Give several shits, get several shits in return

I'm not necessarily the smartest thing that ever happened.


I can't do math to save my life.

I think the capital city of every east coast province is "Where Anne of Green Gables is From."

I thought Gatineau was the French word for 'cake.'


But there's one thing I have managed to piece together with my mathematically, geographically, and cake-challenged brain: Most people don't give a shit about you as much as you give a shit about them.


Now before we ----


Holy shit. The Trivago guy is hot. Sorry. I hadn't seen that commercial yet. WOW.


Right. So, before we send emergency personnel to my house to see if I'm about to take a bath with my toaster, I'm not. I don't even have a toaster. Bet you feel pretty stupid now, eh?

I don't mean that in a whiny, woe-is-me, please-just-be-my-friend way. I mean it in that factual way that facts are meant. But if you're just going to sit there calling me a mopey bitch, then I guess I'll have to explain it. Even though it's not my fault you're dumb.


Everybody cares about people. Maybe you care about 50 people. Or ten people. Or one people. However many isn't important. Who they are isn't important. Could be your husband or wife or friend or the guy who sits at the next desk at work or the chick at the gas station who seems to notice that a human person is trying to pay her for something or I guess one of your kids or something. Not the nose-picking one. The other one. The point is, you care about those people. You probably think about them once a day or whatever. You wonder how they're doing, what they're up to, if they ever got that weird tooth fixed.

Here's the thing, though -- there's a good chance they're not wondering that same stuff about you. They likely don't give a shit if your tooth is still crooked (mine still are, by the way) or what you watched on TV today or if you did something interesting. They're probably not going to send you a text message asking if you're doing alright when something sucky happens, or come to your house when your boyfriend leaves you because you don't like camping. That actually happened to me, and I was really lucky -- someone came to my house to make sure I was ok. And that moves us along nicely to the next paragraph.

Because, you see, every once in a while something really wonderful happens. You find yourself giving a shit about another person even when they're not around, and it turns out they give a shit about you when you're not around, too. It won't happen often -- and sometimes you'll think it happened, then you'll find out it didn't -- but it will happen.

Over the last six months or so, I've been unlucky enough to find out I'd been wrong a bunch of times when I'd thought it happened. But I also found out that it had happened and I didn't even know it. I've even been kinda mad at myself a few times, because I didn't realize there were people out there wondering about me. I was too busy being all butthurt about the people who didn't wonder about me at all.

If I'd just stepped away from all that "wah wah no one likes me wah wah" bullshit, I would have realized that I have a friend who I can message with for hours about video games who is also very good at cheering me up by giving me ideas of ways I can torture people through the postal system for my own amusement.

I would have realized there's a guy I know who not only gives me endless joy with his smart, funny Facebook posts, but can also say really nice, insightful things that always make me feel better when I'm sad. And who has introduced me to a totally cute, super-smart chick who helped me identify some mushrooms, which was incredibly important to me at the time. (Don't worry -- I didn't eat them. Yet.)

I would have (and now will) made more of an effort to drive a frigging hour (seriously -- it's not that far for Christ's sake) to hang out with someone who literally makes me laugh til I puke a little with some of the most insane, offensive, hilarious text messages I've ever seen.

I would have (and now will) try to spend more time with The Admiral. I mean, how can I seriously hope to fight the oncoming Cylon war without him? He's obviously the brains of the operation, and I'll fly into any battle he tells me to.

Also -- Bingo. Bingo-Dude, we need to Bingo again soon. (That is not a euphemism. I'm just un-cool enough to get excited about Bingo.)

I've been lucky to have some incredibly amazing friends. From those two blonde ones in the suburbs with the hilarious kids to my hetero-lifemate and her wonderful husband headed out to the west coast, I've won some sort of friend lottery. I just wish I'd realized sooner that there were other people I was thinking about who were thinking about me, too.

