Responsibility is overrated

What I SHOULD be doing right now: Going through all my education material so on Thursday, when one of my students asks me a question, I sound like I know what I’m talking about. I’m a firm believer in the theory that every time you learn something new, something old falls out of your brain into some anti-intellectual abyss. And I’m pretty sure that abyss is full of important information that I need to shove back in. Before Thursday. Which is soon, in case you don’t have a calendar handy.

What’s worse is I’m pretty sure a whole bunch more stuff fell out of my head today thanks to my boss, who is forcing me to read “A Short History Of Nearly Everything”, which as he pointed out I promised to read (because he read it, disagreed with about 97% of it and wants me to read it so we can spend the next 6 months arguing about it between clients. Hence the promise part) about 2 months ago. My excuse then was I couldn’t because I was in the middle of rereading a series of 22 mystery detective novels all in sequence and I could not start reading anything else until I finished. Which was a lie because a) I have at least 3 books on the go at all times, b) I finished that series before Christmas and had read at least 10 other books since then, and c) I don’t want to read a book about the origins of life and the universe (even if Bill Bryson wrote it, who’s books I happen to love) because while I believe in science/evolution, I can’t think about it too much due to my rampant paranoia about the fact that there is no reason our universe doesn’t suddenly implode back into the nothingness we started out from with no warning whatsoever. And I don’t want to implode with no notice. I have an awesome pair of boots I haven’t worn yet, plus I still haven’t watched all the seasons of Lost on DVD.

So what was I forced to learn today? That Pluto is considered the redheaded stepchild of the universe and that if gravity doesn’t stay at the exact level it is, we’re all fucking doomed. The former I don’t give a shit about (and let’s face it…who claims Pluto as their favourite planet? That’s right, no one in the history of ever, that’s who) and the latter gives me an anxiety attack. And to top it off, some kind of information that was likely of vital importance got kicked to the curb to make room for a lame-ass hunk of space rock and the worry that falling off the face of the earth could be a reality instead of just some overused expression. Which is why I should be reviewing and preparing like a responsible adult. Instead of googling DIY sites for magnetic gravity boots.

Pinterest for serial killers

I want to give this bathmat as a present. And neglect to inform the person that water shows up as blood on it...surprise, you really aren't mysteriously bleeding out!

Hannibal Lecter for Pottery Barn

I hear the theme from Psycho playing in my head

This blood spatter is really too tidy

Probably the least disturbing. Which is sort of disturbing in itself

Not sure what is more disturbing: the fact that Serial Killer Décor is an actual “thing” on Pinterest. Or that I gleefully pinned all this shit to one of my boards because it’s fucking cool in a Dexterish kind of way

Recycled roadkill is the new black. Or something.

So far, it's been a productive day...my bathroom is so heavy with bleach fumes it could likely kill you (but it's fucking SPARKLING clean!), the Mt Everest of laundry has been reduced to a mere hill and I've told my gym to basically go fuck themselves on fb ( I see your total incompetence and I raise you one blocked bank account and two upraised middle fingers. I win, motherfucker)

I got a second job, teaching part-time at a hairdressing school...YAY!!! I start next week, so between there and the salon I'll be working 6 days a week, so I'm trying to spend today getting caught up on a bunch of shit to prevent myself from pulling my hair out in frustration when my schedule gets a little insane. In December I decided to make 2013 the year of my career, and devote this year to working my ass off, building and marketing my business more, and to spend more time educating myself because in this business, the minute you decide you know it all and there's nothing left you could possibly learn? Is time for you to retire. Because this industry evolves constantly and learning new shit keeps you enthused, which keeps your clients coming back.

Before I go get on with my day, I leave you with the above pic

Because re-purposing roadkill into bottle holders is fucking genius. And green.

And I still can’t find the “any” key

Being a hairstylist often means you’re a low-tech person in a high-tech world. We don’t need a bunch of fancy electronic gadgets to do our job and in my salon, we stubbornly insist on remaining in the technological Dark Ages…client records are recorded on cards and kept in recipe boxes and appointments are written in an actual appointment book made out of paper and everything. No computer, no computerized client database, no online booking system, no receptionist walking around with a Bluetooth stuck in her ear that makes her look like she’s a crazy person talking to herself. My boss and I are old school technophobes, and we like it that way, thankyouverymuch.

