Iphy Hates School

You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You'll be left in a Lurch.

You'll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll be in a Slump.

And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.

I don't know if this is a slump or a lurch or feeling bummed about the mater leaving town or what. Maybe this is just how an over-achieving academic perfectionist feels when it looks like she's going to be getting her first B ever on a midterm. Maybe it's becoming more and more apparent that I hate school and want to quit. It's just so...pointless. All these hoops to jump through in order to achieve something that I don't even know if I want.
It's easy for me to say this. I know plenty of people with useless degrees just like mine...
< For those of you just now tuning into the Iphy show, I have a bachelor degree from the motherland. Because I'm still deciding how much I want to identify myself on this old word-receptacle, I might not say what it's in...suffice it to say, it makes sculpture or art history look like really rational, grown-up choices. Anyhoot...>
...and they have jobs! Not jobs they like much, but I also know a lot of people with Very Good In Demand degrees who are working in pertinent fields who also don't like their jobs much. I know a lot of ex-dance, theater, music, philosophy, and history majors who are all gainfully employed in areas that, while boring as bat shit, pay the bills.
I could just front up to an employment agency and say "Yo, bitches. I have a bachelor degree, seven years experience owning, running, and marketing a small business, I can type sixty five words a minute, I'm reasonably computer-literate, and I don't have a prison record or a drug habit." I bet you they'd find me something. I almost want to try it, just to see what happens.
Maybe I should just stick around for the fall session of school, take statistics and that one computer class, and call it good. Fuck if I know.
I'd think about it more, but I have to go and write a specific purpose statement for an informative speech that will inform no one about anything and achieve nothing except another inch towards a piece of paper signifying that I am Highly Educated.

Grin and bear this.

One day, I'm not going to be a good sport. I won't turn the other cheek or keep the peace. When you come out with some ridiculous bullshit and expect me to go along with it, I'll shock the hell out of you by refusing, and not politely. I won't smile sweetly or engage in severe cognitive dissonance just to maintain the status quo. I'll tell you exactly what I think, not just of the situation and your suggestion relating to it, but what I think of you, as well. Someone should tell you. Someone should tell you what a spoiled, self-centered brat you are. Someone should tell you that your carefully acquired "slumming" mannerisms don't hide your bred-in-the-bone snobbery. Someone should call you out on the shitty way you treat people. In fact, everyone should treat you equally as badly for a few months, just so you can get a taste of it. For all your ambition, you're never going to get anywhere. You're one-dimensional, uncreative, and impossible to get along with. I hope I'm there the day you give up. I can't wait to see the look on your face.
Guitardbot accuses me of being punk rock, even when I don't know the name of the band Johnny Rotten had after the Sex Pistols. He's mistaken. If I was really punk rock, I wouldn't be this much of pushover. I wouldn't be scared to tell people when they were acting like assholes. A true punk rock girl would flip someone off for suggesting that she bend over backwards to accommodate everyone else, and if they asked her more than once, she'd spit in their face. She wouldn't acquiesce as a matter of course, seething silently all the while.
Iphy: easy to work with.
Iphy: totally flexible and prepared to work to everyone else's schedule.
Iphy: never a diva or a drama queen or overly demanding.
Iphy: just give her a steady supply of Diet Coke and the occasional trip to Wal-Mart and she's happy as a clam.
Iphy: low maintenance.
Iphy: silly, flakey, crazy, cranky, tardy Iphy, who can't ever request or suggest anything because she's a walking joke.
Iphy: if you want to make a really outrageous request or subtly insult someone, go see Iphy, because there's no way in hell she'll put up any kind of a fight.
Iphy: aren't you glad you're not her?
I hope I'm reincarnated as a necrotizing fascitis bacteria. It's pretty hard to get along with something that's actively eating away at your flesh and making you look like an extra from a George Romero film.

At last we meet, Mr Bond...

