No, Seriously....

...it really is THAT QUIET.

(Well, aside from the 3 AM sound of a certain gray-and-white cat upscuttling an ENTIRE freshly-opened bag of cat litter into the just-vacuumed carpet, that is--and the spate of profanity, dire threats, and a swat on the hindquarters (the cat's, not mine) which attended that discovery... Anybody want to be night-care for a cute kitty, so I can get some frakkin' SLEEP?)

Also: does anyone other than Firefly get a popup window when they get to this site? (FF, I'm thinkin' you've maybe got spyware--I tried opening my site both at work and at home, and my popup blockers don't even burp...but I wonder if anyone else is having the same issue?)

Work--which I still love, mind you--is nevertheless a multi-ring circus, just at the moment; having come much closer than I ever have in the past to divulging where, exactly, "work" is, I'm not going to get detailed about it (as I did in the past) because there's a much better chance that "my readership" and "my colleagues" might bump up against each other on a Venn diagram. Still love the job; it's just...There are less-than-competent people no matter WHERE you work. That's all I can say, although I can freely cross-reference with the Peter Principle.

Otherwise, it's very, very quiet. And I'm happy, for the moment, with the quietness. By spring I'll be ready for something new; in the meantime, though, I'm content to go to work, come home, eat, feed cats, watch TV, and go to sleep. It's an extremely peaceful life.

Things I Am Thankful For, 2007 Edition

Things I am thankful for, in no particular order:

--peace
--quiet
--the disruption of peace and quiet by two gorgeous kitties
--employment and the accoutrements thereof
--...especially the paycheck part
--singlehood (which I'm thankful for, except when I'm not)
--that I'm ME, and not some other people of my acquaintance
--my mom (I'd say "family" but...um, not so much--except for Dad's side...Okay, so: family.)
--my friends, both the blog kind and the "real-life" kind
--sobriety
--the absence of drama
--the substantial amount of extremely delicious food which I am now going to Mom's for the purpose of consuming.

I'm thankful, as well, that anybody bothers to read this drivel--so a happy Thanksgiving to all of you! May your family be non-contentious, your turkey juicy, and your gravy lump-free.

Peace and Quiet....Sorta

While my personal life has (with the exception of Tim, who still needs to STFU, and LJ, who just needs to borrow a clue along with the $800 he owes me) been remarkably peaceful and quiet, that's pretty much ALL that has.

If you're not from Chicago, I'll explain in a minute. If you ARE from Chicago:

That fatal shooting off-campus at the University? Three blocks from here. The other incidents that same night--the armed robbery and the near-robbery-with-gunfire? One was about six blocks from where I'm currently living; the other?

About 100 feet from my building's front door.

It would be ironic, wouldn't it, if something happened to me HERE, after living uneventfully in the 'hood for four years? (And I use "ironic" in the sense of "...and also really, REALLY bad.")

For you non-Chicagoans: a doctoral student from Senegal, a chem student here at the University, who had just successfully defended his dissertation a few days ago, was shot and killed a few feet from his front door on Sunday night. That shooting happened a little after 1 AM; within the previous hour, two students were robbed at gunpoint several blocks away, and a University employee was shot at as he attempted to avoid being robbed (they missed him). The police have pretty much nothing, or at least, nothing that they're saying; a "light-colored" car, men of "average" height and weight...so basically, nothing.

Things are a little tense here, as you might imagine. My mom is freaking out because I walk home in the dark; I try to tell her there's a difference between 6 PM-dark and midnight-dark, but I see her point all the same. Even I'm nervous, a little, and you KNOW how much it takes to make ME nervous. I hope they catch the guys who did this.

Otherwise, all is fairly quiet. I'm still not fully unpacked, largely owing to a lack of places to put my various kitchen items; I'm going to make a Home Depot pilgrimage over the long weekend, and put some shelves in a closet to convert it to a pantry. Once that's done, I can reclaim most of my bookshelves, and unpack my books and assorted little decorative items; then, once the boxes are all gone, I can arrange things more to my liking. It's still a wonderful place, boxes and all, and I'm very happy here.

I took Tim's cat back to him over the weekend, much to the relief of BadCat and the despair of Snick; they were best buddies, and I don't think Snick knows what to do with himself now that his wrestling-pal is gone. He's managed to fill the void, however, by bouncing insanely off the walls--no, that is NOT a figure of speech; the cat LITERALLY BOUNCES off the walls. If I ever manage to videotape it, it will be the YouTube hit of the year. However, yesterday morning he added an unpleasant finale to the performance; he raced around for forty minutes like a crazed thing, then spewed his breakfast over a six-square-foot area of the living room. (It was a momentary upset, what cat owners sometimes refer to as a "snarf-n-barf"--cat eats too much, or too fast, or goes crazy too soon after eating, and ...blorggh.) Shortly after the blorggh in question, he started meowing to be fed again--apparently, having emptied his stomach, he felt he was entitled to a second helping. I grudgingly gave him a spoonful of food, along with dire threats of the vet visit that would take place if he didn't keep THAT down. Chastened, he nibbled at his snack and slunk away for a nap. Since then, he's answered, reluctantly, to "Dr. Pukenstein".

