South Park did an episode that mostly sums up my feeling about Prius owners and their smugness.  They made fun of “progressive” San Francisco dwelling hybrid owners, implying that they all ”preachy talk” with their eyes closed, and like the smell of their own farts.   They demonstrate this repeatedly by having them stop in mid-conversation, fart loudly, then bend over and inhale with pleasure, before resuming conversation.  I know many Prius owners who aren’t like this.  But I know several who are.   And they make me want to taser things. 

A few (in particular) come to mind.  I have a coworker who no longer calls his car “my car”.  When our office goes out to lunch and we are arranging rides, most of us say “We could take my car.”  He says “We could take my Prius”.   It is (apparently) very important that everyone knows he has a Prius.  This is annoying.  I’m not quite sure why it bothers me so much, but it really, really does.  It isn’t even like he is unique in his Prius ownership.  We have a really small office, and there are multiple people are Prius owners.   We get it.  You own a Prius.  This doesn’t make you special.  But your farts smell pretty.

This is something that has been annoying me for a long time, but I decided to write about because I was wandering around the internet when I cam across this hippie “news” article.  Like all of the authors on this “news” website, the author has a one-sentence self description of herself at the bottom of her article: “Anonymous Blogger is a Prius-driving writer and photographer based in San Francisco.”  If I had to describe myself in one sentence, that wouldn’t be the sentence I chose (and not just because I don’t drive a Prius).  I wonder if she wrote the description herself.  I wonder if she realizes how smug and narcissistic it sounds. 

Nahgems is a judgemental b!tch and egocentric blogger who generally dislikes people, but likes puppies a lot. 

And I’m not retarded.  I know that there is a good chance home prices will continue to drop.  I don’t think the market has hit bottom.  But I (like the other people using redfin, except apparently you) I am still choosing to buy a home. 

Redfin is a “smart” way to buy a home.  They have better data than most real estate agents I have worked with (and I have worked with several “real” agents).  This isn’t the first home I have bought.  Because of the business model (which does require you to do your own research), I assume that the other redfin users are tech savvy, intelligent, motivated people (not retarded).  And these tech savvy (not retarded) people are (like me) searching for homes to buy. 

And then you post several, “Why I am smarter than you” messages.  What are you hoping to accomplish?  Are you being altruistic and trying to warn us?  As I mentioned earlier, the demongraphic using Redfin seems like they are the motivated independant type.  We aren’t going to listen to your advice.  I’ve already made my decision.   I believe that you have a different motivation.  You are just trying to show us that you are smarter than we are.  And you’re probably right.  If I waited to buy a home, I could probably get more home for my money.    When the market continues to drop you are going to say “Neener, neener, neener!  I am so smart.  I tried to warn you.  But you didn’t listen.  I am better than you!”.  And perhaps you are better than me.  But I don’t really want to hear it.  I especially don’t want to hear it repeatedly from the same person (who is on home-buyer forum even though they aren’t buying a house, just so they can mock the people there). 

Why are you on a website for home-buyers?  You clearly have stated in multiple forum posts that you aren’t a home buyer.   We don’t want to be constantly reminded of our stupidity.  Please go away.

* On an unrelated note, I would like to mention how much I like Redfin.   They give you 1/2 of their comission (which in CA is pretty substantial).  The customer service has been amazing.  I recently offered on a house.   When the seller rejected my offer and I couldn’t afford to counter, my agent offered (without me asking) to take an additional comission hit so that I could get the home.  She is now getting less than 1% (standard realtor comission is 3%).    I don’t know many realtors that would do that.  I was shocked.  I was amazed.  I am truely excited because I may get the home I really wanted and with any other agent, I wouldn’t be getting it.  Redfin went above and beyond my expectations.  If you are looking at buying a house (even though you know it may be stupid in this market) I highly recommend Redfin. 

But I also blog for selfish reasons. My meanness needs a place to creep out. When I was a self-conscious teenager my mom used to say my occasional zits were “the meanness oozing out of me”. I’m an adult now, and like most adults my skin has recovered from its unfortunate adolescent state. Oozing zits no longer provide an mechanism to diffuse the meanness inside of me. So I blog about the people and things that make me want to taser people. And, with the meanness diffused via blogging, I can be charming and pleasant in real life (really, I’m not nearly as hateful in person). And (in real life) no one knows that I am a horrible and mean. I blog because mocking people occasionally makes me smile (but in real life it has consequence). And I blog because venting is a healthy way to deal with my disdain for the general population.

