Coffee Required But Not Present: Side Effects!

Well hello, glorious internet people. How are your bitstrip comics and Giraffe riddle failure profile pictures doing today? Mine are fabulous, meaning they don’t exist. I feel the need to drop a ridiculous, nonsensical blog upon your assholes today, and so I shall. Crash positions, everyone. This one’s a train wreck.

So I love my little apartment. I say little, but it has a ton of rooms. They’re all small rooms, but it has as many of them as my parents’ house! My living room is about a fourth of the size of theirs, but like I said, we are not counting size. In my mind, though, this is merely a stop on my way to something more permanent. Yes, I could stay there forever, because I adore it, but Listen to my plan. I will lay it out for you. Close your dick mops and listen. This lease is up in a little less than a year. It becomes month to month after that. For the time being, I am content to roam the fake-art streets of Muncietown and revel in being arty and mysterious and slightly overweight (and if one more person tells me I’m not allowed to say that… I swear to cheezus) and drink iced coffee whilst I make infinite plans which beget more plans, and I have hatched a grand one.

I hate moving. We all know this. Moving this time was horrifying, because there were stairs; so many stairs; narrow, terrible, evil fucking stairs that robbed me of my soul and look like they lead to a creaky scary attic, but in fact lead to my apartment. By the end of the process, I wanted to throw all of my shit back down them. At least it wasn’t like the haunted apartment in Portland where I moved a sectional couch up a single flight of 705 stairs by myself and then puked down them. No, no, I had friends and family to share the joy. We all puked together.

Given that I hate moving, I have decided that for my next home, I shall make moving my stuff obsolete. I will simply move my house. I’m not talking about trickery. I’m talking about buying a newish single-wide mobile home and just taking it with me everywhere! I don’t want an RV as a primary home, so don’t suggest that. I’m not THAT mobile. I want something with all the features of a “normal” house. I have friends who drive truck, and I’m betting at least a few of them are familiar with hauling mobile homes down a freeway. You see my plan? You see it? I will pay one of these awesome people money to move my house! It’s brilliant. I’m not sure what the laws are concerning that sort of thing, but I shall investigate. For years, I’ve thought I was just an idiot. I wanted a permanent home, but I wanted to move constantly. It took this long for me to realize I can do both!

Moving on. We know how I love to rant about my fellow gays. I always get these comments like “you’re so bitter you need to just calm down meeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhgaga.” I think I have valid points sometimes, so I just sort of shrug when I see those comments anymore. I used to go all ninja table flip on people about them, but I have since realized that I can shut out all opinions by locking my front door and staying off the internet. Problem solved. Usually, when I post something, I don’t do so to get an opposing viewpoint and be magically changed. This is not an after school special. The gay community is full of issues, and I just happen to love picking at them like scabs to try in my way to cause some sort of awakening. So far, I am apparently not yelling loud enough to be heard over Madonna’s remix of a remix of a cocaine remix. Because of my negativity and how much everyone enjoys it, I officially rename myself Negative Nancy Superbeast 3000. I’ll leave your comments in place, but I likely will not respond to them. My hope is that they either make a good point and provide a valid counter-argument to whatever sludge my brain smashes out onto Facebook, or that it is so singularly stupid that I don’t have to help you look like an idiot.

I have a revelation for you. Some men are just not into dicks. That’s right, I said it. They might support us, they might wear our little T-shirts for equal rights and whatnot, but there are some of us who simply cannot connect straight men with support. This is where we will one day lose support. Just because someone puts on an equal rights T-shirt and changes his profile picture to a red and white equal sign does not mean he’s saying to you “Okay I admit it, now get your flabby, washed-up hooker anus over here.” It simply means that he supports equal rights, specifically marriage equality. This misinterpretation is something that seems to be unique to the gay community because our public image is light years ahead of my high school in “lacks ability to think critically and in three dimensions.” He doesn’t want you, ass nugget bitch lantern poopmouth. He wants you to be happy. GET YOUR HAND OUT OF HIS PANTS FOR FUCK SAKE BEFORE YOU RUIN IT FOR ALL OF US. Because let me tell you something, even if he lets you do anything, that doesn’t mean you won. It doesn’t mean you’re some irresistible converter. You have a hole, that’s all that means. In all likelihood, you probably scarred him more than “opened his eyes.” So let’s all quit barking up the wrong trees. Plenty of slimy, catty little gutter skanks out there to go around. Pair up. Do the rest of us a favor and eliminate yourselves from the equation.

Am I bitter? You bet. I love it. Bring me a hot dog and some grape soda. I feel like being ironic.