My boss shuns technology. He takes great pride in not having a cel phone, nor an email address. He thinks social media is a complete waste of time and has declared the internet to be a “fad”. I, on the other hand, am a technology fence-straddler and have a love/hate relationship with technology…a perfect example is I own a blackberry and enjoy being able to text, check my email and see who’s following me on Twitter, but I have no idea how to use any apps on it, no idea how to use the speakerphone and no fucking clue where the mute button is (which is a source of massive annoyance because my phone likes to lock itself for no apparent reason and to unlock it you have to press the mute button. Which I can’t do because I still cannot find the fucking mute button after 3 years of blackberry ownership. And have to resort to turning the phone on and off). Also? It took me 2 years to figure out how to clear the cache on my laptop. And I have a couple videos I downloaded and have NO idea where they are (apparently hidden in the bowels of some kind of laptop no-man’s-land, never to be found again). How can someone who spends half their life blogging and searching google for shit like bacon art and nose porn still be so technologically inept that when the laptop tells them to “press any key” they spend 5 minutes searching the keyboard while yelling “Where the hell is the any key?? WHERE?????” It’s a fucking conundrum, I tell you.

Lately I have decided to somewhat embrace technology for work-related stuff. Partly because we now have 2 other co-workers who are young and wise enough to see the value in using social media to market themselves, and since I’m already on Facebook 10 times a day, maintaining a page for the salon seems like a smart move. Our boss, despite his aversion to all things internet, agrees this is a good idea…even though he’s never even looked at the page and has no plans to ever look at it. Which means we could post some pics of him at the staff Xmas party and he’d never know unless one of his clients happened to see it. But then he’d probably take revenge by getting his wife to put the video of certain staff members trying to drunkenly belly-dance on you tube and trust me, NO ONE needs to see that video. And I’m pretty sure drunk belly-dancing videos are not the way to build your client base

I see your blog troll and raise you a faked death

Here’s the thing: I blog here and I blog somewhere else (actually 2 somewhere elses, but I don’t really count my tumblr blog because it’s basically a repository for my funny/stupid/gross/fucked-up pic collection so it’s not taking up massive amounts of valuable real estate on my hard drive…more of virtual storage container, full of virtual boxes, some that require eyeball bleach upon opening. And no, I’m not talking about porn, so get your mind out of the fucking gutter, I’m as pure as the pristine snow on the mountaintop. Ok, not really, but I am sneaky enough not to actually store porn on my computer. Not when there’s a billion porn sites you can just click on and no one is the wiser, especially if you clear your browsing history right after. Not that I do any of that. It’s just what I hear from my porn-wise friends. Those dirty perverts.)

Ok, where was I going with this??

Oh, right. Blogging. Not porn.

Anyfuckingway, I have noticed a difference in the quality and quantity of blog drama here as opposed to the other site I blog on and I must say, I’m a little perplexed. And vexed. And have a slight craving for a nice gouda cheese. Which has nothing to do with blogging or drama. I just like cheese a LOT, ok?

But where is all the drama?

Where is the religious fanatic that declares you’re all a bunch of godless sinners who are going straight to hell because of your outrageous blasphemizing? Where is the narcissistic bitch who views all other female bloggers as a threat to her popularity, so she publicly picks a fight, waits for the inevitable response and then immediately cries that she’s the victim while making a series of posts about the horrors of cyber bullying? Where is the asshole that gets cyber-wood by calling all women fat who are larger than a size 2 and then basking in the resulting feminine outrage? Where is the woman who complains about her shitty relationship in excruciating detail and then gets all huffy and pissed off when any of her readers suggest she might be far happier if she ended said-shitty relationship?

Where are all the men posing as hot women? Where are all the women posing as hotter and more interesting women? Where are all con artists with detailed fake backgrounds? The eventually-outed criminals who’s mugshots and criminal records still aren’t enough to make their most loyal sycophants admit those people were REALLY not who they claimed to be? The liars? The constant complainers? The psychos?