But I know that now. I know now that they give a shit, and when it comes to friends, it doesn't matter how many you have -- it only matters how hard you give a shit. And I give a shit THE HARDEST.

~~~~~

I'm Going to Puke on Kristi's Shoes

Sometimes there are stories in the news about ridiculously old people who have been married for, like, 40 decades or whatever. And everyone is all "Oh my god! That's so awesome! Those geezers are so lucky!!!!!"

I have literally never thought anything even remotely like that. I don't wish them any ill will, I just don't have the frame of reference to properly appreciate decades and decades of Geezer-Love. I assume that since they've been together since before spoken language was a thing, then they clearly must love each other. Or they're both just too lazy to kill each other or split up all their shit and go live somewhere else. So they can have their party and let their kids put pointy hats on their heads and blow those paper spit sacks that make a noise that sounds a really wet fart on a leather couch and live happily ever after. Yay for everyone.

When I picture my future, I don't see me sitting on a bench with my old fart of a husband, feeding my dentures to ducks in the park. (That's what old people do, right? Feed teeth to ducks? Because they're senile? And they can take their teeth out? And they like ducks? I don't know much about old people.)

I picture me sitting on a bench with my old fart of a best friend, whipping our dentures at the ducks' heads and saying that technically, we are biting the ducks. And calling the ducks assholes. And laughing because 'duck' rhymes with 'fuck.' And then teaching the word 'fuck' to little kids and telling them to say it around their parents A LOT.

I guess I might not get to do that. But I also might. Who knows? Maybe someday we'll live in the same place again. Soon we won't, though. And I'm not sure what I'm suppose to say about that.

Actually, I know exactly what I want to say, but I can't say it using words when she can see me, because I don't want that thing to happen when water comes out of my eye-holes. I don't care for that. Also -- and I cannot stress this enough, even if I used some sort of super-bold font that would cause permanent damage to your vision -- I really really REALLY don't ever want to make her feel bad.

I want her to have fun in her new home. I want her to meet new people and do new things and see new stuff and just have a really awesome, fantastic time. Climb mountains and smoke weed for breakfast and get rained on all the time or whatever it is people do in B.C. (I know as much about B.C. as I do about the duck-feeding habits of old people, apparently.)

I never want her to think I don't want her to have a good time, and that I'm not happy that she gets to do this exciting, new thing.

And that's why I can't tell her how sad I am that she's leaving. That I'm not sure what I'll do when she's gone. There won't be anyone here anymore who will take me to Costco so I can get Snappeas or who will sit on a couch with me for six hours playing video games or who will come to my house in the middle of the night to check on me like she did that time my useless tit of an ex-boyfriend left.

We're not going to be able to drive to Ogdensburg to buy the junk food that Americans get but we don't. (THANKS, Obama.) No more trips to Wild Wings to try to burn our faces off with chicken arms doused in gasoline and petrified hot pepper dust. We're never going to walk back to her place from Comiccon again.

So how do I tell her that I don't want her to go, but that I also want her to go because it's going to be amazing for her? How do I tell her that I'm so happy that she gets to see new things and do new stuff, but that the thought of her not being a short drive away sucks more than the suckiest thing that ever sucked?

The obvious answer is to give her an awesome present as she's leaving, then cry so hard I puke on her shoes.

I think she'd like that.

SMDC.

What The Comedian Has Learned About Being Unemployed

Sleeping in stops being great after about a week. 
After a few years getting up at WHAT THE FUCK TIME IS THIS EVEN??????, I thought a silver lining from losing my job would be finally getting to sleep in. And it was amazing. For roughly a week. Now, if I sleep past eight o'clock, I feel like a disgusting pigperson coated in slime. My hair looks like someone put a cherry bomb in a bird's nest, and the inside of my mouth tastes like the outside of a turd. And probably also the inside of a turd. I can't imagine the taste of a turd changes much from one layer to the next.


TV is 95% crap
So. Much. Crap. I swear to god, there was more on TV when I was a kid and we had three channels and none of them would come in at the same time, so if we wanted to watch something else, we had to go outside and turn a giant frigging antenna that was on a two-storey-high post driven into the ground beside the house. BY HAND. And if it froze in the winter, you had to hit it with a hammer. WHEN I WAS A CHILD, CHANGING THE CHANNEL ON THE TV SOMETIMES INVOLVED A HAMMER. And yet, there was more on TV then than there is now.


Laundry is a pretty easy thing to forget
Now that I don't have to get dressed and leave my house every day, I have much less laundry to do. You'd think this would be a good thing. Wrong, shithead. Turns out that hardly ever having to do laundry has more or less deleted that particular chore from my brain. I have un-learned that doing laundry is a thing. Mostly I had been wearing pyjamas, and then forgot to wash all those pyjamas, so right now I mainly wear towels. I have lots of towels, so this should work for a few more weeks. Then I guess I'll have to start making sure the blinds are always closed.