Moving on again, I would like to announce that I will soon be selling my work. YES. Selling. Ohhhhhh I said a bad word. Are all your houses on fire? Is Joanne’s in flames? Did all your lensless glasses melt into puddles of arty hatred? I want everyone to do me a favor. Come to my first book signing and throw tomatoes at me. Scream that I sold out. Tell me my work was better before I became “mainstream.” I would love to be in that class of people, because I would be on the other side of popular culture. I bet I could think better on that side of it. Personally, I do not plan to spend the rest of my days answering phones for a pancake stack of companies who couldn’t care less if I lived or died. One day, I would like to be free of that. I don’t want to spend the next fifty years rotting into husk of a former artist. I want to leave a Bradbury-like catalogue in my wake when I become a member of Future Zombies of America. I want to be a tortured old man in a lovely little house with a head full of stories and a house full of memories. I do not want to still be working in the service industry, because jobs like mine are in the same category as a suicide prevention hotline. My job keeps that one in business, I should imagine. I hate my job. I do not want to stay there forever. I’m okay with another four years, but if I am there when I turn forty, I’m just going to give up. I doubt it will still be there by then. That building may be a parking lot by then. I won’t be there. I do not give a fuck.

You can work your minimum wage Panera Bread Jimmy John’s Walmart jobs for the next fifty years and maintain your artistic integrity if you like. I plan to be a successful artist, rather than one that can’t support myself with my art. Believe me, I shall one day live on the proceeds of my ability to tell a story. My writing is by no means great, but I have no shortage of stories to tell, and I improve every single time. You just wait. One day, I’ll be regulated to English Literature textbooks where students will be forced to read my work. No one will read it by choice at that point. I want to be THAT loved as a writer.

I require it all! All of it! A single wide mobile home! Get your hand out of his pants! I want to be a sellout!

So up yours. Up yours with a great big engraved redwood log, my friends. With love, of course. How else does one sodomize another with a huge tree?

Why Am I An Atheist? An Attempt At A Non-Confrontational Explanation

I feel the need to clarify what atheism is and why I am an atheist. It is not to eat your babies or sacrifice kittens on your kitchen counter. I simply am not religious because my personal belief system cannot reconcile belief in a higher being, because most things can be explained one way or another. I feel that while there are piles of videos and blogs out there trying to make the point I'm about to try to make, they usually devolve into babyish confrontation and dismissal of Christianity in its entirety as some kind of ridiculous cult, which is not the case.

Now, before you rip my head off and poop in my eyeballs and give me pink eye, I will say that it isn't that I don't believe in anything. I believe in science, logic and reason. Not to say that logic and reason can't apply to other belief systems, because they can. But at some point, religion asks you to stop questioning it.

I am simply not okay with that. Life is too complex to be governed by a single set of rules.

I question things. I ask stupid questions sometimes because I want to know everything. I want to experience things that religions tell me not to so that I can know why I'm not supposed to experience them.

I'm not saying that someone is weak or inferior for being a religious person. Life is difficult. Life is alternately the most beautiful and the most vile thing ever known to man. You have to believe in something. That's a basic human truth.

I believe in science, because even though I don't understand so many things in life, no one tells me to stop trying to understand it and trust that everything will be okay. No one tells me not to try to understand this world and all of the amazing things in it and accept one single, unchanging explanation: that it was all created a long time ago by a being higher than myself. That is merely one of many  explanations, none of which will ever be proven. Sometimes, faith is all you need. There are other times when you also have to consider your options when nothing you know seems to fit.

The biggest argument people have for me as to why I ought not to trust science is that it always changes. It contradicts itself from decade to decade. Who would trust that?

Change is the driving force of this life, and change is frightening. Change takes one from point A to point B, but sometimes religion tells one to stop asking what point we're at, or it still behaves as though one is at Point A when Point B is clearly where one is. Science changes in response to evidence being discovered. Science is sometimes a series of educated guesses, which are then adjusted as evidence comes to light. This is the most beautiful thing about being an atheist. I am free to change as new evidence comes to light.

Religion does not change the way it works because society changes. Religion stays the same and denies change. Religion has a vague way sometimes of even suggesting that people who present new evidence are bad people for questioning anything.

Perhaps it's not supposed to be that way. Maybe it's just the people who have hijacked organized religion that have made it so rigid and unchanging and opposed to change. After all, change means rewriting the text. Rewriting the text means that the old text was wrong. In religion, this is not allowed.

