Ocean State Job Terror Lot

I spent this past weekend in the lovely state of CT, where the leaves were falling as fast as my serotonin levels (countdown to doomsday aka Daylight Savings: T-4 days).

My mom and I went shopping in Avon on Saturday. All day. We were almost ready to drop, but I was on a mission. A month-and-a-half-long-overdue-birthday-present mission.

Unfortunately as one of my followers I can neither reveal the gift receivers’ identity, nor can I disclose the nature of the present. Suffice it to say, it was something we thought Ocean State Job Lot might carry.
Never have I ever been so petrified of a store.

Lordy, lordy. That place is all kinds of fright-inducing. It begged the question: Why pay for a haunted house when you can go shopping at Ocean State Job Lot for free?

I feared for my life. And of course the all-around eeriness was multiplied threefold by the stormy weather. (Puh-LEASE, October! Quit letting your fright flag fly! Halloween, big deal, we get it. No need to hit us over the head with all scary, all the time. It’s tacky. Get a life, October. Shame on you.)

So yeah, it was downpouring. And it was dark (did I mention how I am dreading the advent of Daylight Savings?) And the wind was howling, obviously. Leaves were flying from branches in a hurried flurry.

It was, in short, a scene straight from a horror film - a scene so familiar because I have seen it sooooo many times. You know, that part where they pan out and show the building in the rain where the girl is about to be killed. And so yeah, I was scared before we were even inside because I knew I should be - my killer radar was up - the setting was just that good.

Just when I believed it could get no worse, I passed through the doors.

Fluorescent lights and dirty white-black-grey tiles, fine. Whatever. But the jam-packed shelves, the items on the shelves - jarred mushrooms and green beans reminiscent of rotten brown eyeballs and slimy green fingers.

Puzzles and books from the eighties. Discontinued shampoo, mousse, gel, toothpaste, detergent - all looking pathetically desolate and undoubtedly expired.

The clothes! Oh dearie me. If you’re a hunter, this is the store for you. A hunter of people, that is. For I daresay, serial killers shop for their essentials at the Lot. I surely coulda pointed out a few.

The rows of creepy Christmas decorations (minus MAJOR points, Ocean State Job Lot, for rolling out the ho-ho-ho-ness before HalloWEEN!), of “decorative” candles and bows and bags and fake trees and melamine Santa chip n’ dips. Scary, scary, scary.

But even more frightening was the man in the costume aisle picking up hooks and masks and scythes, making odd noises and shouting gibberish to himself.

I couldn’t get out of that store fast enough. Sure, it has its redeeming qualities - my mom likes that they carry Freezer-Tite (no other stores do, apparently).

And...umm...yeah, that’s about it.

But the dim lighting, the odd Costco-warehousey smell, the hodgepodge of products, the dirty floors, the people, the people, the PEOPLE. And the thunderstorm! Holy shit yo. I felt like I had entered The Twilight Zone.

And all for nothing! Ocean State Terror Lot didn’t even have the item I was looking for. But I think I learned my lesson - I surely will not be making my way back to Ocean State Job Lot for any reason. Ever. Again.

Krazy? More like PSYCHO Glue!

I am an adult. I know how to read directions. However, that does not mean that I always follow them.

Case in point: Last night’s encounter with Krazy Glue.

It’s not all my fault! I live in a society where there’s an antidote to everything. Instant gratification nation, yo. Don’t like something? Change it, fix it, get rid of it. Wham bam thank you ma’am.

However. However.

The warning label on Krazy Glue should be much more threatening. Should be highlighted in neon yellow (I would say pink, but I think that might clash with the red and green). It should read CAUTION in no less than size 20, Times New Roman font.

(I was also going to say that they should not sell the stuff to non-adults...but, like I mentioned earlier - I am, unfortunately, one of those. I forget sometimes.)

Needless to say, I should not - not ever - be allowed to use that stuff.Last night I was gluing part of a vintage ring back together. And of course in my overbearing, overeager, overcompensating clumsiness, I squeezed the crap outta that difficult-to-squeeze, tricky little tube.

And it went all over the place.

I watched it drip down the sides of the ring as I cleverly (so I thought) pinched the pieces I was gluing together with my best tweezers.

Not only did that stinky shit get all over my tweezers, IT GOT ALL OVER MY FINGERS (sorry ya can’t see it too well in the pic).

