Happy New Year, Dammit
First off: THXSOMUCH dethorats 4 PCKG. You are now officially my favorite for the espresso chocolate alone, and may possibly hold the coveted post of Favoritest Ever for the Maori folktales. Also, the socks fucking ROCK and match my ttly 4w5um grey pants. Also also, I hope you survived your attempt at better living through dentistry. XD
Mom and I are d0rks, so we celebrated New Year's Eve with a pizza (that we bought with the gift card X-chan gave us) and a stack of movies. (We had been going to go out and see something, but it was dark and rainy and we'd both been driving around all day and neither of us felt like driving anywhere farther than the movie rental store or Pizza Hut.)
H is in Kobe, and likely to be there for the next week or thereabouts. This gives me license to slack on the e-mail front. Also, since I got to see my sister, he gets to see his. Fair is fair even if I am a bit lost without him.
I have some introspection, and possibly also some religious wangst, coming up in the future, when I'm not too tired and headachey to do something about it. I've come to the conclusion that I am probably going to have to cave and get a professional massage or something, despite severe misgivings. (Basically, while I realize that it's all very professional and so on, I have severe misgivings about total strangers touching me when I can't see what they're doing and possibly also getting oil in my hair. Also, frankly, the first massage I ever had rapidly segued into the first sex I ever had, so there's a fair amount of reprogramming myself I'd have to do there.) However, until I can jury-rig my mattress to vibrate my back at the flip of a switch, I'm stuck.
Of course, it might also help if I would lose some fucking weight, now, mightn't it.
Also, I had a little bit of a strange encounter today; I was coming out of Brazil and turning off I-70 onto US-41, and while I was stopped at the light, happened to see a bum standing on the grassy embankment with a sign: NOT LIEING! Please help, I am trying too get food for my kids, etc. I'd seen him before, although that was about a month ago at the median where IN-46 connects with US-41, and that time I gave him $20.
This is not because I am a good person. It is because I felt sorry for him, and because I can't help but think that the difference between him and myself is not necessarily deserved. I whine and cry about money periodically; still, the end of the month finds me with my obligations met and a bit left over, rather than standing on the highway waving a homemade cardboard sign at strangers. By that standard, I'm doing pretty well.
Anyway: I argued with myself over whether to give him another twenty. $20 is, obviously, not going to solve whatever problems the guy has, and if he's so destitute and desperate that he's resorted to standing on the roadside in near-freezing weather, with not much in the way of outerwear I might add, obviously the help he needs is more than I can realistically give. And in any case, anything I might give him is, at best, only going to be a stopgap measure--if, in the space of about a month, he's still struggling for the basic necessities of life (and some problems can't be solved in a month), $20 isn't going to do too much.
And yes, I'm aware that, despite the protestations of his sign to the contrary, he could very well be lying and I inadvertently subsidized his next bender. But I don't know, and of course very few people are reliable narrators when they're talking about themselves. I always want to talk to these people, to know what their story is, to know what's brought them so low that they have no choice (or feel they have no choice) but to take up their stance on the road. Except whenever I run into one, it's not safe or expedient to stop, and--
At which point, the light changed and I had no choice but to step on it.
And now, off to bed.
Mom and I are d0rks, so we celebrated New Year's Eve with a pizza (that we bought with the gift card X-chan gave us) and a stack of movies. (We had been going to go out and see something, but it was dark and rainy and we'd both been driving around all day and neither of us felt like driving anywhere farther than the movie rental store or Pizza Hut.)
H is in Kobe, and likely to be there for the next week or thereabouts. This gives me license to slack on the e-mail front. Also, since I got to see my sister, he gets to see his. Fair is fair even if I am a bit lost without him.
I have some introspection, and possibly also some religious wangst, coming up in the future, when I'm not too tired and headachey to do something about it. I've come to the conclusion that I am probably going to have to cave and get a professional massage or something, despite severe misgivings. (Basically, while I realize that it's all very professional and so on, I have severe misgivings about total strangers touching me when I can't see what they're doing and possibly also getting oil in my hair. Also, frankly, the first massage I ever had rapidly segued into the first sex I ever had, so there's a fair amount of reprogramming myself I'd have to do there.) However, until I can jury-rig my mattress to vibrate my back at the flip of a switch, I'm stuck.
Of course, it might also help if I would lose some fucking weight, now, mightn't it.
Also, I had a little bit of a strange encounter today; I was coming out of Brazil and turning off I-70 onto US-41, and while I was stopped at the light, happened to see a bum standing on the grassy embankment with a sign: NOT LIEING! Please help, I am trying too get food for my kids, etc. I'd seen him before, although that was about a month ago at the median where IN-46 connects with US-41, and that time I gave him $20.
This is not because I am a good person. It is because I felt sorry for him, and because I can't help but think that the difference between him and myself is not necessarily deserved. I whine and cry about money periodically; still, the end of the month finds me with my obligations met and a bit left over, rather than standing on the highway waving a homemade cardboard sign at strangers. By that standard, I'm doing pretty well.
Anyway: I argued with myself over whether to give him another twenty. $20 is, obviously, not going to solve whatever problems the guy has, and if he's so destitute and desperate that he's resorted to standing on the roadside in near-freezing weather, with not much in the way of outerwear I might add, obviously the help he needs is more than I can realistically give. And in any case, anything I might give him is, at best, only going to be a stopgap measure--if, in the space of about a month, he's still struggling for the basic necessities of life (and some problems can't be solved in a month), $20 isn't going to do too much.
And yes, I'm aware that, despite the protestations of his sign to the contrary, he could very well be lying and I inadvertently subsidized his next bender. But I don't know, and of course very few people are reliable narrators when they're talking about themselves. I always want to talk to these people, to know what their story is, to know what's brought them so low that they have no choice (or feel they have no choice) but to take up their stance on the road. Except whenever I run into one, it's not safe or expedient to stop, and--
At which point, the light changed and I had no choice but to step on it.
And now, off to bed.