Christianity, for example, is actually a very beautiful collection of beliefs about loving one another and suspending judgement for others. Because the Bible was written and rewritten by different people through the ages, it evolved like a game of telephone, and at some point, the book of Leviticus became a tool to hate people. It's odd, though, that only certain parts of it are still considered relevant. My father is a pastor, and I have read the bible. All of it. Especially that book. It says a lot of things are wrong, and if we were to consider it all to be relevant, most of us would have been stoned to death. I'm not kidding. You should read it before you quote it. Yes, it says being gay is wrong, but it says a LOT of things. I would love to see a translation of the original texts so I could see what was added by monarchs in the middle ages and so on. We are living in a time that is not compatible with the Leviticus as it is written, but religion does not change. It does not evolve.

I have several Christian friends, and they are actually lovely people. I feel bad that so many crazy people have hijacked their belief system and used it to do so many terrible things to innocent people. I feel bad that terrible people have translated their text as a get-out-of-jail-free card for people to make each other feel bad for being gay or loving people outside of their own race. I feel bad that people have distorted the true meaning of Christianity and, indeed, the words of Jesus to such a degree that he has become the biggest emblem for greed and hatred in a country fueled by greed and hatred. I am sorry that Christianity was taken in such violent and brutally wrong directions as the Spanish Inquisition. I am sorry that it was used as an excuse to drive people to suicide by misinterpretation of “love the sinner, hate the sin” as “hate the sin and constantly tell the sinner they’re going to hell unless they conform to a system that hates them.”

However, it should be noted that atheists are just as guilty as anyone else of being terrible people. This world is full of assholes that go around trying to disprove the beliefs of others because they are so filled with hate that they can’t contain it. Why is this how we’re perceived? Because it’s the most visible people in atheism doing it. You have to understand a philosophical argument to disprove anything like Christianity. You also have to understand it to prove it. You can’t prove it wrong by saying that a unicorn exists because you say it does. We don’t know unicorns don’t exist in another reality. Modern philosophy is full of golden tickets for things like that. You cannot simply slam the door of your mind shut every time someone says something you don’t agree with. You also can’t prove it’s true simply by pointing at a very vague, easily mistranslated religious text that has been written and rewritten so many times it sometimes defies understanding. The bible is no further proof of its contents than an owner’s manual is proof that a product exists. The product may never have exist in the first place. However, is there proof? Probably not. There may never be. It’s up to the individual to decide if a lack of proof is more tolerable with or without the idea of a master creator.

Now, it is inevitable that someone will rage comment this. I get that. I’m not expecting to write something like this and not be questioned. All I ask is that if we must discuss it further, I ask that we both be open to learning something and going out of our respective comfort zones. I shall not respond to openly hostile comments. This is a serious topic, and I expect serious conversation.

I Am The Devil, And I Wear Prada

What is it like to be me right now? Well, first of all, you have to go around the internet with the mostly false impression that anyone gives a fuck about what you have to say. That’s how I do things. Celebrity syndrome, it’s called. I’ve got celebrity syndrome in the same way that Hollywood zombies have the flu. Which is to say, it’s much worse than it looks.

Now that I’ve prefaced this whole thing with that, let me welcome you back to my blog. It’s been sitting here mostly dormant because I’ve been in the ruins of depression to such a degree that I can’t even bring myself to give a fuck about my own goings on long enough to write about them. However, recently, I’ve had a breakthrough in that I simply do not care anymore what my writing says about me. I have written some crazy stuff lately that I ordinarily would not have written for fear that someone might read it. Guess what? I plan to sell it. I plan to make money! And then I’ll dive into it like Scrooge McDuck, because coins are liquid. How did that crazy duck not break his bill off in his forehead? COINS ARE SOLID.

      That being said, I hereby present a list of things which have changed and which you may not care about, even though you obviously care enough to read my blog. I see right through your bored hipster act.

1.       I have decided that I am no longer a sexual person. It just doesn’t do anything for me anymore. I don’t know how else to describe that. I mean, that’s not to say that I won’t still have the occasional tri-yearly… um… well, I think after a while people just have eye sex. So maybe I’ll just do that. People are gross, and so am I. I have no desire anymore to combine into a larger gross.  Not to say that I don’t find anyone attractive. That’s totally unrelated. Definitely is.