And for fucks sakes, where are the faked deaths? Because there is nothing like a death within a close-knit blogging community that turns out to be a huge elaborate hoax, just to get everyone grieving and in shock, which quickly turns to supremely pissed-off outrage, which then turns into a cyber lynch mob, which then causes a rift in the entire community which ends with people giving up blogging completely due to all the stress and bullshit and insane people who fake their own death.

Seriously, this place compared to my other blog place seems so calm and normal it’s creeping me out a little =))

Tampon crafting brings people together like world peace. Sort of.

This is what I love about blogging: one minute you’re discovering new-to-you bloggers that share a similar sense of humour/insanity and the next you’re on all forms of social media discussing tampon crafts. Where else can you find other people who appreciate the fine art of tampon toupee-making? It brings a fucking tear of gratitude to my eye…good thing I have my tampon hanky at the ready in case of unexpected crying due to cyber-happiness.

I decided to delve a little deeper into the vast unknown that is tampon crafting because I think it’s fucking genius (possibly the mentally disturbed kind of genius, but that’s often the best kind) and also I’m kicking myself for not discovering this back in the spring when I had a hysterectomy and no longer had a use for lady plugs (and trust me, trying to figure out what to do with a box of tampons was a fucking conundrum…throwing them away seemed like a big waste, giving them away seemed weird, because would you not be a little freaked out if some stranger asked you “hey, want some tampons?”. I also debated leaving them in the building lobby in the spot where people leave free stuff. I once found a box of about 50 extra small condoms there, which lead me to believe Frodo the hobbit is a tenant in my building and apparently he’s decided to stop being a horny little whore and choose a life of celibacy. Hence the tiny-condom giveaway. Also, Superman is my next-door neighbour. I know this because I saw him smoking on his balcony on Xmas Day wearing his outfit, including the cape. Did I mention I live in the best apartment building in the history of EVER? Fuck yes I do)

Anyfuckingway, I’m bummed about this tampon-crafting-discovery because now it’s way too late to throw myself a hysterectomy party with a uterus cake, tampon party favours and games like Uterus Hacky Sack and Fallopian Tube Sword Fighting.

Sigh.

Grocery amnesia

Apparently I have a condition that causes me to buy groceries during what I can only guess is some kind of food-fugue state. Because that’s the only explanation as to why I would own a can of bamboo shoot tips. I’m certainly not an adventurous cook and for the life of me have no fucking clue what the fuck kind of recipe requires a type of wood in it…perhaps I was feeling rather Iron-Chef-like at some point, with dreams of presenting a daring recipe of Vanilla-infused Bamboo Shoots poached in a brandy-based demi-glace so delicious that all of Kitchen Stadium would be weeping in culinary pleasure. Except for Morimoto, who would so ashamed he was beaten by a rank amateur that he’d flee in embarrassment. However, the Bamboo Battle was unlikely, due to the fact I couldn’t poach anything if my life depended on it and I have no fucking clue what demi-glace is either. So what the fucking fuck is this shit doing in my kitchen cupboard?

Also, what the fuck am I doing with 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup? I fucking hate mushrooms, because mushrooms are fungus, fungus is mold and there’s no fucking way I’m voluntarily eating something that looks like it sprouted up in the toilet of one of those insane Hoarder people’s houses  (and don’t start in with me about cheese, which I love and also happens to be edible mold, especially the kind that’s so stinky and runny, it looks like a fucking science experiment gone horribly awry, which is the best fucking kind. Because cheese is totally different from mushrooms. In the way that it’s fucking delicious and mushrooms are not). I would never buy mushroom soup because I certainly wouldn’t eat it, yet there it is, sitting in my cupboard.

And cornmeal. What the fuck do you make with cornmeal? I’m sure there’s lots of cornmeal-based recipes, but since I am not from The South (and no, I also have no fucking clue what grits are, or why you’d want to eat something named after the shit you vacuum off your carpet. However, bbq and deep-fried pickles more than make up for the whole grits debacle, so you Southerners are off the hook), nor can I ever remember preparing food where cornmeal was an ingredient, I have no fucking idea why I own a fair-sized bag of it.

Now since I’m sure I’m not the only person with grocery amnesia, what’s the weirdest thing in your pantry that you have zero recall of purchasing?