Cat stories, if you've not noticed, are generally harbingers of a peaceful, unruffled existence. And I hope to be telling cat stories quite a bit; they're INFINITELY more enjoyable--for me, at least--than Tim-and-Squeaky stories.

Well, okay, ONE more of those...

My mom drove me to drop off Cassidy. Tim is living with Squeaky and her dad, in the far north suburbs, quite a long way from me. So I pack up his cat, along with a few days worth of food and supplements for when Tim tries to make his own cat food, and the three of us--Mom, Gladys, and cat--ride 45 minutes into the 'burbs (during the last NASCAR race of the season!).

We reach the appointed address, and I call Tim on my cell phone. The first thing he says when he sees us? "Oh, thanks so much for bringing...."

Oh. Wait. That was in a dream world, where Tim acts like a civilized human with a sense of gratitude.

What he REALLY said: "See, I wish you would have pulled around to the back...I thought you were gonna pull around, so I wouldn't have to bring him through the front door...."

I looked at him for a moment, attempted to start an unrelated sentence, and then stopped and simply said "You know, you're WELCOME...."

He covered his embarrassment--assuming that's what he was feeling, which is a pretty big assumption--by yelling at Squeaky about something. But I really, seriously, just wanted to slap him til his teeth rattled. He's really been a jerk lately. (He tried to explain that away over the phone a day or two later--he was talking about how he's in pain--he hurt his foot, and his shoulder hurts, and his teeth are acting up, and....I was like...you know, people manage to be civilized and have manners, even when they're not feeling well, so I really wish you'd just own up to having been a butthead, apologize, and move on. The excuses are getting old. )

Needless to say, I was very glad to get home. Solitude, even with insane housecats, is a wonderful thing.

STFU, Drew Peterson

I know lots of you who are reading are Chicagoans; for those of you who aren't, I'll throw you a little background on this one first:

Stacy Peterson is a wife and mother who disappeared about three weeks ago. Her husband is a police officer in suburban Bolingbrook--or was, til he resigned today--and he is a suspect in her disappearance. What makes this story unusual is that the missing woman is his fourth wife, and that his third wife died under suspicious circumstances several years ago. The death was ruled an accident at the time, but her body has now been exhumed in an effort to link Peterson to her death.

Peterson has criticized the media roundly throughout the search for his wife (in which he has not participated) but this morning, he went on a local news show and said, among other delights, the following:

Drew Peterson said Stacy would ask for a divorce on a regular basis "based on her menstrual cycle" after her sister died.

If that, and that alone, doesn't make every one of my female readers want to slap this man til he cries like a two-year-old...

I'm not saying that women don't get hormonal. I don't think there's a woman around who can deny that at least once in her life, at a certain point in the month, she's singlehandedly polished off a half-gallon of ice cream, an entire Eli's cheesecake, or three bags of Milano cookies--in bad cases, all three--while sitting on the sofa sobbing over a peanut-butter commercial. And yeah--we get angry sometimes.

But sometimes? We even get angry when it's NOT our period.

Sometimes we actually get angry in--hold on here, Drew--in RESPONSE to the actions of those around us. Like, maybe controlling husbands. Or people who make us feel threatened, or (as you yourself put it) "cornered".

And frankly, Drew, even if Stacy's requests for divorce WERE "based on her menstrual cycle"--why is that information you felt you needed to share? Why couldn't you just say "she asked for a divorce periodically" or "she'd mentioned it several times"...Why does the whole question of hormones need to be brought into this discussion--unless it's to paint Stacy as a "flighty", "emotional" female who couldn't make up her mind--in other words, a stereotype? Because it's much harder to have sympathy for a stereotype, isn't that right?

I don't know if he's got anything to do with Stacy Peterson's disappearance, or whether there's good reason to suspect him of being involved with the death of wife #3. What I DO know, though, from this quote alone, is that there IS good reason to suspect him of being a vile, chauvinistic, macho-bullshit assclown.

Excuse Me While I Become Insensitive

Okay, look. You all know me pretty well by now; I'm a marshmallow when it comes to other people's pain. And of course, anyone's death is a tragic thing; the death of a parent is possibly one of the most anguished moments in anyone's life; and I love me some Kanye.

BUT.

I have to say this.

