#biweeklyblog

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

I’m Sorry My Disability is an Inconvenience for You

I wasn’t going to write about this originally, but it’s happened enough this week to piss me off and so I will pass that pissed-off-ness to you. You’re welcome.

The thing with chronic pain is…well.. It’s chronic. It doesn’t go away, especially what I have. The theory is fibromyalgia. When all my scans finally come back negative, that’s what we’re going with, because fibromyalgia doesn’t show up on anything. It’s a ghost to x-rays, MRIs, and CT scans. There isn’t a cure, no pill to be taken or salve to be applied.

Now, I’ve explained this to people, particularly the people who keep pissing me off. See, when you have an unseen disability, you really learn who actually gives a shit. The dickheads I’ve encountered this week have the nerve to act sympathetic all the way up until my problems mess with their agenda or image.

When I went home early two days in a row and didn’t go into work at all for the next two, my manager acted like it was the end of the world. Despite the fact I work on the side of the store everyone neglects and no one cares about. Despite the fact we are allowed five paid sick days, which I didn’t even claim because I already felt like garbage. Despite the fact I told her my abdomen kept seizing up and I couldn’t breathe too well and had a wicked headache on top of that. She had the audacity to send me a long ass message essentially asking me to schedule my sick days weeks in advance as if I plan that shit. It was a horrendous debacle that left me feeling insanely enraged. That rage now increases every time she asks how I’m doing and if there are any updates. She said this week, after I told her I’m doomed for eternal pain (not in those exact words obviously), “that’s wild, you’re so young”. A perfect example really for people to take the suffering of young people more seriously.

What’s so frustrating about this is that people keep expecting that I’ll get better and they can get on with their lives. I’m not getting better, that’s why I’m trying to get disability, because I’m permanently disabled. Yet, they can’t seem to grasp that. They shower me with sympathy statements when it doesn’t affect them but the second I can’t make it to work or I share my grievances over a lack of care, they turn heel and lash back. All those “I’m so sorry for you”’s mean nothing when you get defensive and or angry at me for my body’s stupidity. As if you are more affected than me, the person who has to live with this. Like, just stop pitying me if you’re gonna get irked the moment you have any involvement with my declining state. Once again using my manager as an example, if you feel so fucking bad, PAY ME MORE YOU BITCH SO I DON’T HAVE TO WORK AS FREQUENTLY! She even told me in that cursed message that if I had to work less, she could arrange that, as if I’ve not told her at least three times that I’m really poor and can’t afford to properly take care of myself.

The same people who flip flop between caring and annoyance also have the power to deplete some of my burdens but choose not to. Must be too inconvenient for them I guess. That’s another reason I don’t believe a word that comes out of their mouths. It’s all false niceties to keep up an image, an agenda, to improve their own personas. I really wish they’d just shut up at this point because, like them towards me, I don’t fucking care. I don’t wanna hear it, as it’s all lies.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Robots<Humans: the Second Part

Part Two: AI<Artists

Art really is one of the most human things we have. It’s a vessel to express our humaness in abstract, creative, imaginative, beautiful ways. And the artists who bring art into the world are so underappreciated despite the fact that we as a race would be empty without them. But apparently they aren’t valuable enough in the eyes of CEOs since humans cost too much regardless of what they do. AI on the other hand is much less costly. It’s been incredibly popular of late when it comes to creating art, whether it be artwork or writing. People have argued that it’s just as good as anyone for coming up with scripts or bringing a digital masterpiece to life. But they are so very wrong.

AI is not an artist. It doesn’t think, it doesn’t feel. It just copies. All the fantastic digital paintings you’ve seen AI “come up with”, it didn’t. It took from thousands of images throughout the internet, images that are made up of work from real artists and combined whichever ones fit the desired topic into what you see. It steals other people’s thoughts, ideas, fantasies and mushes them together into something similar but without any of the feeling behind what’s made. All of these real people, many of whom rely on commissions for a living, lose what money they would have made because cheapskates can just input said artists' images into AI programs and the programs will vomit out something close enough to the original style. And these shameful people are just peasants like you and me. Companies are doing much worse.

Instead of using humans to create concept art, designs for billboards and posters, ideas for advertisements, these companies turn to AI programs instead because there isn’t a high cost. They can get similar results without worrying about wages and employee needs. Some concerns from the current writer’s strike include having AI write the scripts instead of humans, and having the current writers’ styles uploaded to these programs so the AI can take from that and spit out similar concepts. It’s disgusting. These hardworking, necessary people are getting treated like absolute shit by these companies because they want to see their work through.

It’s horrifying really. After all, what does this mean for us? For the artists who make this world worth living in? What do we do when AI takes over all the creative occupations and we humans are left to work mundane, shitty jobs that are understaffed intentionally because AI is taking over the majority of those too? We’ll be in the background, struggling even more just to exist whilst the CEOs make millions on top of millions after saving on all this human labor. And there will be no real art anymore, as the real artists have to sacrifice their craft to barely pay rent. All our movies will be written by AI, the animated one’s made by copying the creations of real people, voiced by fake voices. Actors will just be generated by images from real people. Artwork will be stolen, regurgitated fakeness. All the human emotion and heart that went into the creative things we thrive on will fade away and be replaced by a robotic copycat. Life will become hollow, void of connection and relatability. All for shitty copies of what’s true and genuine.

There is the ultimate goal with AI where it gains consciousness. After that, we’ll have a robot with human thought that can do all the things humans can and therefore humans won’t have to be paid for. But what makes you think AI at that level will want to be exploited like the commoners that came before it? What makes you think it won’t revolt against that and want better treatment or to go on and do greater things? In the end, no one wants to be used, abused, or taken advantage of. An apparently difficult thing for some to understand.

So, let us switch places, CEOs can work our posts and we do nothing. See how they like it. See how well they do being treated like the trash they treat us. Make them live like we do with our poverty wages and fear of debt. I want to see what they are like after living in a bedroom, sharing a house with six other people, or struggling more to live alone in a tiny bachelor suite. I want to see them flounder in the unsustainability that is our current society. I want to see their minds crumble and break trying to find enough happiness and worth to balance out the madness. I want to see the devastation in their faces as they spend fifty percent of their income on rent each month. And I want them to die inside as they realize that machines hold more value than them despite the fact those machines can never do as thorough or as proper a job as the humans with brains. Maybe then, they will understand that human life is far more precious. And all the engineered art is meaningless without the human minds behind it. All those shows, movies, music, digital paintings, books hold no value because there was nothing valuable put into them.

We keep wandering closer and closer into a dreary, cursed dystopia and the suits leading the charge don’t give a single damn because they can’t see two minutes into the future. Meanwhile, the rest of us are forced to march along behind them because we’re trapped in our gruelling eight hour shifts that we slog through five days a week. Our only salvation I can see is us younger generations when we finally claim those positions of power and pull a full reverse on the chaotic bullshit that awaits us. I have no hope for the older people but maybe us young folk can come together and hold our technology at bay whilst increasing human living standards. These billionaires have had their fists gripped around our sanity for far too long. No longer.

