It's Festivus, but I'll be honest here. I'm in an even more terrible mood than usual. Perhaps too annoyed even for the Airing of Grievances. Don't know how it'll go, but here we go...
Multi-pack-
Tell me where I can get a SINGLE pine tree air freshener for the car. They all come in packs of three. I do not own three cars. Even if I owned three cars, they wouldn't need a brand new air freshener at the same time unless the cars were all bought at the same time. Even if I owned three cars, I wouldn't want them to smell the same anyway. Even if I owned three cars, I'd still hate the new Star Wars movie. Okay so I guess I'm supposed to SAVE two odor trees until they're needed? The staple goes right through all the individual bags. Once one is torn away, they're gonna leak their pine power throughout the fortnight to leap year time frame between air freshener changes (fine, I don't know how often I'm supposed to switch those, so sorry to all my passengers). The tree people (ents? elves?) KNOW we only use one tree and they KNOW it's gonna be two that go to waste. It's almost as if waste is part of the economy. The system works. We can have everything as long as we throw everything away and buy more everything.
Cold bones-
It's cold outside, but I'm cold inside. I often feel the cold start from my femurs then expand outward until my pores exude puffs of chill like Neptune geysers. Maybe I'm getting no new blood in the marrow. Maybe my marrow has been replaced by a new refrigeration process for all my undigested meat. Maybe my heart has grown ice roots throughout the body. This last one makes the most sense. Right now as I'm typing, it feels like ice is moving up and down my arm capillaries. Some of this may be emotional.
Film comment as criticism then execution-
We've all seen so many really good movies and tv shows. Maybe we've seen too many good ones. There have been so many good things in our lives that when we see something we don't take to, we feel wronged in some way. Perhaps we're justified in this reasoning. after 10,000 years of storytelling, we've told the same seven stories at least 10,000 times 100. It can be argued that, at this point, a vivid explosion has more meaning than an in-depth story. I won't quite say we're there yet today. I think there's more that we need to witness. We need to be exposed to more material that we disagree with, that makes us uncomfortable, that we hate. And we have to accept that it exists. There is a big difference between having an opinion on something and demanding our opinions are met. I've always bristled at the idea of a marked difference between the two concepts of "art" and "entertainment." People have their different academic definitions, but I think it still boils down to one being "smart" and the other being "dumb." I hate that. I think anything that stimulates you within either category can be smart, dumb, exciting, boring, life-changing, infuriating, dismal or anything. Regardless of funding or popularity, the humanity of it all can be exactly the same. These days, though, I'm forced to concede there is a difference. Or at least a bigger gap of a difference is coming. Art is what's new to us. Entertainment is what we already know and demanded we receive again. It's incredible that we're able to communicate the way we do, but we've gotta stop writing movies and tv shows based on what the viewers already feel. How are we able to feel anything different if creations yield to what we feel right now?
Knowing how to pay for a meal-
There are only two kinds of restaurants: 1) The one where you go up to the counter, pay for your meal and then they give it to you. 2) The one where you go up to the counter, the register swivels around for you to pay, but you also must put in a tip amount even though the type of restaurant and the effort given to you is identical to the first type. 3) The one kind of like the first two except for religious reasons they only take cash and you didn't realize that when you ordered your food. 4) The one where you go in to and you're unsure if you're supposed to sit down at any table or if the hostess is supposed to seat you at a table right next to the only other occupied table in the restaurant and then you eat your meal and you wait around for ten minutes because you're not sure if if the server is gonna bring you a check or if you're supposed to go find the hidden and likely unmanned cash register and pay there because that's the tradition of this particular place of dining rather than bringing the little payment folder. 5)The one that's the same thing as 4, but they eventually bring the payment folder after you stand up to see if there's a cash register somewhere. 6) The one where you sit anywhere and then ordering your own food from the convenience of the table's private phone directly to the kitchen and then you have to go to the kitchen anyway to pay for and get the food, but there's never ever a tip involved so that's cool and also there's ultimate dipping sauce (this restaurant type may be extinct actually). Okay actually maybe there are more than two kinds of restaurants. Only the first one isn't weird.
Too many things to watch-
I think I say this every year and every year I get more depressed about it. Maybe I need to spend a year chopping trees instead.
Insert Copied Cells-
Excel I never ever ever want to insert copied cells. I just want to insert a blank column. A column full of promise. A column never tainted by the putrid data of these harrowing times.
Mattress pad-
The soothing softness of my mattress pad is misleading. As I sleep, the fluffy cloud-like foam encases my body in a near-fluid mold. Once there, the pad forms doughy tentacles that seep through my skin and wrap themselves around my lower vertebrae, slowly bending my spinal column into a grotesque vulture shape to the verge of snapping. I think it may be too soft.
Sleep-
I can no longer will myself to sleep. I'm tired all the time, but when it's time for bed. Whatever's left of my nails dig into the mattress and my eyes widen to twice their usual size. I hate living, but I hate dying too and I go through this every night.
All those labels-
It's so nice that we're deciding to be more inclusive to everyone. This includes new vocabulary terms for every thought, belief, condition, proclivity. That's nice. It's also sort of a new age of exclusivity. Now there are lots more things so many are locked out of. Being a human being is better than being a Hufflepuff. How about fewer terms, but more tolerance within those?
Being a villain-
I recently had my skin removed. It wasn't a voluntary procedure, but some diagnoses deemed it necessary. I'm still alive, but every sense and interaction are much more painful than they were before. Combined with my cold bones, my experience as of late has been overly sensitive. As much as I gripe and groan, I've always thought I'm still good to have around. I'll joke a bit or I'll look at the bright side when necessary. Okay, sure I rarely do that, but I seriously try to channel my negativity into something that can be taken as fulfilling or enlightening or something that's positive (if nothing else than a satirical contrast of sorts). More often than good things or bad things I provide no things. Silly me, I've always naively thought I gave some semblance of goodness to the world. I at least thought what little good I've given adds to the majority of the nothing I've given, leaving me safely out of the red, karmically speaking. Ultimately though, when all the emotional commodities of the world have been sorted into benefits or liabilities -- I've found myself in the pure, non-pasted, liability column. I'm at least nobody and at most a villain. I wanna be the benefit, but it's hard competition. Pillows, tv, meat, soda, drugs, billions of other people -- all these things alleviate the woes of life better than I have. This realization makes breathing difficult.
Neverending despair-
If I'm not sad I don't know what I even am. That's good though. There is no being alive without sadness. Everything else is just a sheen over reality. Consciousness, real consciousness, is the dismal despair that comes with sensing the physical weight of existence. Take that away, and it's not even real. It's a mere trance covered in smiles and giggles. It's only death (or perhaps just sleep). Onward with the feels! Onward with living! Sorry about this one. It's far too positive to be a grievance.
I'm glad I get to say this stuff. I'm sad I don't have more stuff to say. When I'm in a better mood I'll find a lot more stuff to complain about.
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