I write because blogging makes me feel better. But this week has been a FML week. And it is just continuing to get worse. And even hateful blogging isn’t making me feel better. Perhaps this is Karma’s equalizer for the full scholarship to law school I found out about last month. Or maybe Karma is annoyed by the absolute glee that I take from each porsche I zoom past on my morning commute to work because I get to use the carpool lane. There is something wonderful about zooming by porsches in my little scion xD. And it makes me smile. And I know I shouldn’t be gleeful about the porsche owners misery as they sit in traffic. But I can’t help smiling just a tiny bit when I pass them (especially the really douchey porsches with the giant spoilers on the back).

But this week has had several major blows. Due to some unfortunate work politics, I think my husband may lose his job. And the owner of the shiny house I was so excited about (which would have allowed me to move out of my in-laws house) rejected our offer (which even stunned *his* Realtor – our offer was pretty generous). And my health has taken a turn for the worse. And, since the house offer fell through, we won’t be able to rescue BIL’s amazing dog – who is going to end up in the pound. He will probably get euthanized because no one wants a 7 year old dog with hip problems – even if he is amazingly sweet. And I’m having friend issues. And even passing NINE porsches yesterday wasn’t enough to make me feel happy.

boy dates welfare mom
she wants him to dump his dog
must choose dog or girl

dog loved you six years
only known girl for three months
is blow job worth it?

This past weekend, a friend of mine had a swanky birthday party. This particular friend refers to herself as a “fabulous socialite” (which should give you some insight into her personality. What kind of person actually calls themselves a “fabulous socialite”?). I was *not* looking forward to this dinner.

The evite said the dinner reservation was at 8, and people should make sure they arrived on time. I did. Only one other person (are pretentious lawyers really people?) was there. A half our later, the birthday girl arrived. Then other guests started to slowly trickle in. At 10, our “fabulous socialite” host decided we should go ahead and order food, even though six people had not yet arrived. I ordered the “cous cous with vegetables a la carte” ($24.95, the only vegetarian option on the menu). Eventually, the waiters brought everyone (meaty) soup ($8) and (meaty) appetizers ($10) and unlimited champagne ($?).

I still had an hour drive home. And at this point it was midnight. I wanted to go home. The “fabulous socialite” and her “fabulous friends” had drained every ounce of social stamina I had – and if I stayed I probably would have committed some sort of unacceptable social faux pas (like tasering the pretentious lawyer sitting next to me). Of course, there was no bill. And this group has the obnoxious habit of splitting the bill equally. So I added up $24.95 meal, $8 soup, $10 appetizers. Given the amount of champagne the table had consumed (I’d seen at least 6 bottles come out), I figured $18 wasn’t an unreasonable amount to assume for drinks (even though I’d only had one). $60.95 + 25% for tax and tip = $76.15. So I left $80.00, assuming that would cover me. And walked out to my car. Since it took two hours to order, I had stayed considerably longer than I was expecting. My parking cost $25 (stupid San Francisco parking). I spent $105 dollars on cous cous.

I got in my car and started to drive home – when a wave of nausea passed through me (followed by unbelievable cramping). I’d like to think this was my body reacting to the shock of paying $105 for cous cous. But it was much worse than that. Yes, the $105 cous cous gave me food poisioning. I didn’t think I would make it home. And when I arrived home, I spent a considerable amount of time expelling the $105 cous cous from my body in a very uncomfortable manner.

I’ll never actually tell the birthday girl how miserable her party was. I won’t mention to her that I spent $105 on nasty cous cous and vegetables. She won’t know that the $105 cous cous spewed from both ends of my body in a very uncomfortable manner. And next year, I will probably attend a very similar birthday party for her.