From everything that's being reported right now, Donda West died from complications of plastic surgery; allegedly, a breast augmentation and a tummy tuck. (Updated, 11/13/07: The original report I saw said "augmentation", but that info came from the highly suspect TMZ.com. Since then I've heard it was a breast reduction, not an augmentation. I don't know why I have a slightly easier time accepting a reduction than I do an augmentation; still, they're both changes that aren't medically necessary, and certainly aren't worth dying for.)

If that turns out to be true, isn't it ironic? Kanye West, through his lyrics, supports the standard that requires women to have enormous breasts, flat stomachs, and round butts in order to be considered "attractive". Not just in HIS songs, but in songs he collaborates on with other artists, he pushes this whole "ideal" of female beauty which practically demands surgical intervention in order to reach it.

He's not a stupid or uncaring guy, I don't think. This is the same man who wasn't afraid to tweak George Bush's nose on live TV for his inaction during Hurricane Katrina; the same man who wasn't afraid to contradict nearly ALL of hip-hop by calling for an end to homophobia and gay-bashing in rap. Kanye West, whatever his quirks of personality, whatever his self-aggrandizements, is no sheep. Apparently, when he thinks, he thinks clearly and kindly, for the most part...

...unless the topic is women. He gives us no quarter. My ability to listen to some of his music without puking is preserved only by my understanding: people generally speak from their experience, and judging from some of the things he's said, I don't doubt he's been involved with some treacherous women. There are such things; I'm not blind enough to pretend there aren't. But that's not where I have the problem. The problem, for me, is the physical characteristics he demands women display in order to be attractive--the same characteristics you hear celebrated throughout all of hip-hop, in nearly every song, generally in words nobody says in front of your grandma. I'm normally not one for "blame-the-music", but in this case, music and music video have been a big influence on creating the particular beauty standard.

I'm not saying hip-hop is the only medium obsessed with looks, nor am I blaming ONLY Kanye for the messages women are surrounded with. But he is a voice, and he has the standing in his field which makes his words very influential. He could have been using that influence to go against the tide, to speak out for "real" women, and to decry the surgically-enhanced fakeness only porn stars and video dancers can dream of. He chose instead to reinforce the fantasy-world so many men choose to live in, and so many women choose to become a part of.

And when his own mother tried to live up to those standards--the same ones her son, with his status as a renowned lyricist and an established talent, chose to advocate as the ideal even when he COULD have been speaking out against them--something went wrong, and Kanye West lost the most important person in his life.

In no way am I blaming Kanye West for his mother's death. That, besides being completely incorrect, would be purely disgusting and hateful. At 58, who knows what his mother was trying to gain from a tummy-tuck and a breast augmentation? But if the cultural tide wasn't so strong, would she have perhaps felt better about the changes time makes in all of us? Would she have still felt the need to try to turn back the clock--the same clock we all run by?

I feel terrible for Kanye, the same way I would feel terrible for anyone else who's lost a parent they were particularly close to. I went through it myself and I know it's incredibly painful, and I would imagine that much of his time and thought for the next little while will be taken up with grieving. But when he returns to making music, as I'm sure he will...if Kanye West keeps on in the same way after this--if he doesn't re-evaluate his own words, the false ideals they support, and the cost of those falsehoods--I'm going to lose a lot of the respect I have for him.

You're An Insincere, Self-Aggrandizing Jackass, And I Mean That In A Good Way

So I talked to Tim again last night--since he accused me of having "dodged" him while he was homeless, you can be damn sure I call him back when he leaves a message--and I called him on that "insincere" accusation. Get this: He says he "didn't mean it that way".

How on earth can you call someone insincere and mean it in any OTHER way?? If I called you a steaming pile of pustulent, worm-ridden vulture poop, how many ways are there to take it? And of those ways, how many are positive?

Yes--people have differences of opinion. Yes--each person tries to see himself or herself, and his or her own actions and motives, in the best possible light. I'm every bit as guilty of this as anyone else. But I think I have a pretty good monitor on it, at least; I'm fairly conscious of my own flaws, at least. I don't think insincerity is among them--though impatience with whining and excuse-making is DEFINITELY one of them, which is what Tim interprets as my "insincerity".

But apparently it's okay, because he "didn't mean it that way".

Well, to that, I say: Have a lousy day, you stenchitudinous, intellectually-underdeveloped puddle of hippo puke. And I mean that in the best way. ;)

STFU, Tim!

First things first:

People, I am TIRED of cardboard.

If I nevereverever see another box again, it will be entirely too soon.

'Nuff of that, though.

So tonight, Tim calls me. He's clearly been drinking; he's in that voluble state he gets into after a few beers. We chat pleasantly for a while, and then the conversation gets down to Squeaky, and how he's "looking out" for her. ("Controlling" would be a better word, if you ask me; nobody did, though, so: whatevva.)

