Tag Archives: rage

The camera adds 50 pounds, er, euros, er, nevermind

I have pre-travel agitation. My horoscope that arrives via e-mail each morning usually says something easily ignored like “Beware being mauled by a shark” or “Isn’t it time you tossed that mascara?” But today it said “This is not a good time for travel as frequent obstacles can arise.” The hell!

Perhaps I will write again later when I am still sitting in the airport in Boston long after I should have arrived at my destination. I will be the one swearing and drinking a bottle of Purell while trying to stab someone at the Air France counter with my travel lint roller. Or maybe I’ll never even make it to the airport. I think I feel a reaction to exfoliation coming on. Throat closing…. Initiate emergency self-tanning procedures….

Mr. H and I are going to try an experiment and post a photo every day during our vacation. Of course there are many variables that may interfere, including terrorism, the Pope’s funeral, the Mercury retrograde, and whether or not we murder each other. We love to travel together, but it’s just not a vacation without at least one screaming fight. Luckily I speak Spanish and he doesn’t, so I have the upper hand when threatening to leave him somewhere.

She’ll Drive a Big Car

Oh God how I hate the motherf@#$ing B. (For those of tuning in from a safe distance from Boston, the B is a hulking, train-like object that crawls down the street crammed with the dense folk that populate Boston University). I thought it was bad in the summer, all those chunky college girls in low slung spare-tire-pushup pants. Rolling bare guts everywhere. When I got a seat they would surround me at eye level. I felt like I was trapped ina bag of marshmallows.

Oh but winter promises a crushing of the soul. The morning train is packed and its all elbows and humongous backpacks and cellphones. It fills me with hatred for my fellow humans. It laces my inner monologue with a frenzy of “motherf@#$er” I take deep breaths- its not their fault they are two human sizes too large and they have to read Lord of the Rings with their elbows planted in the small of my back. Of course one must flip their waist length hair with one’s hands, even if it lashes into my eyes and mouth.

I wish I were a Woodsman by trade. Then I could board the train with an axe slung over my shoulder (and a jaunty feathered cap!)

I took a taxi twice this week. What bliss! I sail into work on time with well-groomed fingernails and a broad smile. I talk to Greeks, Haitians, Dominicans, Trinidadians. We laugh and agree that life is short so fuck it. I admire the skyline, I tip well.

I can’t help it that I was also born a human, but I just can’t take Satan’s Herd!

-xo

There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west

I’ve got “Stairway to Heaven” stuck in my head because some deviant was playing it on an acoustic guitar in the train station. Call me a Nazi (“Nazi!”), but people shouldn’t be allowed to play in public if they aren’t any good. There, I said it. It’s too bad there’s not a musical version of nanowrimo to keep those sorts otherwise occupied.

I also inadvertently confused the names of two ethnic characters in a thinger I was trying to code, which led to hijinks and me wondering why my shit didn’t work. Hi, my name is Hitler. Then my sister pointed out that I am terrible at recognizing people, just like she is. And it’s true: people frequently say things like “Hey, I saw you at blah blah (the cheese counter at Shaw’s, Starbucks) and you were blah blah (staring into space, trying on a bra), and I blah blah (batted my eyes, yelled at you) but you didn’t notice me.” I think it’s a symptom of late-onset autism.

(But really, if you were an art director, would you name your token ethnic characters incredibly similar names? Mary, John, Patty, Samir, and Samar? I think not!)

Heather mentioned the joys of being completely insane in her triumphant return post. These days, instead of skittering around worrying that the Hancock Tower is going to thwap down like a flyswatter and squash me, or goggling at how shiny the sidewalk is, I just stick with garden variety rage. I blame the MBTA, hormonal birth control, the downstairs neighbors, going to work, ill-fitting pants, the incredibly unexciting lunar eclipse, and solar flares for my rage. If I had managed to retain my propensity for ingesting random substances people hand me, things might be different. Curse you, aging process. And curse you, common sense.

But someday Lambchop and l will have to tell you about the time we huddled under a pool table for hours, only taking a break to watch Suddenly Susan and wrap duct tape around a computer monitor.