But perhaps when my birthday rolls around next year, I will plan two parties. I will have a chill party for my cool friends. But for the friends that served me $105 cous cous that gave me the shits (or did similar inconsiderate things), I will have a swanky pretentious party at a vegan raw restaurant, where I will be the only person enjoying myself. I will hire a bag-piper and accordian player and have their services added to the bill (which will of course be split evenly). I will make sure there is no alcohol at the restaurant, but order $10 bitter organic tea and $15 raw carrot appetizers for everyone. And I hire people from PETA to pretend to be my friends, and intersperse them throughtout the table so they can spend the entire (at least five hour) party lecturing my “guests” about the evilness of their swanky leather Louis Vuitton boots.

I’ve tried the traditional wifely solutions (nagging, yelling, ignoring, pleading, bribing with “back rubs”) and none are effective. They make things worse. He begins to feel justified about being an ass because I am being an evil naggy screamy witch. And everything become worse. Recently, his father had fairly major surgery (we live with his parents, it is a really long story, I’m not a loser, really…). We have been trying to be helpful. Yesterday we made dinner. Afterwards, I started cleaning up the kitchen. A while after I started cleaning, he came up and spent a few minutes loading the dishwasher with the “easy” dishes. I was still working when he sat down at his computer. I continued to clean. After several more minutes, I started to attack the nasty scorched pots in the sink. I nicely asked if he could empty the dish drainer, so that I would have a place to put the scorched pots I was scrubbing. He said, “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I put the nasty pots in the sink so they could soak. I’ll clean them later tonight”. I said, “I’m going to bed soon. I really want to make sure things get cleaned up – because your mom is really stressed out. Are you sure they’ll get done?”. He said “I promise”. I woke up this morning – and the pots were sitting in nasty greasy cold water in the sink.

If it were my house, I would just leave them there until he cleaned them. But it isn’t my house. And, under the circumstances, I don’t think that is fair. His mom is really stressed and tired, and I KNOW she won’t leave them there. She will wash them. So I washed them. But I’m angry. It is berfore 9am and what I really want to do is go in to the bedroom, wake him up and yell. Loudly. Angrily. Meanly. I want to yell. A lot. I want to flush his stupid new google phone down the toilet (then use rubber gloves to pull it out of the toilet, take it out the driveway and run over it 33 times). I have anger management problems. I’ve worked on them a lot. I’m not yelling. I’m not waking him up. I’m not destroying his stupid google phone. I’m writing down my feelings in a healthy way (and then publishing them on the internet in a not so healthy way).

All the crazy Dr. Phil like psychology people (I’ve never actually watched Dr. Phil – so I may be completely misrepresenting him) say that yelling and nagging are not the way to solve your problems. They say that I should openly communicate my feelings. But openly communicating hasn’t seemed to help. He *does* (in fact) know that when he promises to do something and fails to actually follow through, (and in the process makes ME look like an inconsiderate ass – because his mommy doesn’t know that he promised me things would get clean, she just knows that I cooked and the kitchen is dirty) it pisses me off.

So what exactly *is* the appropriate way to tell a 30 year old man that his behavior is inappropriate and he is acting like an inconsiderate 4 year old?

But my least favorite moment is when our director asks “Does anyone have any important issues to bring up?”. Becaue if no one brought up any “important issues”, we could leave. But other people seem oblivious to this. There are two specific individuals that always have “important issues” to bring up. One of these issues is always the disgustingness of the microwave or the espresso machine. After years of whining about the nastiness, nothing has changed. Do they really think that “discussing” it one more time is going to make someone say “Gee, the last 17 times you mentioned it, I thought you were talking about everyone else in the office. This time I get it. You want ME to wipe the milk foamy nozzle on the espresso machine after I make my latte!”. And then the problem will be fixed. Yeah. It just isn’t going to happen. Maybe next time someone asks about “important issues”, I should bring up the wasted time discussing unimportant “important issues” in staff meetings.

I think there should be a rule about how frequently a topic can be discussed. If you bring up something that has been discussed within the last 4 weeks you should get tasered. Unfortunatly, I doubt this would stop these people from talking. They would just branch out and bring up other “important issues” – like whether the (already approved/discussed) artwork in the office is to “provocative” (it isn’t provocative it all).

Maybe instead of the taser rule, we should use coupons or tickets or something. And people should have a very limited amount of “important issues” they can bring up each year. Then the obnoxious people who bring up the same issue every week would run out of coupons. And I would only hear about the damn espresso machiene a few times a year. Of course, tasering them sounds more fun.