I hope the writers’ strike succeeds. I hope the film industry loses a hilarious amount of money because they’re greedy bastards who got their comeuppance. I hope AI art generators get modified to only use art that has the artist’s permission. I hope people can continue to make a decent living creating for the rest of us and that artistic occupations don’t become unattainable. I hope all the lazy, cheap pieces of garbage calm the fuck down and develop some respect for the champions that are keeping us psychologically alive. I hope for this because I refuse to die in a world where I can’t tell what was made by human minds and I consume vacant but eerily familiar media. My personality is predominantly made up from movies and shows I’ve watched throughout my life. My brain's creative side is filled with images from artists whose work I’ve stumbled upon around the internet. I would be nothing without these people and if they get swallowed up by artificial intelligence, then I will simply cease to exist because what’s the bloody point?

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Stop Making Everything Unaffordable, it's Inconvenient and Annoying

I truly and wholeheartedly believe that increasing rent at all and increasing prices at stores above, like, thirty percent or so should be illegal. If you can’t afford to be a landlord, don’t. If you’re going to price gouge everything people purchase, especially essentials, go jump off a cliff. I. Am. So. Fucking sick. Of this insanity. 

I keep seeing articles in the newspapers about the housing crisis we’re having and the solutions seem to always dodge the fact that landlords are in fact the problem. Landlords are making the cost of housing astronomical. Their excuses are often tied to the cost of living rising constantly. Well, that would be helped significantly if corporations and businesses weren’t allowed to upcharge ungodly amounts. Everyone is fighting fire with fire. Things are getting expensive? Charge more. But also don’t raise the minimum wage much because that saves costs too. Just keep going up and up and up with prices because there is no roof. Where does it end though? What happens when no one can afford to live? I know I’ve asked this in several other posts, but it weighs on me every day. These people have no limits. They have no strong barriers. 

Yes, I know I don’t know everything or how all the world works, however, I feel like this is a relatively easy fix. It’ll just piss off a lot of the super wealthy people. Oh no, oh dear, will no one think of the rich people? (Read previous sentence with heavy sarcasm because that’s how I’m saying it). I also know that fiends find loopholes and get sneaky and loose with the law. I know people will always suck if they want to. But can we not try? Can we not attempt to thwart this and keep re-thwarting as they thwart back? 

Higher ups, whether they be a head office goon or the entire government, don’t have most of our best interests in mind. I know this. My friends know this. My acquaintances know this. Hopefully you know this. I’ve said this. Hoping for the world to be bettered by those in power is probably quite stupid. I’m gonna do it anyway though because I don’t have anything else to do. At least when it comes to making my brain happy. Hope is often a disappointment in my experience, yet, I think I’m insane at this point so as the insane do, I shall keep hoping the same and expect different results. 

I just don’t like that one of my favorite book series, The Hunger Games, keeps coming true in bits and pieces. That trilogy is my 1984, and uhh, that’s kinda horrific. But that’s the cute thing about dystopias, they are mirrors to our current societies. Alas, the reflection is seldom seen by the people because the people have no eyes. It would just be nice if some things would improve and or change for the better. It would be nice if I didn’t have to wait until half my city is homeless and most of the businesses are closed because of us wandering the streets like zombies for something to change. It would be nice if we, as people, didn’t wait until things hit absolute rock bottom before realizing that we were going downhill and doing something about it.

There is a boycott this month for Loblaws as they have successfully infuriated enough people to warrant this. There is also now a Steal From Loblaws Day. Normally I don’t condone stealing, unless it’s from Value Village because fuck Value Village, but if there’s a dedicated day for a crime, I don’t care, I’ll look the other way. Pride started as a riot and we’ve come so far since then. So if breaking the law on a particular day or month is what we need to do to change shit, then so be it. Compress the rich in Titan-flavored submersibles. Abolish all landlords. Overthrow the government. Drink plenty of water and stop slouching.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Good Morn My Deer

Nearly every morning when I’m on the bus, at a particular stop, there are usually deer munching on grass. They simply exist there, snacking on leaves and other tasty plants. There is probably very little going on in their fuzzy noggins, but they’re so at peace. At least from my view in my seat on the bus. They seem to be such simple, graceful beasts that just mind their own business, except when they’re running in front of cars. They just stare blankly at you, without fear half the time, if you remain still enough. Not a thought behind those big eyes. But I always get a boost of happy flutters whenever I see one parked in my vision. It’s like when you walk down the street and notice a twenty dollar bill on the ground, waiting for you to pick it up. That bit of excitement you get, it’s similar to how I feel seeing a lovely little deer. 

I’m always so tired on work mornings and those morning deer at that bus stop act like a nice sip of caffeine. Their presence gives me such a wee rush of enlightened energy and I continue my morning in an immediately better mood. Anytime deer used to pass by in my old backyard, I would stay still and admire them for as long as they would let me. When driving or bussing around town, I like to keep an eye out for them as though they belong to a scavenger hunt. The island has such an abundance of them, it’s actually quite ridiculous, and they’ve gotten to the point that they don’t give half a crap about humans. They strut around the land acting as though they pay rent. While others might see them as large, fancy looking vermin, (which if you have a garden, that’s quite fair), I see them as majestic idiots that brighten my spirits. 

One day, should I ever acquire my land and cabin, mayhaps I’ll build a deer feeder so they don’t eat my garden I plan to grow, and so I can lure them in and watch them. Perhaps make one my dinner every now and again. Nonetheless, I will respect them, because as stupid as I assume they are, they are also quite beautiful creatures that seem to have mastered the art of delicate silence and calm. I should one day like to be at such peace with myself and the world that I can sit somewhere outside for a while and enjoy a nice snack and listen to my surroundings without making a sound. That would be quite nice I think. Especially if deer show up and we can be silent together. I’ve decided they would make good company, wordless as they are.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Putting Up Dukes in My Shower

I am very much not a confrontational person. I freeze up most of the time in stressful situations and I’m shit at standing up for myself. I never think of the right responses or have any witty comebacks in my pocket. I am essentially useless verbally. 

That is, until I get into my shower. Standing under the water and washing off the day gets my brain thinking of all my past arguments and confrontations and heated conversations. I also start creating an alternate version of me in my head where I respond to these situations perfectly. Instead of freezing up, I am lightning quick with standing my ground and calling out the bullshit. I conquer in the battle of wits. People quake in their boots from my impeccable, smooth retorts even when those people aren’t even involved. Try to disrespect me? Ha, knave, you are a meek nothing to my fantastic presence! Your words are weak and flimsy as the one-ply toilet paper that’s always found in public bathrooms. I am the Shakespeare of the age with my gorgeous, thought provoking insults. I am a poetic god amongst men. 

I wish it didn’t take three to five business days for my brain to cook up the epic responses I’m capable of, but then again, I suppose I would simply be too powerful an individual if I did. I also wish it was socially acceptable to verbally, but elegantly, duel to the death with people regardless of where we are. I don’t want the fact that I’m at work and have to maintain a proper persona to disallow me to go to battle, armed with a thesaurus, against customers who have a bone to pick with me. I don’t condone bullying, however, a verbal fist fight in self defence should be a basic human right. 

