I think this is hilarious!

I just have a mental picture of the real estate agent bringing somebody dressed as Goofy or Big Bird in to view this office space.

Asperger's related idiocy

I'm a wingnut.  I take a lot of stuff literally without even thinking about it.  That doctors visit that I had the other day is a case in point.  I was talking about the visit with my sister and I told her that perhaps the doctor wasn't as great as I thought because when I told her that I had been diagnosed with Asperger's she asked me how long I have had it.  I immediately thought that she was stupid for thinking that I had acquired Asperger's at a random time and that maybe she wasn't the doctor for me.  So I answered her that I have had it forever.  Anyway, my sister laughed at me and told me that the doctor had meant how long have I had the diagnosis.  Oh.  Why didn't she ask me that then?

This taking things literally thing has come up time and again throughout my life.  It's embarrassing, but in my defense I'm really quite clever.  When I was eight years old my Mom was pregnant with my sister, we didn't know it was a sister yet because it was the olden days when people just had to wait to see what gender their baby was, but I digress.  While my Mom was pregnant my Dad told me that 1 in 3 children born were Chinese.  I was 100% convinced that my new sibling was going to be Chinese.  After all, there were already 2 caucasian children in my family so statistically I just didn't see how the next one wouldn't be Chinese. The time came for the baby to be born, and it was a girl!  When I went to visit the new baby in the hospital I peered at her, searching for her Chinese characteristics.  The next day at school, my new baby sister was my "Show and Tell", she just happened to be the New Year's baby so her picture was on the front page of our small town newspaper.  I brandished the paper in front of the class and explained that you could barely tell that she was Chinese.  Oddly enough, nobody said anything about that statement to me.......  I stopped mentioning it after that.

Went to to the doctor today

I haven't had a family doctor since a few years ago.  I had a really great doctor up until then but he died.  Since then I've only been seeking treatment when something is wrong, so I figured I had better find myself a new one and get a file going that is all in one place.  So a new practice openned and I made an appointment.

The doctor is really nice, she's around my age and from Pakistan.  I asked her about the process of getting certified here and she said it took her ten years and cost thousands of dollars.  Crazy!  Aren't we in desperate need of doctors?  Why on earth should it take that long?  Even she admitted that the process of standardized testing is necessary, but the time and the expense?  All a complete waste.

Anyway, I explained to the new doctor that I don't like doctors, so when I come in I will not lie.  If I say something is wrong with me then something is.  I am not an attention seeker, at least not in that regard.  I showed her the big long diagnosis letter and explanation from the psychologist who I saw regarding my asperger's and gave her my medical history and family background info.  I explained my health concerns to her and she is sending me for a big, long battery of tests including a mammogram (dear lord!).

My main concern is anxiety, other than that I am in crazy health.  I need to quit smoking and cut down on my drinking too, but that's all anxiety related.  I explained to her that I do not want to be medicated.  In my mind medication should only be used to treat a sickness and I am not sick, I'm just crazy.  So she promised that I would be her homework and that she would see what she could find out for me.  She also wrote down a homeopathic remedy for me to try.  It's something called Aconite and she wrote 30 behind it.  Has anybody heard of this stuff?

All in all a good visit in my mind.  Hope she's "the one"!

Art and ego

So every Monday evening I go to DieNasty.  It's a live, improvised soap opera and it is always funny.  During every episode there are countless hilarious lines that I would love to repeat, as I'm watching I'll make mental notes to remember certain lines or phrases, and as soon as it's over they are gone.  Poof, just like that.

So that got me thinking about ego and confidence.  Are improvisers more confident?  They are able to turn out a product that is a ghost.  One moment in time it exists and then it is gone.  Are they so confident in their ability and hilarity that everything they do and say can be a throw away because they have faith that they can do it again?  Maybe "throw away" is the wrong term.  Actually no maybe needed, throw away is not what it is.  It's performance art, you just have to be there.  If you are not there, then for you that art did not exist, and those who are there to witness it are richer for it.  I have just come to the conclusion that improv and other performance art is in a completely different category.

Writers want to record everything.  They are afraid of loss.  Every idea or flight of fancy must be transcribed and saved.  Nothing ephemeral with that lot, it's all got to be concrete.  They want to be able to show something for their work and time spent.  "Yes, I was busy all afternoon.  See?  Read this!" 

So who has the bigger ego?  The people who want to save their work so they can show you?  Or those who entertain for a space in time and then it is gone?  It's like comparing artists who work in chalk to those who work in oil.  Is something temporary less valuable than something everlasting?  Or perhaps it's more valuable because it's only around for a short time?  In my mind all art is of value and it all has it's own beauty, but it's the artists who I am thinking about now. 

There is arrogance in either camp.  The casual confidence of somebody who can do something brilliant and has enough faith in their abilities to know that they can do it again, differently and maybe even better.  Or the pride in doing something and saving it so that they can show people what they have done.  Do I have to come to a conclusion?  Because I just don't know.