2.       Following that announcement but not directly related is my next item: dating is for the birds. It continues to be. It always has been. People want to slam you into a commitment 3 days in, or they pretend they hate you so you’ll grovel, or they explode your phone every second of the day to the point that you start to actually believe that your phone is in fact a surrogate body for them. *Vibrating phone, dog looks up from the floor like AW HELL NAH* “Oh are you eating? Reading? Shitting? Bleeding to death? Did you see that new TV show you hate? Me either.” I guess I idealize people so much that when I actually find out how small and stupid and shallow and limited they are, I want to beat them to death with a pole. I’m sure that’s normal. Oh you don’t like my music? Well maybe I don’t like yours either. *smashes music collection off the stereo* Oh you think it’s silly that I write? I think it’s silly that you spent years before dating me as a human beer urinal and a criminal smoke stack, and now you want to criticize me for wanting to escape reality to avoid strangling you every second of the fucking day. You’re such a damn rebel with your baggage that doesn’t equal mine. Pinch me, Romeo. You spent your twenties looking for adulthood in motel rooms as a sentient sex toy, but you’re willing to settle down and withhold affection in my case so I don’t think you’re too easy? How sweet of you. Some gay men are bullshit, GaGa-soaked, dramatic adult children. Don’t ever become one.

3.       I live in Muncie. Woohoo. Don’t get excited yet. I’m already crashing and burning into red dollar signs, as expected. It’s only until January, though, so I think I’ll make it. After that, I’m going to be able to pay a few months of rent in advance.

4.       I’m turning 29 in December. I have already sent the black cars and the coffin to the grave, and now I’m ready to live life as a self-aware zombie. My thirties are going to be when I become famous and win the lottery and invent post-it notes. None of you bitches better fuck it up for me. I will cut you @vv@

5.       I have decided that I have a strange liking for music of the 1980s and the early to mid-2000s. I’m late, I know. Welcome to my life. I’m always late to things. I started listening to Franz Ferdinand after they released You Could Have It So Much Better, for god sake. I’m hopelessly behind, and I’m perfectly comfortable with that.

6.       There are people I haven’t spoken to in a while whom I need to start speaking to again. I’m terrible at keeping up. And then, there are those weird conversations where you suggest getting coffee with people you’ve never met in person, and you realize you sound exactly like all the morons on “To Catch A Predator.” This is related to the first item. No, no. I just want coffee, not peens. I have a peen of my own, I don’t need yours, too. Sorry if it sounded like I was being all coy like “let’s get some coffee and bang. I mean get coffee. I mean bang on a coffee table. I mean banging sideways with… I mean I… no…Well damn.” I like coffee, though.

7.       I am a Sagittarius. Oh god, run away. I’m bad. There’s this meme going around like “stay away from these people I’m 14 and know nothing about astrology LAWL ALL FIRE SIGNS” If you actually put faith in that meme, you are beyond lost. I might as well not even send you a life raft. Drown. Enjoy your date with death in the middle of the fucking ocean, as Jennamarbles once so eloquently said.

8.       I am an introvert these days, with some lingering extrovert tendencies. I can still walk into a room of strangers and act like a total idiot and talk about nonsense and walk away with new friends. I don’t know how I do it. Most days, I would rather stay in bed and sleep. I actively avoid people I know when in public. DO NOT ASK ME WHY. I WILL FREAK OUT.

9.       Why do I feel like everyone disapproves of me? My friends, my family, my teachers, my coworkers? And everyone takes everything SO PERSONALLY that my every word might as well be an ice pick in the ass cheek. No one knows the definition of venting anymore. I mean, I used to get all high heeled and dress in Prada when someone I knew and maybe even liked said something pointy about me, but anymore, I just go with it. Yes, I am a fucking wreck. I changed my hair color and appearance completely and without warning. I still do. And I used to show up at friends’ houses unannounced and annoy the fuck out of them by just walking in. You can either learn from people pointing these things out, or you can throw a tantrum and act like your privacy and person have both been violated in ways to which only rape can compare. LEARN FROM THE SALT GRAINS SUCH CANDID JUDGMENTS CONTAIN AND LAUGH ABOUT IT. Then you move on and are a better person. Have to learn to do it sometime.

Suddenly, everything is exactly the same! Everyone clap hands and sing. My goodness, I sure am doing well. I don’t need medication at all. Why don’t I go back to therapy so they can put me with another soulless, robot teenaged psyche student who blinks and stares at me when I make a joke and then asks if I think I mask my pain with humor?

HOLY SHIT YOU ARE OBSERVANT, LADY. WOW. YOU’RE GOING TO CHANGE LIVES FOR SURE.

I love talking to robots. I do it at work all day, why not tell the robots about how I sometimes think about driving my car into the pillars under overpasses, and it makes me giggle. Not that I would. I have too much to do in this life, and none of you are capable of imitating my work. You might be able to mime it, but I don’t want someone trying to guess what I would do or say. Plus I’m afraid of death, which doesn’t really jive with my mood most of the time.

Oh well. My life continues. Here we go, sliding down the late-twenties oil slick toward the grave.

I’m not bitter or anything.