What is it about showers that mentally brings about all my enemies before me to finally decimate with an avalanche of poisonous remarks and impenetrable facts? It’s such a physically vulnerable place, yet my brain has never felt so armoured and ready to charge into the fray of war. In the ten to fifteen minutes that I’m cleansing my weary little body, my noggin dances through arguments and debates from days to months to years ago. If revisiting old heated interactions was a sport, I’d be the greatest Olympian to ever exist. If time machines were around and I could go back to these moments, I’d be king of the world because I would have laid low anyone who tried to toss me into the dirt or outsmart me. I have the knowledge of ages, I just don’t remember any of it until five hours after I need it. 

There will come a day when I successfully time a flawless response when it’s needed rather than stewing in annoyance later that evening after finally figuring out a better thing to say. I dream of that day and plan to capture that moment and frame it and display it on my bookshelf next to my incredibly intellectual reading material. And whenever I feel melancholy, I shall look at that framed moment and remember how I thwarted somebody once with flowery words of wisdom and logic and truth and I will go to sleep smiling. Just you wait, humans, for I will be featured in all the papers one day for finally standing my ground, standing up, and putting someone in their place. I will be given a participation ribbon because I will have joined the majority of the population who already figured out how to do that eons ago. But I won’t care about being late to the party, because it will be momentous nonetheless.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Holiday Dystopia

It’s spring, so naturally, Imma talk about Christmas parties, specifically the ones for my drug store. Those parties really are their own little flavour of dystopian. They used to be like any normal, fun, holiday gathering where people dance and mingle and get weird because alcohol is involved. But then they stopped with the alcohol. And the dancing stopped too, as well as the mingling. There used to be more of a large open space in the hall, the tables out of the way, but for some reason, now they are set up with little room to move around easily. There is still a stage, but it’s predominantly unoccupied, probably due to the lack of drunk people flailing about. 

It’s a weird event now. People gradually shuffle into the hall and claim tables with the friends and plus one’s that they came with and we all just chill with our individual pods. A few people will go to different tables and chat with the folk there, but it’s not common. So for a little while, everyone is just sat at their tables and chatting with the people they came with until the dinner call happens. All the food that’s set up on a long table is apparently made by the boss man’s wife, which…damn, that’s impressive. Each table is called up separately to load up their plates with some tasty, home cooked Indian food before heading back to their seats. Whilst we’re all munching, the dessert is set up and eventually we’re called up by table to help ourselves to that too. None of this is dystopian, it is a bit sad though. It feels like a weird buffet because everybody keeps to themselves. Despite there being music playing, no one really moves. 

After everyone’s eaten, a series of “games” ensues. Different, generally simple challenges are given and each table competes against one another. Whether it’s trivia, drawing something blindfolded, listing as many names as you can that St Nick goes by, they’re very doable. But you desperately want to win because your success in these games is your ticket to being called first. In past years, there was no timer after you were called, though I guess it got so out of hand when people had more time. Last year, each table had two minutes after they were called up. Each person was given a cloth bag and then they would sprint to the true gem of the night. The numerous bins of products we no longer sell. Specifically beauty products. Makeup, cologne, perfume, skincare, nail polish, jewelry. Items that range from cheap and affordable to luxury and stupidly expensive. 

People fight tooth and nail for the most coveted goods, the fragrances, and once those are cleared out, they go for everything else. We will be on our hands and knees, rapidly, feverishly clawing through products. People are nearly crawling over one another to get their hands on things they want. We fill our bags as much as we can within those two minutes, some folk just taking random handfuls of shit that they don’t even look at. And when the timer goes off, we head back to our seats with our yearly beautiful-people-haul to revel in our success and glory. 

And then, once every table has been called and every guest has their filled bag of goods, the staff party essentially ends. That’s the whole thing. We show up, we eat, we fight to the death for cosmetics, and then we leave. The main part of this that I find so dystopian is the reason why the bins are likely the only motivation for anyone being there. While free stuff in general is nice, the items we grasp for at these parties we could not naturally afford. Most of us are getting paid poverty wages by the boss man that hosts these events. We can barely afford our essentials and our rent. But then, you go to the holiday party and you get months to years worth of goods for no cost. They give away thousands of dollars worth of products for free on one evening every year, yet will not give us a raise or benefits regardless of how hard we work or how long we’ve been there. We nearly resort to animalistic tendencies to get our hands on these products we could never hope to buy to bring home to our wee apartments while our boss man goes home to his mansion. 

While I appreciate the fact these products are given to staff for free, I remember that this is pretty much the only “benefit” we get. All of our expired or damaged products get thrown out rather than just given to staff who would use them. Many discontinued items get donated, which is nice, though still something we miss out on. Our discount is basically the next best thing. There aren’t really any perks beyond that. That’s why these parties feel so odd. It feels like a mockery of our peasant-ness, like the rich businessmen are watching us commoners scramble for a taste of the wealth they have. A $120 dollar fragrance is chump change for them while $17 dollar nail polish is too expensive for us. 

I like dressing up to go somewhere more eventful than usual with friends. I like getting a butt ton of skincare and makeup that I would never normally buy for free. I like having a meal that I didn’t cook myself. But I don’t like how strange and icky those things feel when rolled into a gathering hosted by a man who doesn’t give a shit about any of us.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

SOS (Save Our Stuffies)

Why do parents tell their kids to get rid of their toys and stuffies at a certain age? I never understood that because having possessions isn’t bad. I could understand if one’s child is hoarding a ton of junk that they don’t use or play with or seem to like anymore and doing a bit of a clean out. However, adults do that with their own things as well. I spring clean my closet every now and again because clothes are what I have the most of. Even with my books, did I go through them recently to clear out what I no longer read. So, unless there’s a ridiculous amount of rubbish that’s being neglected and taking up space, why do kids need to get rid of their kiddish things? 

Humans are naked bipedal dragons, they like to collect things and pile them up in their house-lairs. I had to give away a bunch of stuffed animals as a child, and as an adult, I’ve gone and purchased more. Granted, I am not the best example for this argument because the largest stuffy sacrifice occurred because we were moving to Canada and transporting a lot of shit is expensive. That said, this is just such a thing for parents to do. Like, you’re supposed to give away your dolls and action figures and plushies and knick knacks at an arbitrary age because….I guess that means growing up or whatever…but, then you do and you buy a bunch of crap later anyway when you finally get a job. And that crap is great, and you love it since it’s an expansion of you! 

One of my supervisors yesterday told me about how his seven-year-old daughter brings a stuffed animal to school every day. But also, so does everyone else in her class. They switch up what stuffies they’re going to bring each day and they play with them and each other and the entire concept is so cute and wholesome. And he said, rather jokingly but still, “at this age it’s stuffed animals, but when they’re teens, it’ll be drugs”. Which I thought about for a moment since it was a sad concept. Whilst this may be overly optimistic of me, I’m hoping that with the normalization of adults having less adult things now, that those kids will hang onto the stuffies instead of tossing them to the side for drugs. I’m hoping that the concept of growing up will become softer and cuter and more wholesome rather than scrambling to rebel in detrimental ways. 