College is stupid
Let me clarify: getting an education is not stupid. Getting an education that basically limits you to one job is kind of stupid. Getting an education that basically limits you to one job that is on the verge of going extinct is the educational equivalent of putting something that's on fire in your eyeholes: you shouldn't. You shouldn't do that.


Being good at something doesn't mean shit
So, you're pretty good at burping the alphabet? Awesome! You should do that for a living!

Uh-oh -- someone just bought the alphabet. But they're a big company, so they probably have lots of money backing them, and they can make the alphabet even BIGGER and BETTER! And they've been working in alphabet-related stuff for a while, so they must know what they're doing. You're going to burp the alphabet for a long time and will be ever so successful!

Doublefuck -- an even BIGGER company just bought the alphabet. But don't worry -- you'll be fine. I mean, yeah.....they didn't really own many alphabets before, but surely they made the buy because they appreciate what alphabets can do. And they will definitely appreciate your talent at alphabet-burping. Because you're good at it. Everyone tells you so. And being good at something matters.

It really doesn't.


You think you know how angry you are capable of getting. You are wrong.
It has been brought to my attention in the past that my ability to express the range of human emotions is as follows:

Level One: "Everything's fine, nothing to get excited about, it's all good."

Level Two: "I HATE EVERYTHING EVEN PURPLE BABY MINIATURE UNICORNS AND CHOCOLATE."

Turns out there is a third level. I call that level IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH.

IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH happens when words completely go away. It's exactly like when you're mad and stomping around and making random noises, but with 87% more rage, and the complete loss of any ability to think in words. IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH can last for up to three days, and can make you kick stuff that you have to really go out of your way to kick. Things that are nowhere near foot-level. During one bout of IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH, I kicked a plant. I had to take it down off a shelf and put it on the floor to do it, but I kicked that fucking plant. I kicked it right in the head. AND NOW THAT PLANT KNOWS WHO IS THE BOSS.

Over the last couple of months, bouts of IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH have been brought on by the following, in no particular order:

- my dog staring at me
- some snow that got inside my shoe
- a mascara commercial
- the existence of that Australian country singer Nicole Kidman is married to
- not enough water being in my coffee maker
- my list of People Who Need to be Punched, with absolutely none of the names crossed off yet
- ants

Most of the time I am relatively un-mad. I've managed to stay closer to the "Everything's fine, nothing to get excited about, it's all good" state of being since losing my job, with the occasional trip to "I HATE EVERYTHING EVEN PURPLE BABY MINIATURE UNICORNS AND CHOCOLATE" territory. But every once in a while, I get struck with a good dose of IUHIEUXFH&^$%)(&YJW(*RKIWH. And apparently then I have to kick the shit out of a plant.


Some people are very awesome. Other people are the human equivalent of that time you stepped in shit and couldn't get all the shit out of the tread of your shoe even if you dug at it with a stick and blasted it with a power-washer.
Then you're always stuck with a bit of shit-smell whenever you wear those shoes in your car and turn the heat on near your feet. But then you drive to see one of the awesome people, and you forget about the shit smell for a while.

Then you get a better job, and buy some new shoes.


~~~

The Comedian's Resume

The Comedian recently lost her job. It was Taylor Swift's fault. I know I blame her for a lot of things, but this time, that squinty-eyed weirdo really is the cause of The Comedian's problem. So now, I have to find a new job, or I won't be able to pay for Netflix anymore.

But it turns out writing a resume for OTHER types of jobs when you've only done one thing for all your adult life is, like, hard and stuff. Here's what I have so far.........


The Comedian
123 House with a lot of Spiders Right Now for Some Reason
(123) 456-7890


Objective: To continue to live indoors and eat food

Education: Must have been good, since I didn't finish paying for it until I was 30

Work Experience: Yes

Skills and Abilities:   - I talk words good
                                  - Experience being yelled at for no reason by angry people
                                  - Can listen to the same fucking song eight times a day without
                                    crying
                                  - Can speak for up to five minutes at a time without swearing
                                  - Extensive experience pretending I don't think the Kardashians
                                    should all fall in a hole

References: They'd just lie anyway, since they're sick of me asking them to be references, and they just wish I'd get a fucking job already and leave them alone.