And it’s still there. The tips of both index fingers and middle fingers were covered in the crap. But little did I care, I thought I was totes in the clear - hello nail polish remover!

Sadly, I was mistaken. Nail polish remover does not in any way make you invincible to the wrath of Krazy Glue.

What a naïve little dummy I was. Maybe it was non-acetone. But still, whateverrrr. Didn’t help one iota. My fingers felt like they had been dipped them in battery acid - I lost all sensation below the affected skin. Poor things looked like little shiny snakeskin’s.I tried scrubbing with a Dobie, a pumice stone, dish soap. I used my sad, glue-covered tweezers in an attempt to pick it off. But that stuff don’t peel. It don’t budge.

After all that poking and picking and prodding, my fingertips were fairly sore. And red. That’s when I got the brilliant idea to perform outpatient surgery on myself. To cut - with nail clippers - the glue off.

Finally - finally - something worked (...a little). But not without PAIN. I clipped a fair amount of skin off. Boy did it hurt.

And yet...the g-d glue is still spotty in some places! UGH!

It goes without saying that I will be steering very, very clear of the Krazy Glue from now on. That stuff is psycho.

Chronic Christmas Morning Jitters

A switch has been flipped. Hallelujah AMEN, I’ve finally (re)joined the ranks of the sleeping! 


Kind of.
 
 I sometimes have insomnia. And it blows. But the past few months I’ve enjoyed a delicious sleepfulness. I have somehow learned - sans aids! - how to will my melatonin forth.

It’s been pretty great. Wonderful in fact. But, per usual, all things good things must come to an end. And lately I have been experiencing something I’m calling the Christmas Morning Jitters.

I am utterly spent when the day ends at 5 o’clock. But I go to the gym. I make dinner. I go out. I read a book. I catch up on DVR, on Netflix, on magazines. I talk on the phone. I text. I blog. I run myself ragged and wish for nothing more than to curl up in my ridiculously comfy bed and sleep sleep sleep.

(I sometimes think sleep is my most favorite thing in the world. Then Ri’s charming smackdown reverberates in my ears: “You can sleep when you’re DEAD!”

This is true.)

But apparently I’s back to square one in the sleep department. Every night feels like Christmas Eve, I tell you! No matter how exhausted I am. 

It’ll be 12 a.m., say, and I want to drift away into dreamland. But oh no, wait. Actually I don’t want to. Not exactly. Who knows WHY, but I’ll excited about the next day, or there will be something else I’d rather be doing. A pastime more desirable than laying horizontal (in a G-rated way).

It’s so ironic that as soon as I’m able to pass out with little-to-no coaxing, I don’t want to. That snoozing suddenly seems so pointless. Such a drag. That I, Katie Parry, Queen of 10:30-Lights-Out Land, would rather stay awake than get me some zzzzz’s.

As the hours roll by on the fluorescent clock that lights up my apartment (my shitty broken cable box - is that an 8? a 6? no, it’s a 5), I honestly feel like a kid waiting for Santa Claus. But deep down, I know it’s not even gonna be a good Santa. It’s like I am looking forward to a drunken, polyester donning, flammable beard wearing imposter of a St. Nick!
Does this recurring phenomenon happen to anyone else? I mean, I know there is pretty much nothing super special about the coming day. And it’s not like I forgot to do something at work. I’m not going on vacation. There’s no cause for any additional anxiety (aside from the daily norm).
And yeah, I realize that the story is going to start back up on the page I left off on in my book. That my DVR can be counted on to remember where I paused a show. My Facebook page will not be deleted. No Dankes! will remain intact and live to judge another day!
And yet - I don’t want to sleep, my mind is that excited. Ain’t no sugarplums dancing in my head!

Oh no. My mind bounces like a pinball from thoughts of pseudo fictitious candy canes to stockings to the roast beast.

It cracks an incessant whip over the rest of my body, willing unrest. And, yet, this is a somewhat welcome wakefulness.

That is, of course, until the alarm goes off and the only thing me and my stupid crazy mind gets is a D-rated, sans presents & kielbasa workday.

I am crazy.

S#*tty Shuffle

Rarely do I enjoy forwards. In fact, I pretty much despise every forward ever (can you please take me off your distro? Thanks.) Not just for their content but for their sheer existence.

Who actually has the time to draw pictures solely comprised of @, #, $, %, ^, &, and * symbols. Or make up stupid questions like “What’s your favorite lunch meat?” or “If you were a crayon what color would you be?” Or write sob stories about believing in angels. Or invent hoaxes for free money.