I guess I just find it funny that children need to get rid of all their children things only to repurchase children things maybe a decade later. I find it even more funny that we put so much weight on childish things, like why can’t we love dolls and plushies after the age of nine? It’s ultimately just stuff in the grand scheme of things, and like I said, humans like to have stuff. I have Sears catalogues from ages ago and Teen Vogue magazines and a third printing of The Hobbit and records and dvd’s and hand-me-down sweaters from ninth grade. I have them because I like them and they bring me joy and I haven't outgrown them, just like I haven’t outgrown the stuffed animals I have. Despite being an adult, I still like comfort things, most people do I believe. My mum has been re-reading childhood books she read to get me to sleep as a wee one. I keep rewatching animated fantasy shows for kids because I’m a sucker for magic and whimsy. One of my friends just purchased a new addition to her doll collection. These things are comforting, I think, in part because they were fashioned for children and one of the huge tasks of an adult is comforting a child. Thus, childish things are comforting. Thus, why should we get rid of said things, as we will still need comfort throughout many points in our lives? 

Again, if it’s getting excessive and it’s based solely in consumerism and immediate desire but not prolonged want, then sure, by all means tone it down a bit. I don’t want to promote being wasteful. I just also don’t want kiddos to have to sacrifice their memories and sentiments in the name of getting older. Kids will always have things, just as adults will always have things and I know that things take up room and are heavy and cumbersome but that’s the reality of being a person I suppose.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Dear Universe Gods, You're Grounded

Over the weekend, me and my mates went to a fan expo on the mainland. It went swimmingly! We got photos with multiple celebrities including Elijah Wood. We sat through several panels led by actors and voice actors that we love including Grace Van Dien and Neil Newbon. We bought merchandise that gave us all a healthy-happy-feelings boost. One friend’s mother paid for our entire dinner the first night at a stupidly good Malaysian restaurant, even though she wasn’t there. We went to IKEA and got cookies and meatballs and jams. We like to stock up as there’s no IKEA here. We took our Build-a-Bear baby Yoda named Yodito and hunted down every Star Wars cosplayer to take a photo with him. It was a wild, overstimulating, exciting, hilarious, unbelievable, and unforgettable weekend adventure. 

And then we came home.

*cue the Jaws theme* 

And our world went stupid again.

*cue the speedier part of said Jaws theme*

The day after we got back, one friend found out her father has cancer and is due for surgery. A few days later, another friend was in the hospital for appendicitis, she’s still there actually. A day after that, today in fact, at work, it was decided by a corporate minion that wearing earbuds on shift is no longer allowed. For years, we were able to have a single earbud in and listen to music, podcasts, audiobooks, what have you, whilst working. This man came into the store, unannounced, off the clock, and saw people just doing their jobs and I guess decided they were too content. Now we have to listen to the cursed drugstore bullshit playlist and our brain thoughts. But wait, it gets worse…suddenly, the automatic announcements and music switched to French. Everything was French and no one knew what the crap happened. This was the day the music died and the day Canadian French corroded our brains. It went back to semi normal after a few hours, but those few hours were brutal. 

So it’s been a week of cancer and surgery, and head office being committed to destroying any ounce of possible happiness we have at work. We were happy over the weekend, life was good. I think we need to have forever vacations at this point because the moment they end, everything goes to shit. Once our lives go back to normal, chaos and disappointment ensues.

I am still in the process of acquiring the contact information for the head office of the universe, however, it’s been incredibly difficult to locate. If anyone has the personal numbers for any universe corporate members, please let me know. My strongly worded letter was clearly ignored, so I’ve decided a phone call might be more effective. 

Seriously though, what the bloody absolute fuck are the odds of this amount of immediate buffoonery happening after such a wholesome weekend with friends? We just came home and cancer and bursting organs were just sitting on the table and the gods were guffawing at us. I say again, NO ONE, NOT A SINGLE SOUL can tell me, with a straight face, that we are not cursed as shit! You can search high and low for a lawyer to argue until they’re blue in the face against this fact, and you will fail. There is no valid evidence, no physical or mental or spiritual proof that stands in favor of this truth being false. There are mysterious, malicious forces at work against us and all we can do now is laugh because it is hysterical, in the most tragic way possible, just how fucked we are. If we become villains later on, the origin stories for us that show our descent to the dark side will be horribly stupid and completely reasonable all in one. “Oh, why ever did you become evil?” they will ask. “I was greatly inconvenienced two too many times,” I will say. And they will nod in understanding as I set fire to the world.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Dear Universe Gods, Go to Bed

Me and my mates went up island for four days two weeks ago today and the trip was great. It was raining the whole time but that didn’t really affect us too much. We had a wonderful time and life was chill and peaceful and nice. We should have known that this wouldn’t last. Life tends to dismantle our happiness and stability far more than necessary and it did just that after our trip ended. 

We have another overnight trip planned for next week on the mainland. We’re going to a fan expo and the plan was to get photos with an actor we love from Stranger Things. Alas, the man cancelled due to filming schedules. This was depressing, but we still have other things to do there and two of us are delusional enough to assume it’s because he’s filming season five of Stranger Things despite dying in the last season, so his cancellation seems reasonable. We could manage this loss. 

Then smaller inconveniences happened. One friend immediately burnt her thumb upon her return home from our trip. I nearly flooded my house because my toilet clogged when I got back. Days later, she broke her Converse. Another friend had an allergic reaction to tuna despite not being allergic to tuna and only peanuts. A couple days ago, a necklace I love broke at the chain and now I have to figure that out. This morning, the friend who was mildly poisoned by fish accidentally slammed her hand between a cart and a bin. I’m not disabled enough to be taken seriously as disabled. My rent went up and my credit card paid itself off and the combination of the two has left me with less than two hundred dollars in my main bank account. It took three years of living on my own but I will now be surviving paycheque to paycheque which is fucking disappointing.

But the biggest, worstest, fuckiest absolute inconvenience of all that happened last Thursday was the sudden resignation of our precious nurse practitioner. The woman who all three of us saw every two weeks, who went way over our scheduled time to ensure we were taken care of and heard, who listened to us and helped us. She was gone even though we had an appointment scheduled the coming Monday. That was cancelled and we have been in hellish limbo ever since. With that hitting us among the other inconveniences, we have been in a dreadful fragile state. We have been hit, yet again, with the curse that plagues our group and forces us to remember what suffering feels like regardless of the fact we rarely stop suffering. I was ranting to myself for half an hour after learning that my one healthcare professional who is worthy of her title was gone. I was punching my couch and yelling and getting choked up and pacing around. I couldn’t get ready for bed because I was so riled up. 