So I finally, FINALLY hung out with Guitardbot. He got back from tour last week, and then I had an out-of-town gig over the Thursday through Saturday. Sunday night, we met up at the bar, ate poutine, drank cider (me) and IPA (him...at least, I think it was IPA), wandered around, went to Cafe Hipster al Fuckwad (you know, the one with all the movie and TV merchandise from the 80s and 90s to make twenty- and thirty-somethings nostalgic for their spoiled-white-kid childhoods parked in front of the idiot box? That one?), drank a vanilla latte (him) and a peppermint tea (me), walked around a little, went to his place, sat on the couch and talked about books, smoked in the yard, sat on the couch again, talked about books some more...aaaaaand then...I very, very awkwardly mentioned that I wanted to kiss him. Which I had actually been wanting to do for about five hours, at that point. Turns out there was a reason I wanted to kiss (and do other things with) him. That reason was...awesomeness.
 So, yes. I totally failed at taking my time, showing restraint, following "The Rules", and thinking with my brain rather than my junk, but whatever. I got all my homework done and THEN went and fooled around with someone I'd just met in real life, despite having known them on the interwebs for nearly four months.
There are many messy overshares I could engage in here, but I think it's time to go to sleep. It's nice when someone turns out to be as rad as you suspected they were.

A One-Eyed Marine

I wish I could have talked to him. He had skin where his right eye should have been. You could see the outline of his eye socket through it. I wanted to go up and touch it and tell him about all of the things in me that are broken and it's not fair because I bet he's totally normal but probably some people treat him like a freak, and here I am, fundamentally, profoundly damaged goods, wrapped up in a nice little normal shell, ripe for friendly approaches and no untimely staring. But it was crowded and I was hustling for tips and he was busy being all Marine-y with his friend. They were so cute in their shiny jackets and white pants.
The crazy came back. I stopped taking my meds, not really on purpose, just sort of inadvertently. I didn't mean to, I just kept forgetting, and then nothing bad happened, so I just stopped altogether. And then today I couldn't make the online psych program work and started to cry in the library. The day pretty much went downhill from there. I know I'm supposed to be fighting the stigma against mental illness and accepting it for what it is and making lemons out of lemonade and all that shit, but if I'm honest...I really, really wish I didn't have to deal with this depression rubbish. So often, I find myself wanting to throw my hands up and moan, "Why me?" I know the answer is really, "why not me?", but that's cold fucking comfort, my friend.
This evening I wanted to excise myself from my body. Like when they cut out a melanoma. I wanted someone to take a scalpel and very carefully remove my personality. Then they could take someone else's temperament and thought processes and graft them into my shell. Everyone would win and this stupid, pathetic, lazy, mediocre, boring, weak, melodramatic, self-pitying piece of shit I call a character would end up in the hospital incinerator.
Funny thing is, I don't actually feel like that now. It's weird how all that just comes and goes.

I'm at least as interesting as Kevin Smith

Ok, that's a lie. I haven't created any cult-classic films that are hallmarks of a generation, nor have I been through the shit-storm that is being friends with a junkie. And I don't have a hot wife or a mansion or a cute little kid. I'm not friends with any movie stars. I'm not culturally significant. But one thing this blog has going for it that the Boring-ass Life doesn't is that I don't tell you every single time I take a dump. I don't feel you need to know the intricate details of my bowel movements, somehow, nor do I particularly want to be well-versed in the same in regards to Mr Smith. No matter how rad I think he is.
Guitardbot got back from his tour yesterday. I'd like to hang out with him but I don't actually want to suggest it. I never should have read that damn book, "The Rules". The only reason I'm a "creature unlike any other" is that I can burp the alphabet and floss between my nose and mouth with a folding balloon.
Summer classes start tomorrow. I'm taking an introductory speech class and for the first assignment, I need to write about someone who inspires me. This sort of claptrap generally makes me want to stab myself in the face with a take-out spork, but I think I could have a little fun with it. Here are some ideas  I've had so far.
1. The Donner Party. I think their heroic actions capture the American spirit of perserverance.Way to manifest destiny, dudes.
2. Dan Savage. Let's talk about sex, baby. In disgusting, squishy, over-share-y detail and make all the squares cringe. And let's do it on NPR. Oh, and also, let's help gay teenagers not kill themselves due to being hassled by fucktards.
3. Legs. How many paraplegic contortionist circus / burlesque stars do you know? None. None many.
4. Mabel Stark. Bitch was married five times and wrestled tigers for a living. What's not to respect? Also, she wound up topping herself, just to make sure she was in charge of it all right 'til the end.
5. The homeless guy at the Division Red Line stop. For someone with a terrifyingly deformed leg, he sure is chipper. Plus I bet he knows at least four different ways to kill someone with an empty fo'ty.