Because I like numbers, I tend to keep track of a lot of ridiculous things. For example, I keep track of how I respond to yellow traffic lights. I count the number of times where I am the last car to make it through, and the number of times I stop, and am the first car sitting at the red light. In my crazy logic, I assume that if the number is about equal, I am not driving too recklessly. Tracking my response to yellow lights is a little weird, but if that were my only idiosyncrasy I probably wouldn’t be worried. But that is just the tip of the ice burg. I have tons of crazy things that I keep track of. I don’t share this information with anyone. I know my stupid tallies are ridiculous, and people would mock me.

But those same people probably like me *because* of my stupid tallies. I use them in social interaction too. I figured out what made people happy, and I added those things to my interpersonal communications. I rarely *actually* care what my coworkers have to say about their lives. But people like to share. And they probably don’t care about my life any more than I care about theirs. So I let them share (60% of the time). I am an active listener. (I remember you saying your baby’s poo was green yesterday? Is she feeling better? … Wow. That is *so* interesting…). But I keep track of things in our conversation. Did they ask a question about something going on in my life or remember a personal story I told? I match them (and add a little) when it is their turn. And when I do this, they seem to like me.

I have this feeling if people knew how much of my social interactions were calculated, they really wouldn’t like me much. If they realized that it was just a game to me, they probably wouldn’t like me at all.  On the other hand, I have this feeling that if I stopped calculating and interacted with people the way I wanted (Yeah, I really don’t care about your baby’s crap. Do you mind if I keep working on this spreadsheet and completely ignore what you are saying?), people wouldn’t like me either.

One of the few people who still reads this blog regularly decided it would be a good idea to encourage me to increase my readership.  And, in trying to be helpful, he sent me a link to what might be the most retarded blog post I have ever seen.  The initial post (“How I’d Promote My Blog if I were Starting Out Again”, by Darren Rowse) had one main recommendation: to “create anticipation”, although it promised  five other great ways to increase your readership if you came back and read future posts.  Yes, Darren wrote a 720 word entry that ended with, “I’m going to cover five areas that I’d focus upon as a new blogger attempting to give my blog a start. I hope you find them useful.“  That’s right.  After duping us into reading an exceptionally long post about  NOTHING, he basically said “read my blog more and I might have something useful to say.”   He calls that “creating anticipation”.  I call it “wasting my time”.  This was supposed to make me want to sign up for his RSS feed so I wouldn’t miss the “real” content?  WTF?  All it made me want to do was kick him in the nuts.   At least I don’t pretend you are going to learn anything when I blog about NOTHING.  I state right up front (see the first sentence) that my blog is a “purposeless rant”.  

And Darren had 96 comments!!!  And they weren’t “You’re Retarded – I just wasted 2 minutes reading a post that said nothing!” (although I was tempted to add that, so he would have 97).  They were positive comments.  They said things like, “Way to leave us hanging Darren. :) Looking forward to the followup posts.”   

I thought maybe this post was an anomaly for Darren.  Perhaps his other posts contained content, and this was just a really bad example on an off day.  So,  I clicked to read the five content areas he mentioned he would discuss.  They were unhelpful.  He suggested things like advertising with adwords.  I can’t imagine who that would get to read my blog.  Would I want the kind of readers that clicked on adwords and found me?  What had they been searching for, “argon inflated nut sacs”?  What kind of freaky person would search for “Argon Inflated Nut Sacs” and then click on the ads that are associated with it?

A while ago I read an analysis of who actually clicked on online ads.  I don’t remember the statistics, but it said something like, “There are are 14 Mormon housewives in the midwest that just sit there clicking on ads all day. Apparently, they have nothing better to do while they pop out kids and wait for Jesus to rescue them.”   The analysis also said something like “Intelligent non-creepy internet users click on less than one ad each month.  Usually they only click ads when they are actively seeking to buy something and the ad is appropriate.”  I’m not trying to attract scary middle-aged Mormon midwestern housewives.   And I REALLY don’t care enough about this blog to actually PAY people to read it.  I may be egocentric enough to blog, but I’m not that bad. 