We’ve all tried to figure out why we are fated to be slammed over the head by life so often. Were we all dictators and murderers in a past life? Do past lives work like that? Is the universe straight up after us just because? Are we secretly evil? I’ve tried convincing myself I’m a terrible person, because horrible shit keeps happening, the same way I’ve tried convincing myself I was attracted to women, because that’s what people assumed when they saw me. I’m not, though. I’m not gay for women even though I often wear flannels and want a Subaru Outback. I’m not a terrible person either, I’m completely average. 

I’ve heard these misfortunes are supposed to make us stronger, humble, enlightened, grateful, in some way improved. I am not a better person because of this, any of this. Any of what’s happened recently and what’s happened over the course of my life has not made me better. I’m angry and bitter and jaded and tired and I don’t have time to help others because I can barely help myself. I don’t like my fellow humans any more now than I ever did. In fact, I despise them more than I ever did. I don’t have any more of an appreciation of my life now than all my yesterdays. I find it increasingly horrendous and unacceptable. 

All any of us have control over is consuming food. That’s what we drown our sorrows in. I have devoured cupcakes, cookies, ice cream, and timbits. Food is the only thing we can guarantee. It is the only consistent comfort. I had to watch the Barbie movie just to cry all my stress out because I was so overwhelmed and I lost track of how many cookies I added to my bowl of ice cream for I couldn’t see through the tears. You know how Oppenheimer quoted “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”? Now I am become void, the destroyer of sweets. 

I’m gonna have to write a strongly worded letter to the head office of the universe because I am dissatisfied with the results of life and would like compensation because eating my feelings is bad for my health.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

*Cough, Cough* I'm Sick

Living alone and getting sick is a stupid combination. I got sick on Christmas, which was a Monday, and it took me out for like five days. I had chills, dizziness, lightheadedness, was feverish and sneezed mucus-y sneezes every five minutes. It sucked. I couldn’t do anything because I was too wobbly to move much. I was like a drunk, three legged baby deer for days. It started off with sneezing in the morning which I wrote off as allergies since I often sneeze in the mornings. The sneezing kept going though and it was getting more and more snotty throughout the day which was kind of concerning but also I was at my friend’s house for crimmus and they have a giant fluffy dog. I’m not usually allergic to beasties but this dog is particularly fluffy so I decided that was valid. I really got worried however, when my throat started hurting towards the evening and that only ever happens when I get sick. It was quite sore and raw feeling. After I got home, I chugged some tea to soothe it and hoped I was overreacting. The next day, alas, I was slammed with all the symptoms in one go and woke up feeling horrendous. 

I did my best to stay hydrated and take my medicinal beverages, but I had to be the one to make them and it was incredibly difficult to do when I could barely move. My dishes piled up, my laundry that I hang dry was still hanging up, my place needed vacuuming and garbage taken out. I had an order to pick up at a shop and money to deposit at the bank. My mailbox was horribly neglected and my plants were thirsty. All I could do was loaf on my couch and somewhat eat from the massive amount of holiday leftovers my friend’s family gave me. Mind you, that was hella convenient and such a treat that I didn’t have to cook anything myself. 

You really get antsy though, not being able to move or be productive. It was such a relief to be able to somewhat function again. That is until the Monday that just happened. After one week of getting the last of my mucus out of my system and my wobbliness under control I…got…sick…AGAIN. ON MONDAY!

It started off the exact same way. In the morning I had one symptom. My throat was kind of clogged with mucus and I had to occasionally sound like a cat coughing up a hairball as I tried hawking it out. This wasn’t too frequent of a thing though so I wrote it off as me still recovering from my cold and this was the last remaining sick. But, come late afternoon, I couldn’t really move my neck because it was so stiff. The phlegm in my throat was getting more problematic and my legs for some reason were incredibly achy. By evening, I couldn’t move my neck at all, my entire body hurt, and my throat was infuriated. So the last four days, I’ve been at war against phlegm goblins that live in, what feels like the middle of, my throat. They’ve become more sentient as time has gone by. I can’t choke one up unless it wants me to. I’ll feel what I can only describe as a goblin dislodging from its throat latch. Only after that can I try to cough it up, except it’s still difficult as shit because it doesn’t really move with a cough. I have to also essentially retch and do a weird throaty cough to get this fucking guy out. And since the phlegm goblin is so thick, it blocks my airway and I can’t breathe while doing this which is stressful as fuck. I didn’t get the sneezing fits this time but my gawds this has been almost unbearable. I could hardly swallow, so I could hardly consume fluids or foods. Trying to sleep was a nightmare since I couldn’t move my neck without severe pain. I even had a mug by my bed to spit in through the night whenever my throat would get so clogged up that I couldn’t breathe well. 

Yesterday was the first day I was able to move my neck and it was glorious to crack that thing every half hour or so. Today was the first day where I didn’t feel immediately dizzy after standing, but that only lasted a short while. I finally folded my laundry from Sunday and did my dishes for the first time since Saturday. I even took out my recycling and felt the outside air for the first time this week. What is so frustrating though is that all of this took so long to do. I had no one else to help out with my dishes or laundry. I lucked out again with food and had enough leftovers from Saturday to sustain me but what if I didn’t? I did not have any strength to move beyond my wee bachelor suite. It took me hours to get out of bed some days or I would sleep in so long that it would be dark by the time I woke up. Wandering around downtown in an unstable haze whilst sick because I had nothing but my friend’s alcohol in my kitchen is a shit idea. Having to make the teas and NeoCitran and jello powder in boiling water and hot milk with honey by myself is wretched when I’m stuck to my bed with my own sweat. I would only get up to stumble to the bathroom until my snarling stomach forced me to get up and get food. I so desperately wanted to wave my hand and gently demand someone else to get my needs. Unfortunately, I was the only one here, and therefore the only one to help. 

It’s been an irritating time for sure. I’ve lost an entire paycheque’s worth of income for missing two weeks of work. And I’m paranoid about Mondays now. I’m so confused about this cursed fiasco because I’ve never gotten sick like this twice in a row. None of my friends got sick, save for one who shared a beverage with me on crimmus, but this clearly wasn’t airborne with them. Yet I caught it somehow and I only work Wednesday to Friday and I hardly go anywhere the other four days. So did I catch something on Friday and it just took a couple days to seize control of my immune system and then strike on Monday both times? I can justify getting sick the first time more since the mall was absolutely insane leading up to the holidays, but the second time it was incredibly quiet. I don’t know, this was just a shitty time and my rent increases next month so that’ll be cool to pay with the money I didn’t make.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

A Good Cry

Sometimes I forget how to cry. I feel that I want to, but my body doesn’t commit. I now have a perfect remedy for this: emotion inducing movies. 

Now I’ve always loved movies and I’ve always been one to get hit with feels with little effort, but I haven’t had movies that make me sob. Until now. I finally have a wee selection, that I intend on growing, of movies that hit me right in the cries but in the best way. See, that’s the thing with this strategy, I may have originally wanted to cry due to pent up stress and anxiety and tiredness and whatnot, but through the right movie, I can redirect that need to weep for wholesome reasons. 