-xxoo

I, Melvin

Already today I have been provoked to the brink of madness. As I wandered into the train station at the start of my morning journey, I thought I heard the strains of “The Star Spangled Banner,” but in a manner so devoid of musical talent that I thought a wee child must be having his way with a recorder. As I descended the stairs, I saw that it was in fact a gentleman of competent mental age wielding a fife.

He gamely struck up an off-key attempt at “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” I clenched my fist and rolled my eyes heavenward, debating what to do. Should I club him dead where he stood with my umbrella? Should I offer him money to stop playing until the train came? I feared that either approach would lead to an unpleasant discussion on the nature and quality of my patriotism, so I slunk away. I may indeed be a patriot, but I am no nationalist, and there is nothing inherent in the meaning of patriotism about suffering through the abuse of the Western musical scale. Just try telling this to the Ashcrofts among us.

Then he lurched into an utterly tuneless rendition of “Greensleeves,” followed by a dissonant take on Pachelbel’s Canon. All bets are off, I thought, I owe it to myself and the rest of the populus to strike him dead. The train was approaching at long last, and the hapless fool began to tweet his way through “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” I lunged viciously, but was restrained at the last second by a burly buffoon wearing a fleece vest that read “Pro Player.”

And you sir, you are a professional at what endeavor? Balding? Overeating? The wearing of stone washed DENIM? I hissed and narrowed the pupils of my eyes like a lizard, and he released me from his grasp as if burned. I dove into a waiting car and stalked to a seat, only to be displaced by an immensely fat woman.

I sulked all the way to the terminus of my route. I wasn’t even able to delight myself with my favorite game of imagination, wherein I script little cards bearing grooming and sartorial advice to be handed to the other passengers.

-xxoo

Dateline: Bok Bok Bok!

Wherein I fire my colorist and press charges

“You call those highlights? Try GRILL MARKS! FIX THEM!”

A chunk-a-chunk here, a chunk-a-chunk there. Three hours later, I leave, shaking with rage. The hair is moderately fixed. A brief sojourn in the trailer park is humorous, oui, but try doing that 4 fucking days before the most photographed day of your life. Imagine if you were giving birth on The Discovery Channel and your waxer gave you a fucking shamrock instead of the requested star or heart or Gucci logo. Ugh. Just wrong. I consulted with Kitty Winn, and she was properly livid too.

Kitty and I also discussed wedding night lingerie. I said “Tell me, Kitty, what’s a sexy direction? Crotchless maybe?” And she rolled her eyes and yawned, “Oh, honey, he’s already bought that cow at that point. Give it up. You might as well be comfortable.”

So there you are. Oh, and we got married by a JP in lower Allston. The witness was a giant orange cat named Mr. Fluffy. So pop a cork for me and Mr. H. We could have held out til Saturday, but the paperwork for the gay Venezuelan Jew who was supposed to marry us didn’t go through. Imagine Mitt Romney denying such an application. I never. Now we just have to have an anticlimactic dog and pony show, huzzah!

-xxoo

Let’s get it on

If I published a wedding mag, I would call it either Big Fat Bride or Fucking Crazy. The simple fact is that weddings bring out the worst in everyone. Welcome to disordered eating (not because you’re trying to lose weight, but because you simply feel sick all the time), the worst fights of your relationship, and every decision you make being scrutinized by your mother’s neighbor’s manicurist.

Today while accomplishing some tedious footwear errand, I got to talking with the shop girl while someone was packing my stuff up attractively. She’s getting married soon, and we were comiserating about the last minute details. She mentioned she wasn’t even on speaking terms with her fiancee.

“Ha,” I said, “that’s what no one ever tells you when you get engaged. Did the fight go like this by any chance? ‘You’re an idiot, what was I thinking, I hate you, Oh God, I can’t wait til we’re married so we can get divorced!”

“YES, so I’m not the only one! Don’t forget ‘What do you mean you told your mother THAT?’ and ‘I wish we were both dead!'”

So there you have it, ladies and gents. Premarital rage. Mike Tyson-style. Perhaps Mike said it best when he said “I’ll fuck you til you love me, bitch!” Ah, just the thing to put on the programs! I do love an epigraph.

In short: go. to. Vegas.

-xxoo