Apparently Darren is OK with the creepy Mormon housewives readers.  He got a comment from Jennifer, who liked his retarded post and said, “Thanks for your work!!!  I can’t wait! Are you going to write this post late in the evening tomorrow to keep us watching all day? :)”  Really?   She is going to watch his blog all day?  Anticipating his helpful hints about gaining readership?   I wonder if *she* has a blog that she is trying to increase readership for.  It would explain her excitement.  I bet it is filled with unicorns and rainbows. 

Darren’s final suggestion was to include “great content” (duh?).  It’s too bad he didn’t listen to his own suggestion.  Just in case Darren is right and “creating anticipation” really works, tomorrow there will be a post titled “My sister’s poo smells like lollipops and rainbows.”  You should come back and read it.  I’m sure it will be a fine piece of journalism.

A long, long time ago, I was a college freshman. Before I arrived my freshman year, I resolved to make friends. While this resolution applied to everyone, I specifically resolved to make friends with my roommate (this was way before I met her). But apparently the RPI matching software is about as talented as the OkCupid matching software. When I arrived freshman year – the eco-friendly, politically liberal, bookish, artsy, vegetarian roommate I expected was no where to be found. Instead, I found an Air-Force ROTC, super-christian, country music loving, Virginian who hung a pull-up bar in my doorway, had “The Guide to Resisting Sexual Sin” under her bed and ate beef jerky. Still, I had already decided to be her friend. So, when she asked me to go to a Rensselaer Christian Association meeting with her, I reluctantly agreed. I went to the meeting, and signed the “sign-in” sheet at the door. The meeting was creepy (as expected). People hugged me. I don’t like huggy people. I don’t like Jesus either. I resolved not to go back.

I assumed this was the end of my relationship with RCA. What I didn’t know was that they had added me to their “member” list. Apparently clubs with more members get more funds or something — because anyone who attends a meeting EVER gets added. The membership list gets sent to the bursar’s office. The bursar chooses a random student from the list to receive the RCA scholarship. They picked me. I felt slightly guilty for taking it. But I did anyways. If Jesus had wanted one of the crazy Christians to take it, he would have given it to them. He gave it to me.

Well, Christian guilt led me to attend additional meetings. I don’t know what I was thinking, but it certainly seemed like a sign from God. I eventually (after about a month) stopped going. The meetings were still creepy. People still hugged me (even after I explicitly asked them not to). I still hated Jesus. I kept the scholarship for 3 years. But while I was there, I actually made two friends (Who knew Christians could be fun?). These became my roommates for the next two years. We just avoided discussing Jesus because – as mentioned earlier – I hate Jesus. They did not.

Anyways, their Christian friends didn’t particularly like me. I was evil and apparently bad influence. At one point, they had an “intervention” to try and get my Christian friends to stop hanging out with me. They REALLY didn’t like me.

You’re probably wondering how all of this relates to the title (and first paragraph) of this entry. I hadn’t talked to either of these girls in years — but they WERE my friends. So I didn’t mind when one of them added me as a “facebook friend”.

But then I started getting additional requests. From *their* creepy christian college friends. These people were never my friend. These people hated me. These people are icky. And now I have a list of “friend requests” on facebook. I don’t want to “reject” them. I have a weird “issue” with rejecting people. But I don’t want to accept them either. The creepy Christians who hated me are the most obvious people insincere “facebook friend” requests. But there are also people in my high school class that I barely knew.

One of those high school “friends” worked as a receptionist at the ballroom studio where I occasionally took lessons. When she send a “friend” request, I didn’t want to offend her. She did scheduling and I wanted good lesson times. So I accepted her “friend request”. But I stopped taking lessons there months ago. And now I want to remove her from my friend list. She was never really my friend. But if I do she will get a “removed” email. And that just seems mean. And I don’t like being mean. I like gummi bears.

Why do people keep adding me as a facebook “friend” when they aren’t my friend (and never were)? It stresses me out. I don’t want to add them. But I don’t want to be mean either. It is making me want to sit in a corner and eat gummi bears and never log on to facebook again. I hate facebook. I hate friend requests. I hate Jesus. `

** I think I may have told the Jesus-Scholarship story in a previous entry. I apologize for the redundancy. But it was necessary for explaining why I hate facebook.