I have watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 thrice now and it destroys me every time. I get weeks worth of sobs out with that in the span of two and a half hours. I watched the Barbie movie in theatres and that also damn near wrecked me too but I stayed stoic, so as to not ruin my pink makeup. Since I just bought the DVD today though, I can sob in the comfort of my own home makeup free. 

It’s like screaming into the void or peeing after having to hold it on the drive home, there’s so much release and satisfaction when you get it all out. It’s a brain escape. You empty your emotions to the outside of your body so your brain has time to itself on the inside of the body. 

It is just such a relief to have a quick solution to ridding myself of strong, overwhelming feelings in a way that is also enjoyable and leaves me with happiness. These movies that work have happy endings. They don’t finish on a sad note. And the meaning behind them is overall good and pure and lovely. I don’t have to brood for hours thinking about how depressed I am to get a tear rolling anymore. I can indulge in stories about life and love. Family and friendship. Moving on and moving forward. I can be shown such loss and heartbreak but also the healing and growth that follows. I can go into these stories feeling, myself, like a broken individual and come out the other side with a deeper understanding about my worth and the worth of life and it’s a breath of fresh air. A new beginning in a way. All from a movie that made me cry for two hours. How beautiful is that?

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

My Closet is Full But My Brain Doesn't See That

You know that stereotype of girls being like “I don’t have anything to wear!” whilst their room is drowning in articles of clothing? Even though I’m not always a girl, I’m very much like that. As are my friends. It’s a funny little battle every Friday night where we individually fight with our closets regarding what to wear on our sacred Saturday Gathering Day. 

I have about three small closets worth of clothing. Because of how my apartment is layed out, I have two closets that form a corner and I also have an IKEA four cube by four cube shelf situation. All of that space is occupied by clothing. One closet has all my jackets and coats, the other has all my dresses, flannels, sweaters, and socks. My cubes hold all my shirts, skirts, sweatshirts, shorts, trousers, and cardigans. But come the end of the week, I don’t bloody know what to wear to participate in weekend shenanigans! I own nothing and everything all at once. This is made worse by the fact that I only really have one day to get decked out with clothes, shoes, and makeup so it’s a stressful time. How do I present myself this Saturday? What is worthy of the planned activities? What items of clothing have I neglected of late and what do I repeat more often? I should just keep an extensive inventory, a Dewey Decimal System but for closet items. 

It’s embarrassing to act as though I don’t have anything good or decent or fun to wear when practically all that dwells in my closets are pieces that I enjoy and use. The nerve of me to strut about my room-house muttering how there’s nothing able to become an outfit. Meanwhile I just ordered a few clothes last week and they’re arriving tomorrow. I’ve ordered many a clothes before, because I like them, and now they sit in my closet and I am blind to their existence the moment I try to curate an appearance. 

Wintertime is the best time for me to dress as I please since I can layer and accessorize far more than I can in the warmer months, though it leaves more room for decision making and therefore brain blanking. I try to wear everything I own once before repeating anything. Like parents with multiple children, I’m assuming as I don’t personally have any, I don’t want to neglect any closet dweller. I want to show them all equal love and appreciation and incorporate them into something. That said, not everything is flexible and not everything fits into the current mood of the day I’m dressing for. Some clothes aren’t forgiving in stormy weather, others aren’t forgiving when my uterus is releasing its monthly contents. Some aren’t forgiving of a hearty meal, others aren’t forgiving of much walking, or much sitting. I may have an outfit idea but the morning of can easily snatch those plans away moments after I rise. 

Saying “I don’t have anything to wear” has more than just the literal translation. When we say it, we mean it to say something more like “I don’t have anything to wear because of the weather” or “I don’t have anything to wear because I’m bloated and feel gross and need something that’s easy to take off so I can deal with my menstrual cup with little chance of disaster”. My current dilemma is “I don't have anything to wear that I feel matches the mood of the punk market I’m going to tomorrow”. Granted, that is likely to change once I stare at each closet for several minutes, ponder, stare at everything again, take some items out, try them on, decide against them, mix and match other things with some decided staples, wander around grumbling, ponder again, stare, fold the discarded options, find inspiration, try on the inspiration, fiddle around with other things that work better together, create a look, eat dinner feeling victorious. I simply need to go through the process first. Then, come tomorrow, I will curate a makeup look that will likely not match at all with what I’m wearing and I will be complete.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Unlike Never-ending Story, Don't Say My Name

Customers are pretty merciless when it comes to what’s on my name tag. I used to just have my birth name. Naturally, too many people weren’t aware of Halle Berry and instead I got Hailey, Hale, Holly. I gave up with that and went with my last name. Too many people made a deal about it, asking me if it was my first name, so many asked me that. Asking me if I was named after these fictional characters or if I personally knew them. And then I came up with my chosen name. 

It’s a name that’s a weird, stupid, mouthful. It’s only like this because I was indecisive but I didn’t want to fuck up my triple “h” initials. It’s going to bring up questions as to why it came to be. And I wouldn’t mind those questions from acquaintances and friends and family. I do mind them from random strangers coming through my till and pestering about the entire history of my dumb ass name. 

The people with the audacity to ask if it’s a real name are the most tame unfortunately. It’s already uncomfortable to have that question asked because, like, why the fuck does it matter if it’s my real name or not? I clearly want to be called it since it’s on my name tag. It gets worse though. After I got into the habit of just saying, “yes this is my actual name”, people just would not leave me alone. They would question the mental state of my parents, wondering if they were hippies or wolves. They would ask about my ethnicity if it was “Oriental”, “Asian”, “Scandinavian”. They wanted to know what my parents did for a living and where they came from. Why did they choose this name? What were they thinking? Were they crazy? All I can do is just awkwardly chuckle and mutter random bullshit. 

It got even worse, this one day, when a lady straight up said my name was stupid. I just…why? Is it really necessary for one stranger to tell another stranger that their name, which as far as they know is real, is stupid? Especially when one person is in a position of servitude and the other, in a way, is above them. I can’t exactly talk back to people without potential repercussions. However, I shouldn’t be put in a position to even contemplate fighting a customer for insulting me in the first place. 

I swear I feel like I’m a zoo animal half the time. People come and line up to gawk at me and point out what they like or don’t like and make every thought and criticism known. It’s fucking weird when you think about it in any other context where there isn’t a counter in between and both parties are on equal grounds. Imagine being sat at a restaurant and someone just comes over and starts making dull jokes about your hair choice or the name in your wallet that they can somehow see. Imagine they start roasting you for the names you gave your children or your general life choices. Picture this scenario in a grocery store, or whilst walking down the street, or in a mall shopping for things you don’t need. Would that not be strange? Is that how you would want to live your life, being bombarded each day by passerby for every little thing, some of which you cannot simply change? 