Commercials for gum

How weird is it that there are commercials for gum?  Gum costs less than a dollar and there are tons of commercials for it.  They must sell a shit load of gum in this world to justify the expense of not only making the commercials but paying to have them broadcast.

And gum commercials are pretty good.  They probably cost a lot of money to make.  Very strange.

That's really all I have to say on the topic of gum commercials, so perhaps the title of this post is misleading.  Oh well, onward and upward.  Must update the world on the state of the mouse infestation here at my lovely workplace.

So far there have been two dead mouse bodies found.  A cat was brought in but proved useless.  The traps are working, hence the dead bodies.  Two blocks of vitriolic, green poison have been placed in my office.  Both blocks have been nibbled at, in fact one of them was so voraciously gnawed upon that it was shifted approximately a foot from it's original position (approximately, as if I'd measure).  The poison is strategically placed at the spot we believe the mice are using to enter our lovely domain.  So if they've been consuming the poison and then going back to whence they came, there may be dead bodies that we cannot see.  I am traumatized still.

It's Sunday, I'm only at work for a little while and then I have Monday off.  Hooray!

Interesting theory

A meme ( /ˈmiːm/^[1]) is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."^[2] A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures.<sup>[3] 
The above definition is from Wilipedia!

So memes have been on my mind.  Or if you subscribe to this theory on memes, then memes have been in my mind since day one.  Is language a meme?  Is everything that we do after our first primal cry as air hits our lungs based on memes? 

If I can create a viral meme that spreads through the culture like a rampant germ, can I garner power or fame?</sup>

Sad loss today, RIP Etta James

Rethinking scarves, not really.

I wear scarves, I have to I live on the frozen tundra of northern Canada.  But every time I wind one around my neck my thoughts go to the tragic tale of Isadora Duncan.  She was a dancer in the olden days, which back then probably meant she was pretty out there.  Anyway in the 20s , while in France, Isadora Duncan put on a scarf.  A handpainted scarf which she had received as a gift from somebody who was proabably a lover of hers, at the very least he was an admirer.  Apparently she was known for wearing scarves all the time.  An affectation?  Perhaps, but I'm sure she thought nothing of it that morning.
She also probably thought nothing of it when she jauntily jumped into her friends vehicle for a ride.  It must have been very glamourous and chic.  Not everybody had a car back then.  But Isadora could never have imagined what happened next.  Somehow her long, extravagent scarf blew out behind her and got wound around the wheels of the vehicle.  She was thrown from the car and either died from the impact of being hurled onto the road or was strangled.  Pretty horrible, eh?

So when you don your scarf, whether it be for style or warmth, remember Isadora and her untimely end.

Mice, seriously?

If you saw me rght now here at work, you would probably be jealous.  I have my feet up and I'm screwing around on the internet doing non work related stuff.  But take my word for it when I tell you that I am in massive stress and turmoil.  There are mice here, or at least mouse.  I can't explain why this is so horrible for me but it is.  My fear is 100% irrational and knowing that still doesn't help.

I brought my cat to work with me yesterday and he stayed over night but there is no evidence of any life or death struggles and no dead bodies laying around (that I have seen anyway).  There are also 2 traps that the guy down the hall set for me.  The traps are behind closed doors in case you wre wondering about the safety of Spencer the hired killer cat.  One of the traps has been set off and is flipped over but I am not going to turn it over to check.  I will await the arrival of the guy from down the hall, he used to live on a farm so he is tough.  He said he'd be in around 1pm, so I will commence hanging out in the hallway at approximately 12:50pm.

Even as I write this I realize that being afraid of a mouse is crazy, but I just am.  I used to be irrationally afraid of cats too, and now I have 2 of them as pets.  There is no way in hell that I will ever have a mouse as a pet!  I also used to be afraid of dogs, which I don't consider irrational, dogs are scary.  I have a dog now, so I got over some of that fear I guess, but I'm still scared of random dogs. 

AAaaaaah (that's a scream) as I was writing the last paragraph I heard the trap by the microwave snap.  I can't look!  My lovely and equally paranoid coworker sort of looked but the velocity of the snapping must have moved the trap and now it's probably under the microwave cart thingy.  We are not going to search.  We need a man.  Yes, I am a liberated woman, I can do whatever I want and I expect equal pay for my work etc. but some things just require a man, or at least a tomboyish woman.

Now I'm hearing things and my eyes are darting about scanning my surroundings like I'm under sniper fire.  This is not cool. 

I need a drink.

UPDATE
It is with a drink by my side that I write this.  So 1pm rolls around, still no Dave, he's the guy from down the hall.  So I leave a note on his door reading:" Dave!! Your assistance is required down the hall. Thanks, Penny".  Around 2pm he showed up.  One of the traps had been set off but there was no dead body in it.  The second trap was ricocheted under the microwave stand and there was indeed a dead critter in it.  Dave disposed of the body and reset the traps.  One down. 

You can understand how a drink was necessary.  Aaaaargh.

Same picture twice? Sorry, still figuring this stuff out!

