Subjects are for other people
I found a private post from January 2012 while going through my journal which I've been avoiding like a pro, and I don't know why it was private. Maybe because it was a bit late? (You'll see what I mean.) So I included the contents below, just because:
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Oh, Merry Christmas. Or Happy Christmas, if you like. You know, I don't really like capitalizing 'merry' or 'happy', but when I don't, it looks wrong too. Same with Happy Birthday. On one hand, it looks like I'm still in first grade and haven't grasped the concept of proper nouns yet, and on the other, it's how it written most places it's thrown around, and therefore looks correct.
Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz
The higher of these two numbers below indicates which side of your brain has dominance in your life. Realising your right brain/left brain tendancy will help you interact with and to understand others.
Left Brain Dominance:
(8)Right Brain Dominance:
(9)
Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz
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So LJ has gotten fancy since I last used the 'post' function. This will be the first time ever posting on my laptop, which doesn't have the last.fm plugin at the moment, so it can't tell y'all that I'm not listening to anything atm.
So I have one really, really trivial thing I've been wanting to LJ rant about but keep thinking of my almost complete but not quite continuation entry (which is my next step after this) and thinking, 'No one reads my lj anymore, anyway,' which is true in a sense because no one can read nothing, but I sort of wouldn't blame anyone for not reading anymore since I stopped looking at my friends' ljs some time ago out of guilt. My current counselor says I'm very good at avoiding things. I don't think it's hard at all to avoid things; the real trick is to not feel constantly guilty about it. Which I'm not that good at. *sigh*
I moved to Colorado (like, ten days short of a year ago!), and although I'm sure I could say many things about it, there is only one thing that I feel the need to internet rant about: the drivers.
Is Driver's Ed not a thing anymore? It's mind-boggling. First, there's major urban traffic in a lot of places, so you have a lot of driving techniques, good or bad, that accompany that. I'm not sure how I can describe it. It's as if the drivers here are at once scarily polite & cautious, and also aggressive and unobservant. Usually the first traits win, on a day-to-day, in town sort of basis. You'd think this would be a good thing, right? Right? What confuses me is that I'm from Montana, right? I took Driver's Ed there, and all my driving years were there. So why would I be a more aggressive driver than Coloradans? Because this is my only remaining conclusion. (Although I assumed this guy in a pick-up truck the other would act as spineless as everyone else and he didn't and had to move over. I felt bad for about five seconds.)
So this is what happens. Picture a major city street that has eight lanes (four on each side). The left three are all straight, and the right-most is a right-turn lane. I'm in the left-most lane. In two or three blocks, I need to turn right. I look to the right and there is a car right about the same location as me. I look ahead and gauge that there isn't enough space to speed up and get in front of them before the stoplight, so I put on my turn signal, and start to slow down. You know what happens at this point??
The other person slows down to let me pass. Firstly, it's not the fucking highway, so the left lane isn't actually a passing lane, and secondly, it turns into this ridiculous thing where I slow down more, but then so do they, and I get really frustrated and yell and wave my hand for them to go on. There is such a thing as 'too nice'. This also has happened to me EVERY TIME I try to move from a left-turn lane into the main lane. The fucking person coming has the right-of-way, right? So I, the person with the yellow dotted line, have to yield to oncoming traffic.
I used to be in the habit of driving along in the left-turn lane (if there was room) so I could match the speed of traffic. But now, regardless of whether there is room or not, I wait. Because if I move at all, the person in the regular lane starts to slow down to let me in. No! NO! I'm waiting for you to pass me, you fucking ninny, so slowing down just complicates the entire simple process! I've also had people swerve, as if I was in their lane (me: . . . .), and people honk, as if I'm doing something honk-worthy. You know what Colorado? You fucking win. I have ceased to properly use left-turn lanes, because I have yet to encounter a single person here who could handle it. This is not an exaggeration. (Although I might have encountered people in Denver who could handle it and I just don't remember).
Speaking of left-turn lanes, they confuse Coloradans in more ways than one. Picture a light traffic two lane street that ends at a medium traffic four lane street (well, five, actually) with a left-turn lane. You have four people in front of you turning left (north). Every single one of them waits until the northbound lanes are clear. Not a single one turns into the left-turn lane. That's what they're there for! It lives to serve this purpose, and you deny it? How cruel.