I know I shouldn’t give a shit about judgment from others, but when I’m stuck in a place and my whole purpose is serving people, I can’t exactly shut them down or walk away. I have to put up with it and get them rung through as quickly as possible. It’s exhausting though. It sucks that manners don’t seem to be very present anymore and folk will say whatever is on their mind to you. I don’t want to go to university. No, my hair is not green for an occasion, I just really like the color. I am not brave for dying it, nor am I only doing it because I’m young. Yes, this is now my name and I do in fact like it. I know I look tired and my voice sounds like I ate rocks for breakfast, that is just how I be naturally. Please stop remarking on my existence, you don’t know who I am or why I’m like this. You don’t know what is a choice and what isn’t. You don’t know what will negatively affect me or flatter me. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. That is why I don’t say these things or ask these questions.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Twenty-Five, Still Alive, Trying to Thrive

Being in my twenties is weird. I’m halfway through, at a quarter of a century now, and I’ve simultaneously grown so much spiritually whilst also deteriorating exponentially mentally and physically the last few years. People often talk about how wild and fun and self-discovering their twenties were and the pandemic absolutely fucked those important years up. Though it wasn’t just the world mildly ending that was responsible. My individual self got pretty fed up with me too. 

If I just reflect on the years where I’ve lived on my own in my quaint little murder building, I can see how much has changed. I’ve always felt like a child, a predominantly independent and responsible child, but a child nonetheless. Now though, I feel more and more like a toddler, crying and whining and useless. I used to cook proper meals for work. I would prep them for the week and spend about three hours in my galley kitchen making lunches and dinners. I used a cookbook and everything. When I worked two jobs during the weekdays, I did all my prep on Sunday. I cleaned my house and shopped for groceries and prepared my meals and did my laundry. I also had a little spa evening too where I would pamper myself after completing my chores and put on face masks and do my nails and smooth my feet with fancy foot scrubs. Then I eventually started working only four days a week and Monday became my prep day whilst Sunday became my rest day. After doing that for a while, it was hard to contemplate how I used to have only one day to do all my adult stuff. Once I was able to sleep in on Sundays, I gradually went from sleeping nine to ten hours all the way to seventeen when I was truly exhausted. In the winter, I wouldn’t see any sunlight on those days. I also used to bike to and from work except on the days I had dance classes. I don’t have the energy to do that anymore. 

I don’t have the energy to do a lot anymore. Even my Sunday spa nights don’t happen. As time went on, I started realizing that there was a lot more wrong with my body than I thought. I used to gaslight myself into thinking I was just being lazy or over dramatic or weak. I grew less and less able to do that though when the knee braces and the pain meds became a daily thing even though none worked for long. Once I got a nurse practitioner, I was really able to find out just how fucked my body and brain was. I wasn’t lazy looking back, I was burnt out. Now I only work three days a week, that’s predominantly to get disability, but still. I did have this work week in the past, with only six and a half hour shifts rather than eight and a half. It was after I quit one of my jobs, the one that started this blog. I just didn’t fill in the two empty slots with another second job and instead took a bit of a break with a more relaxed work schedule. Once my precious mall side opened up after COVID slightly waned, I was back to four days at eight and a half hours, with Monday free to do all my chores that required offices unopened on weekends. My suffering grew more rapidly after this, leading to my current state. 

My chores are a lot more spread out now, not because I need something to occupy my free days, but because I simply cannot do much in one day anymore. Sunday is my loafing day and only my laundry is done. Monday is a doctor's day every two weeks or so but I also water my plants that day, check my mail, and sometimes vacuum my house. Tuesday is grocery shopping plus food prep day, though I also clean the house if I didn’t the day before. Even with this layout, I still get bushed so quickly. I only really get frozen meals now for my work lunches when that used to be a last resort. I make simple dinners that require little effort. And I still skip certain chores like checking my mail and cleaning the house because I don’t have the energy. 

Yet, at the same time, I feel more like myself than ever. I do my eight dance classes a week, even though I often feel like I’m going to die, because dancing is what I want to do. It’s something I now know I’m good at and I can go somewhere in life with. I don’t feel as strong as I used to but I feel more qualified if that makes sense. 

I discovered my gender identity and it feels right and true and I’m comfortable. My boobs are also smaller and that has taken both a literal and figurative weight off my shoulders. I’ve expanded my wardrobe and how I express myself through clothing and makeup. My hair is green which, as unnatural of a color that is, it looks correct for me and it’s cut in a way that suits me and grows out well. 

I know where I stand in life a lot better now, my values are much clearer. I don’t put up with people’s shit nearly as much anymore. I deserve better and I have more bravery and fed-up-ness to act on that. I’ve awakened to people’s true colors and ignored faults and I can distance myself to protect my sanity. 

As time has gone on, I feel more and more like a fully realized person, in spirit. Like I’m discovering superpowers and watching them evolve and grow and strengthen. Or like I’ve built me from a shabby fixer upper that showed some hints of character into a lovely forever home that’s all character. 

I just don’t know what to do with all of this discovery though. I don’t know what kind of future I really have, I mean the world is undeniably going to hell in a dilapidated little handbasket. All the things are uncertain, those milestones you’re supposed to hit throughout adulthood. Marriage isn’t happening. Children isn’t happening. Buying a home is pretty much impossible. Going to university isn’t happening. Making an income from a passion rather than a shit job is unlikely. So what does the latter half of my sacred twenties look like? I already feel like I’m in limbo since the COVID-y COVID years all blended together and I can’t remember how old I am or how much time has passed after moving out. Those years went to waste to a degree. But the ones to come next look so grim and confusing. I know the most of who I am now and I feel the most comfortable with myself than I ever have to date. But my body and brain are in the worst condition to date and only seem to be getting worse. I’m like a ninety-seven year old one year old. I have the wisdom of ages living in a useless vessel. Hell, I’m writing this at one in the morning on a Friday because my body is aching so much for whatever reason and I can’t sleep. 

I really have to hope that thirty, flirty, and thriving becomes a reality in my life. Maybe that will balance out all the crap that came before. I’ve got five years to find out. In the meantime though I’m going to hold onto all the doses of serotonin that I receive. The Saturday’s with my friends, the adventures we have planned, the occasional shopping purchases, the gaming nights, the after doctor hangouts, all of it. It will be my fuel to sustain me until I can actually get my life started.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

The Only Fire Present is My Burning Rage

It was last Thursday. I was halfway through cooking a couple of fried eggs. In my kitchen, around nine at night, I stood and watched my eggs sizzle. And then the fire alarm went off. 

I believe it was nearly two years ago that I last heard it outside the usual alarm tests. Two years ago ish it had gone off twice within a couple of months, but the panic around that has stayed with me since. Too often am I on edge, anticipating the bells to ring at the most inconvenient of times. When I’m showering. When I’m in the midst of taking a poop. When I’m fast asleep in the wee hours. I live in a mild state of somewhat constant terror. But for nearly two years, it was quiet. 

Until it wasn’t. 

Except the panic was much less, because I’d been joking about my building catching on fire hundreds of times at this point. It was a running joke now. The fear remained but it was predominantly hidden beneath morbid humor. Every time I hear sirens screaming down the street whilst I’m at dance, I jokingly comment, “oh I wonder if my building’s on fire again”. I did not leave my house quickly this time. I was not in a haste because I didn’t believe I needed to be. The concrete garbage I live in may be stupid looking, but it’s decently fireproof. *knocks on wooden coffee table*. 