Bed time again

You ever slide into bed beside somebody who's been sleeping for a while? Yuck, just slack jawed, open mouth snoring, grunts and bad breath. I want my own room.

Home at 9:34 pm!

My new years resolution to work less must be working!  Here I am happily behind the computer in my home office at just after 9:30 on a Tuesday evening.  Unheard of!  I also had all of yesterday off and only slipped once and called them, luckily there was no answer.  I might just get the hang of this yet.

Hooray!

I don't wanna go to bed!

Why do I fight against going to bed every night? Is it because I don't want to spend the time that it takes to remove my makeup? Or maybe because I don't want to shuck my daytime clothes and slip into my bed clothes? Probably just lazy.

When I do haul my butt to bed (at last)I will listen to my hypnosis app so that I can sleep rather than obsessing over every single detail of the day and or my life.

Once I am warm and sleeping it is sheer bliss. But worse than going to bed is waking/getting up. Hell on earth, being dragged from my stupor and thrust back into wakefulness. I imagine that it feels like being born. I'm glad I don't remember being born. Can you imagine?

Asperger's is going to be obsolete

So instead of having Asperger's I will now have high functioning autism.  Sounds worse, doesn't it?  Now people are going to think that I am in and out of fugue states with a tendency to bang my head against walls and all manner of other stereotypical autism stuff.  Sheesh.

Not that a lot of people even know that I have Asperger's but still.  I would like to be able to tell people if it comes up or if I feel it necessary, now I will have to think three times instead of just twice.  Most people don't really think that there is anything wrong with me, beyond being vaguely weird that is.  I present very well, even the psychologist who diagnosed me didn't think there was anything wrong with me until I did the testing.  After 8 hours of testing my Asperger's was showing.  I was overwhelmed, overstimulated and fed up.  That combined with all of the test results proved what I had known all along:  I'm not crazy but I am also nowhere near normal.  So the diagnosis was good and I have mostly come to terms with having Asperger's but I am certainly nowhere near coming to terms with having autism.  I know it's just semantics but that is how I feel.

Dumb, eh?  I can't believe this is even taking up space in my head.  What a waste.  I will instead concentrate on going out for dinner tonight.  I shall begin the preparations now with a glass of wine.  Ooooh, I almost typed "a glass of whine" bit of a Freudian slip?

Wee update

It's 1:20am, I just installed the blogger app on my iPod touch, now I can blog anywhere, anytime. As long as there is an Internet connection. Side note: the iPod auto magically capitalizes itself as well as the word Internet. That's weird.

I just had to give you the promised update about the high end consignment store that I was nervous to go to before. Well, it's a nice store and it's got a buzzer by the door. So I buzzed and the lady was a total sweetie.

Too tired to write more. See ya tomorrow!

I need to make more money!!

Remember all those bullshit books from a few years ago?  Books like "The Secret"?  They all pretty much said that you could have whatever you wanted as long as you made your intentions clear and put it out into the universe.  So I'm doing it.

The intention couldn't be clearer.  MORE MONEY, please!  I am tired of working all the hours of the day for a substistance amount of money.  I want to work less hours and have more cash.  There I've said it.  Now what?

While I wait for that answer I will carry on as usual I guess.  I am at work now, it's Friday.  I have been here since 10am and I imagine that I will be here until at least 10pm.  I went for a seven minute tan before work to get a dose of vitamin D and keep the winter itchies away.  I must remember to go again on Monday. 

There is a bottle of chilled white wine just languishing in the fridge here at work.  I keep thinking about having a glass but I must restrain myself....at least for a while.  This evening after 5 I will allow myself to delve in.  What the hell, right?  It's still practically the holidays.  Hah, as if I've ever needed an excuse.  I have managed to work drinking into every job that I've ever had starting with the european deli that I worked at when I was 14.  We sold Jaggermeister there as a stomach remedy and my coworker Carolyn and I quickly discovered that it was more than just medicine.  Or maybe to me it is medicine, liquor that is.  I feel much more normal, friendly and relaxed when I have had a few belts.  It works for me.  I wonder if I could get a prescription.  Imagine having your booze covered by your benefits!  Bliss I tell you.

There is a store down the street that I think I might sneak out and visit.  It's almost never open but over the past few days I have seen their open sign displayed.  It's a high end women's congignment store that you have to buzz to get into.  I wonder if they will let me in?  Let me describe today's beautiful outfit to you: faded baggy jeans, turned up to capri length, scruffy black boots, fuschia cardigan, knee length black leather coat with patched areas from where my dogs claws tore the leather.  I don't exactly look rich enough to shop there, do I?  Let me work up the energy to get my ass moving and I will go check it out, update to come later.

2012, so far.

3 days in and I think I'm liking this new year.  I started off with no hangover, that in itself was a new experience for me.  Instead of drunken revelry or drunken depression, on new years eve we went out for a fabulous dinner and then dropped by my parents place to toast the new year.  Very mature, very civilized.

Then the next day we tidied up the house, ate some food and played Uno.  I won, which is a totally new experience for me.  On the 2nd I went shopping with my sister