And then he gets down to talking about ME; how he just wanted to remind me how he said I shouldn't "pretend" to be Squeaky's friend if I didn't really mean it. And how the REASON he said that was, over the three years he was homeless, how he felt like I wasn't there for him in the way I seemed to want to THINK I was.

In other words, this colossal prick was accusing me of being insincere and not doing enough for him when he was homeless.

Does anyone but me remember that I cared for his three cats for EIGHTEEN MONTHS???!!!??? (He pretty much holds me responsible for the fact that two of his cats did not survive--because I told him he had to take care of them, because I told him that they needed to stay somewhere else and HE chose to take them somewhere where they were not safe. Of course, the only reason I said this was because he was making NO effort--NONE--to provide for these cats AT ALL--not a bag of food, not a bag of litter, nothing. Certainly not a dime did I ever see. And speaking of "insincere"--all those times he would promise to "help me out" with the cats' needs...Yeah. Whatever. But I didn't do ENOUGH for him, because I wasn't willing to do everything without any compensation.) Apparently, I was also supposed to INSIST that he come to stay with me and LJ; even though I offered repeatedly, I was apparently not "sincere" enough. And because I got tired of listening to his litany of excuses and woes and "reasons" he couldn't keep a job, and started screening my calls and not answering or calling him back every time he called, apparently that makes me a bad person. (I didn't completely ignore him--I would say I answered maybe a third of the calls. And could we, just for a moment, remember that during that time I was battling heroin addiction and VERY severe depression??? But I didn't do enough for HIM. Nevermind that I could barely take care of mySELF--apparently I was supposed to knock myself out for HIM.)

And even if all those things are true--even if I am completely, 100% delusional about my own motives and actions--that does not obliterate the following fact:

HE LIVED IN MY HOUSE, RENT-FREE, FOR A YEAR. All his cigarettes, all his beer, all his food, were purchased by me. Favors were done for him with no argument, no request for compensation, NOTHING. I asked, occasionally, when he was going to be able to live up to the agreement he made--to pay a certain amount of rent per month--but at no time did I nag, bitch, or complain that he was not even making an EFFORT to find a job.

Oh: and--HIS GIRLFRIEND LIVED IN MY HOUSE, RENT-FREE, FOR TWO MONTHS. At least SHE bought food, occasionally--but that doesn't make up for the fact that she also drove me BAT SHIT CRAZY, nor that she was there AGAINST MY WILL. (She also, apparently, reported back to Tim every encouraging word I said to her about not allowing him to run her life, talk down to her, or treat her like shit. I can't hold it against her--some women don't know HOW to do anything other than be abused--but it still pisses me off. Try to help someone, and see what it gets you.)

Pardon my overzealous capitalization; I need to calm down. But: SERIOUSLY.

I was very good; I just let it slide off my back. I just told him I had to go eat my dinner, and I'd talk to him soon--probably when I DRIVE UP TO THE NORTH SIDE TO DROP OFF HIS CAT, which I am feeding and caring for.

God. I am so, so, so, SO SO SO done with being helpful. People just aren't worth it.

I Am

...very, very happy.
Very, VERY happy.
And also....carless.
(That does not say "CARELESS"; it says "carless". As in, sans car. Without vehicle. Devoid of transport.)

Apparently, LJ's girlfriend wasn't making her payments; yesterday afternoon, I got a nearly-frantic call from LJ, asking for the address where the car was parked, so that she wouldn't get arrested for concealing it. I gave him the info, and this morning when I left, the car was gone.

I am absolutely fine with that. I WALK to work. Today it took me six minutes to walk home. SIX. I got home at 6:36 PM; when I was at the old place, I would get home a little before 8:00, once you figured in the whole "could you stop at the store for ___ (smokes, beer, junk food for Squeaky, anything Tim's heart desired)" issue. That's a time savings of almost NINETY MINUTES--one way.

Which is good, because I need the time to unpack.

Mom saw the new place for the first time today; she drove me to the clinic, which was the only drawback to the repo situation--I'll need to figure out how I'm going to work THAT, but I figure all I'll have to do is change my pickup day to Monday, then take the bus. She loved the apartment, which is great; it makes two of us.

I am almost scared, being this happy. JP's anniversary was Tuesday; I didn't forget it, but I chose not to dwell on it. It's hard to dwell on sad things in the middle of a Chicago autumn. It's been absolutely beautiful here this week; sunny days, cool nights, peace and quiet and no Tim-and-Squeaky. I almost feel like it's too perfect to last long--I'm not used to a drama-free, safe and quiet life. At night I sleep like a stone, now that I don't have to sleep with one ear open for the creaking of the front gate or chaos out on the sidewalk. It's not that I don't miss my house; I think I will always, on some level, wonder what might have been. But being here is a weight off my shoulders--so many responsibilities I don't have to worry about anymore, so many details that are no longer mine to deal with. It feels good.

I am very, very happy.