I heard the alarms. I stood still for a moment asking myself if it was somehow a test, without warning, at night. I decided probably not, so I went to my door and looked through my peephole to see if anyone was leaving quickly or if it was my floor burning. The hall was empty and unburnt. I went back to my eggs and contemplated as to whether or not to leave. I went with the latter, but I went at sloth speed. I took my eggs off the burner and turned the heat off. I then decided that my plate of sliced pears should probably not sit on the counter lest I’m stuck outside for days so I moved that to the fridge after some more contemplation. 

I then wandered into my living room to layer up. I had fuzzy socks on and thought they would fit into my boots but they didn’t so I took my time changing socks. I took my time deciding on a hoodie to wear. I took my time going back and forth between wearing a jacket or wearing a thick flannel over the chosen hoodie. I took my time getting my wallet and my glasses. Then I figured, since the last two times I never brought anything else beyond the pocket trio, wallet, phone, keys, I chose to add my laptop to that list and tucked it into my backpack. I stood idle for another few moments wondering if I should also bring the charger, but I decided against it since I didn’t want to wrestle it out of the wall. 

At this point, I was hoping that I would take so long to get ready that by the time I left, the alarms would stop and the issue would be resolved. That didn’t happen so I moseyed down the seven flights of stairs and headed out into the brisk night to stand a wee ways away from my building and wait. There were very few people out there compared to the last two times I did this. Presumably, because, like me, most people no longer took this seriously and, unlike me, were smart and stayed inside where it was warm. There actually was a chap that I saw chilling on his balcony on the second floor. He was probably chuckling at all the rest of us standing outside like idiots. 

We waited. A firetruck eventually came. We knew it wasn’t an emergency by then. I had gathered the truth from those around me already. I was standing out here in the cold like a buffoon all for naught. 

Do you remember me saying that I would make a burning building joke everytime sirens passed my dance studio? Well I was at dance on Wednesday night and sirens went off and I made my little joke to myself. Except I had been right, though I wouldn’t know that until the next evening. Some of those sirens were for my building. Just like there were sirens for my building four days prior on Friday that I wasn’t present for. Do you know why there were so many fire alarm fiascos in such quick succession? 

Rebellion in the stupidest manner possible.

We have fire alarm tests every couple months or so, maybe more often than that. Notices get posted in the elevators and common spaces a week before these are scheduled to happen to give us all ample warning. This is a good thing to do. Testing the alarms is a good thing to do. It’s annoying, sure. They last about an hour, ten to eleven in the morning usually. Typically on a weekday. But you don’t have to leave your house, you can stay home and just try to ignore the sound. However, apparently not everyone feels the same way. The reason that the alarms went off those three times was due to some residents intentionally pulling them in protest to the tests. I learned that, while standing twenty feet from my house, this time a dude pulled the alarm right in front of one of the building managers. 

Fucking…. Pardon?!?

I left my house, I left my eggs half cooked, I ventured out into the cold ass night all because some dipshits are pissed off about fire alarm tests. And….. to show their pissed off-ness… they pulled the fire alarms. 

I don’t see how that makes any sense. What Olympic level mental gymnastics are these people performing to come to this conclusion? 

I just wanted to wind down from a day of fist fighting seniors at my drugstore on our bonus day. I just wanted to make my dinner and sit on my couch and eat and loaf. But instead I had to stand outside for, I dunno, too long, a half hour maybe, because my neighbors are stupid and they suck. Furthermore, they’re causing a “boy who cried wolf” situation since no one is going to take a real fire seriously after this shit. Gods, I hate living with other people.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Be a Sweetie, Wipe Your Seatie

I’ve never babysat because I’m afraid of dealing with children. In the end it mattered not, my avoidance of this one occupation, since I have to do it with my fellow adults, most of which are older than me. This dealing with adult children is most prominent in the workplace. I’ve all but given up on cleaning the messes of my coworkers, whether it be a mess of lazy stocking or a pileup of dirt. Apparently no one knows how to put a garbage bag in a garbage bin correctly, they just halfassedly open it and pile it on top of the bin without properly fitting it. No one else seems to sweep, so I do that. They don’t know how to tidy up their workspace, so I do that too. But these things are not what drove me to write this log. There is something worse. Something I did not clean up after because I drew my line right there and then.

I had to pee after my lunch break. We have two single occupant bathrooms next to each other by our staff room. One was in use so I went to the other. I’m used to doing a squat above toilet seats in public bathrooms lest I sit on something wet. However, it’s typically just the seat I have to worry about, and a few invisible droplets of failed aim at most. This was not like that. I walked in and the toilet seat was covered in failed aim, the outer toilet bowl was covered, the floor around the base of the toilet was splattered. Alas, I didn’t notice the floor until after I had resigned myself to my hoversquat and moved my feet slightly to adjust my position. My shoes squeaked. They squeaked because I scooted them when they were wet and they were wet because there was piss on the floor. 

When I had to pee again after work, the second bathroom was free and I walked in. I walked out again after two seconds because that toilet, like the first, was covered from seat to bowl, to floor with urine. I was not cleaning that up. I don’t care if in that moment I contributed to the problem of “someone else can deal with this”, because the owner of the mess should have dealt with it. That is their own biohazard to clean. If I get blood everywhere from wrestling out a tampon or something, that is my biohazard to clean up and I will clean it up because I am a grown ass person. The youngest people we have working are around sixteen I believe, maybe fifteen. There are no excuses for pissing all over the place. There are especially no excuses for not cleaning up after doing it. If you cannot aim standing to such a catastrophic degree, fucking take a seat. The horrendous addition to this is apparently the one responsible is identifiable by name. Somebody told me who it was. Which, if true, leads me to believe this stupid idiot culprit has done this enough times that it’s believable knowledge amongst a few coworkers. This stupid idiot is also a full grown adult. Not even a dumb teenager. An adult. An adult peed all over the bathroom and then left the mess for someone else. 

I’m not getting paid to babysit. I didn’t sign up to babysit. There are no babies to sit. Yet here I am nonetheless dealing with toddler-brained adults who can’t clean up their spills or remember their food from the fridge or wipe the toilet seat down after relieving themselves. No, instead, the countertops are covered in dried spills, the fridge smells like ass, and the bathrooms are soaked in piss. And guess fucking what? This is not the first place I’ve worked where everything is gross and disorganized and messy because other coworkers and customers alike are adult babies who suck at being decent humans. This is like the fourth. Fucking disgusting! Do better! I don’t want a child and here I am with fifty of them! 

It’s times like these where all I can do is remind myself of my future cabin on the edge of society where I won’t need to interact with the rest of humanity unless I fancy to. I simply must tell myself, “think of the cabin. You’ll be working from home as a writer. You won’t work in these uncivilized places then. You can avoid the humanimals, avoid them all. You’ll be free, just remember one day you’ll be free”. I can only hope those words will come true. I don’t know how much faith I have left in people anymore after a quarter of a century of pure, unadulterated bullshittery.