Then there are the people who cannot pass at all. Perhaps the lack of others slowing down and letting them go by is confusing. I did a fairly embarrassing maneuver due to lack of more hands than two and hit a curb, bending my wheel and hubcab (but my alignment was fine!). I found a used parts store just a little outside of town in what appeared to be junkyard land (sense, it makes) that had a used hubcab of the correct year and model for like, $25. However, as I'm driving on this two-lane highway out of the city proper, I find that the bent wheel is fairly alarming at higher speeds, and I ended up going between 35-45 (like most two-lane highways, the speed limit was 70, I believe. The lowest it would've been was 60.) I think it was only about four miles, but it felt longer at those speeds.
I felt really bad for everyone behind me, though. I had gathered a tail of at least five or six cars by the time I was halfway there. Now, there was enough oncoming traffic that until this point there had been no chance to pass. Then this golden opportunity with a dotted line and long visible stretch without cars comes up. None of them pass me. Not one. I had people passing me if I was going the speed limit on Highway 200 in Montana even if there was a solid double line (I'm not advocating this, but it was the way that road was driven). On my way back with my 'new' hubcab that looked about as worn as the one I damaged, so I figured I was good to go, there were even more opportunities to pass, yet no one passed me. Not a one. Maybe none of them had to go very far? I really have no clue.
There were a bunch of ideas/statements in this post obviously meant to be expanded by me some time a year ago, but I copied them to the end of the yet-unpublished continued entry for later and erased the ones that I had no clue about. If I had tried to fill them in, then we all know what would have happened to the entry otherwise. That's right, Darth Vader would have eaten it for breakfast in his Cheerios.
Oh there was one statement that I erased but was funny enough on its own: "men can't button their own shirts". Huh. That pretty much says it all. I know most guys actually manage by themselves, of course, that's not what I meant (I can tell that much although my original intent is lost). I mean, it's not like guys are going to start wearing shirts made to button themselves, 'cuz then they'd be wearing women's shirts. Hard to get out of that one. There isn't anything like a Self-sufficient Male Button-up Shirt Initiative, though. If there ever is one, I'll be behind you guys all the way. I'll keep my eyes open.
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Oh, Merry Christmas. Or Happy Christmas, if you like. You know, I don't really like capitalizing 'merry' or 'happy', but when I don't, it looks wrong too. Same with Happy Birthday. On one hand, it looks like I'm still in first grade and haven't grasped the concept of proper nouns yet, and on the other, it's how it written most places it's thrown around, and therefore looks correct.
Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz
The higher of these two numbers below indicates which side of your brain has dominance in your life. Realising your right brain/left brain tendancy will help you interact with and to understand others.
Left Brain Dominance:
(8)Right Brain Dominance:
(9)
Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz
----
So LJ has gotten fancy since I last used the 'post' function. This will be the first time ever posting on my laptop, which doesn't have the last.fm plugin at the moment, so it can't tell y'all that I'm not listening to anything atm.
So I have one really, really trivial thing I've been wanting to LJ rant about but keep thinking of my almost complete but not quite continuation entry (which is my next step after this) and thinking, 'No one reads my lj anymore, anyway,' which is true in a sense because no one can read nothing, but I sort of wouldn't blame anyone for not reading anymore since I stopped looking at my friends' ljs some time ago out of guilt. My current counselor says I'm very good at avoiding things. I don't think it's hard at all to avoid things; the real trick is to not feel constantly guilty about it. Which I'm not that good at. *sigh*
I moved to Colorado (like, ten days short of a year ago!), and although I'm sure I could say many things about it, there is only one thing that I feel the need to internet rant about: the drivers.
Is Driver's Ed not a thing anymore? It's mind-boggling. First, there's major urban traffic in a lot of places, so you have a lot of driving techniques, good or bad, that accompany that. I'm not sure how I can describe it. It's as if the drivers here are at once scarily polite & cautious, and also aggressive and unobservant. Usually the first traits win, on a day-to-day, in town sort of basis. You'd think this would be a good thing, right? Right? What confuses me is that I'm from Montana, right? I took Driver's Ed there, and all my driving years were there. So why would I be a more aggressive driver than Coloradans? Because this is my only remaining conclusion. (Although I assumed this guy in a pick-up truck the other would act as spineless as everyone else and he didn't and had to move over. I felt bad for about five seconds.)
