to share some things about Buffie because reading her blog doesn’t give you a full appreciation of the excellence that you’re dealing with here.

She is not lying when she writes in her blog that her self-esteem is high, as it should be.  One way to tell if a woman has low self-esteem is by watching her interact with other women.  Women with low self-esteem will immediately begin finding ways to make the women around them feel ugly or inadequate.  Buffie does exactly the opposite.  She tries to make everyone around her look and feel beautiful.  You never have to worry that she’ll allow you to leave the house for a night out looking less than stunning.  She would never criticize or even look at you funny if you were a mess but if you ask her to, she’ll make you look like a fashion model in 15 seconds time.  You also never have to worry about putting on makeup or doing your hair if you don’t want to because she’ll make you FEEL beautiful even if you look like ass.  She is a firm believer in accepting people the way that they are and loving them for it anyway.

Buffie also nurtures one through the booze flu and doesn’t even try to make one feel bad for puking a streak down her truck.  She simply takes that opportunity to invent practical tools like the Hoark Tube®™ over breakfast the next morning with Mr. Buffie.

Buffie makes you feel sparkly even when you’re not.  She sees the beauty in everyone until their UGLY gets so big, she can no longer ignore it.  She is an amazing friend but a fierce enemy.  I’ve seen her track bitches down after they had spent years tormenting her anonymously for no good reason other than they’re evil.  She didn’t do anything to them except remove their cloak of anonymity and make their UGLY public.  That was enough.

Pro Procastinator’s Tips:

Sometimes when I’m sitting around and thinking of excuses to not take care of the 500 things that need done around my house, I will suddenly yell “ACTION!”  Sometimes this works because I can convince myself that in this movie, I'm playing a productive go-getter.  This motivates me to act like a much better person than I am. 

I also will coax myself off my ass with a British accent, “Sweetie darling, please get up and go and make some tea.”  This helps me to get up and make tea.

Fun fact:

I'm so weak that I haven't been able to open a jar of pickles bare-handed in 3 years.

Peace! 

My friend's not-boyfriend is so stupid.

He is. This guy, Steve, he is stupid as heck! And Regina Angelala Phlange knows Frank is a dimwit. And she lets Scott kiss her anyway!!!

It's a travesty. 

Tell Jeff hi, btw. 

In other news, Misse told me about some great YouTube girlie vloggers you should follow like Jenna Marbles and grav3yardgirl. And it was funny because I already do watch them. We think so much alike but we are also totally different yet everyone is constantly asking if we are sisters. 

If there's such a thing as a past life, I'm sure we spent time in a womb together.

Mr. Buffie has been dragging me out of the house kicking and screaming lately. He doesn't understand I just want to let my damn ankle heal instead of prolonging the agony of a cast and a 'walking boot.' Psht. Walking. No. More like enormous gimp shoe. Whatever, I just don't know if I can tolerate another 6 weeks. 

The parking flap was just that, flap. I don't know who started it and I don't care. For the zillionth time I am just begging those of you who are not my friends, leave me alone. I don't do anything but what I am supposed to. Just. Leave. Me. Alone. It's the simplest thing I could possibly ask. Truly. Time is precious. Don't waste it. 

My cats still think they won the cat lottery since I can't (I'm not supposed to anyway but come ON, life can't stop happening.) walk. There's constantly a warm, immobile fluffy hoomin at their disposal. Luckiest cats. They have no idea. 

So that's 2014 so far. Second verse, same as the first. 

Did 'Merican "Top Gear" get cancelled yet?

Alrighty then. What are you going to be when you grow up?