So this is what happens. Picture a major city street that has eight lanes (four on each side). The left three are all straight, and the right-most is a right-turn lane. I'm in the left-most lane. In two or three blocks, I need to turn right. I look to the right and there is a car right about the same location as me. I look ahead and gauge that there isn't enough space to speed up and get in front of them before the stoplight, so I put on my turn signal, and start to slow down. You know what happens at this point??
The other person slows down to let me pass. Firstly, it's not the fucking highway, so the left lane isn't actually a passing lane, and secondly, it turns into this ridiculous thing where I slow down more, but then so do they, and I get really frustrated and yell and wave my hand for them to go on. There is such a thing as 'too nice'. This also has happened to me EVERY TIME I try to move from a left-turn lane into the main lane. The fucking person coming has the right-of-way, right? So I, the person with the yellow dotted line, have to yield to oncoming traffic.
I used to be in the habit of driving along in the left-turn lane (if there was room) so I could match the speed of traffic. But now, regardless of whether there is room or not, I wait. Because if I move at all, the person in the regular lane starts to slow down to let me in. No! NO! I'm waiting for you to pass me, you fucking ninny, so slowing down just complicates the entire simple process! I've also had people swerve, as if I was in their lane (me: . . . .), and people honk, as if I'm doing something honk-worthy. You know what Colorado? You fucking win. I have ceased to properly use left-turn lanes, because I have yet to encounter a single person here who could handle it. This is not an exaggeration. (Although I might have encountered people in Denver who could handle it and I just don't remember).
Speaking of left-turn lanes, they confuse Coloradans in more ways than one. Picture a light traffic two lane street that ends at a medium traffic four lane street (well, five, actually) with a left-turn lane. You have four people in front of you turning left (north). Every single one of them waits until the northbound lanes are clear. Not a single one turns into the left-turn lane. That's what they're there for! It lives to serve this purpose, and you deny it? How cruel.
Then there are the people who cannot pass at all. Perhaps the lack of others slowing down and letting them go by is confusing. I did a fairly embarrassing maneuver due to lack of more hands than two and hit a curb, bending my wheel and hubcab (but my alignment was fine!). I found a used parts store just a little outside of town in what appeared to be junkyard land (sense, it makes) that had a used hubcab of the correct year and model for like, $25. However, as I'm driving on this two-lane highway out of the city proper, I find that the bent wheel is fairly alarming at higher speeds, and I ended up going between 35-45 (like most two-lane highways, the speed limit was 70, I believe. The lowest it would've been was 60.) I think it was only about four miles, but it felt longer at those speeds.
I felt really bad for everyone behind me, though. I had gathered a tail of at least five or six cars by the time I was halfway there. Now, there was enough oncoming traffic that until this point there had been no chance to pass. Then this golden opportunity with a dotted line and long visible stretch without cars comes up. None of them pass me. Not one. I had people passing me if I was going the speed limit on Highway 200 in Montana even if there was a solid double line (I'm not advocating this, but it was the way that road was driven). On my way back with my 'new' hubcab that looked about as worn as the one I damaged, so I figured I was good to go, there were even more opportunities to pass, yet no one passed me. Not a one. Maybe none of them had to go very far? I really have no clue.
There were a bunch of ideas/statements in this post obviously meant to be expanded by me some time a year ago, but I copied them to the end of the yet-unpublished continued entry for later and erased the ones that I had no clue about. If I had tried to fill them in, then we all know what would have happened to the entry otherwise. That's right, Darth Vader would have eaten it for breakfast in his Cheerios.
Oh there was one statement that I erased but was funny enough on its own: "men can't button their own shirts". Huh. That pretty much says it all. I know most guys actually manage by themselves, of course, that's not what I meant (I can tell that much although my original intent is lost). I mean, it's not like guys are going to start wearing shirts made to button themselves, 'cuz then they'd be wearing women's shirts. Hard to get out of that one. There isn't anything like a Self-sufficient Male Button-up Shirt Initiative, though. If there ever is one, I'll be behind you guys all the way. I'll keep my eyes open.