Seriously.

That being said, you can only imagine my sheer dismay (I do have a cynical, judgmental persona to live up to!), when I received a forward that I actually enjoyed.

Kelly, a fellow forward-loather, stipulated before sending that “Random Thoughts” was actually a pretty good one.

And I couldn’t agree more.

It was a fairly viral forward cause within days people were using the extraordinarily ordinary tidbits as their status updates. (For reals people, stop stealing thoughts and passing them off as your own just so you can have “5 People Like This” in your mini-feed.)

I wasn’t going to post any of the Randos here but feel they deserve to be shown in a more classy, sophisticated arena - ah hem - this blog. Some of my faves:

“As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.” (Me too!)

“There is a great need for sarcasm font.”

“How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?”

I digress. I’m feeling fairly ADD today, sorry. This blog could have been about how much I hate forwards, or how much I hate people posting quotes and passing them as their own, or how much I hate the Like button on Facebook.

But...drumroll please...one of these random thoughts caught my special attention:

“I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.”

I could NOT agree more. I mean, obviously I’m guilty of putting music on my iPod that I know I will never, ever listen to - simply because I want to beef up the number of songs I have.

The more songs you have the cooler you are, right? Right?

I have 4,053 songs. So I listen to the same five or so on repeat. So what. I do make valiant attempts at Shuffle every so often. Truly, I do. But when I try to branch out, I find myself skipping over songs faster than one flips through the ads in a magazine.

Oftentimes, in my exasperation and frustration, I won’t even listen to the opening notes and lyrics. I will stare at the small colored screen, right-clicking incessantly.

Skip. Skip. Skip.

Then I will wonder why I ever make Shuffle attempts (ever).
Sometimes Shuffle will hit its stride. A song will come on and I will think I’m the coolest person in the world because I had no idea it was on my pod. Shuffle can be a gold mine.

Sometimes there will be four or five great songs in a row. (OK fine, I exaggerate. I’m excited if there’s two winners.)

But then Gloria Estefan’s rendition of “Love on Layaway” will come on, dashing all my hopes and dreams of a Merry Shufflemas.

Why aren’t iPods smarter? Come on Mac! You’re so good at knowing what we want before we even know we want it! Why don’t you know what we want to LISTEN to? (Genius is OK, but not really.)
Skip. Skip. Skip.

My poor thumb pad is getting sore just thinking about all that next-clicking.

Please, Mr. Jobs. Now that you’re back on the job can you come up with a way for us to better live our lives to a Shuffle-style-soundtrack? Please?

The Terrible Tuesdays

It happens every week. Unfortunately.

The weekend comes and goes in a poof of alcohol-tinged haze. Then you’re jarred awake by “Just Another Manic Monday” and spend the first day of the work week rolling on by like a puppet on a conveyor belt.

And then.

And then. You do your laundry, watch Gossip Girl, tidy up your apartment, and hit the sack. But instead of nice Sunday-night dreams - dreams filled with Don Draper and Hank Moody - you have Tuesday evening nightmares.

You can’t even fantasize about Chuck Bass or Evan Chambers because all you can think about, all that encompasses your sad little mind, is the dread of the terrible Tuesday that lies ahead.

What is it about that stupid, insipid second day of the work week? Does anyone else feel this way? Tuesday is the most idiotic, worthless day of the week. Pointless. Senseless. Cringe-inducing.

Mondays suck because, well, it’s Monday. It’s gonna suck regardless. But once that initial alarm-clock-band-aid is ripped off, it’s somewhat smooth sailing until 5pm.

And it doesn’t hurt that there is all that good TV to look forward to!

Wednesday is Hump Day - halfway to Friday, hallelujah. Also a good night for television. It’s Ladies Night at a whole bunch of places - ah hem, Off the Wagon. AND, if you’re feeling smart, a plethora of bars host trivia on Wednesdays.

Thursday is perhaps my favorite day. There’s just one day of work left - and fortunately it’s a casual one. There’s happy hour and gallery openings galore. Or, should you choose to forego the beverages, Thursday night programming is top notch.
In fact, if it weren’t for Mad Men, I think Thursday would be my most beloved TV day. And that is saying a lot.

Friday is, well, Friday. That’s a no-brainer. The work week horizon has finally come into focus. Oh yeah. You can see it. It’s there.

Then it’s going, going, gone and you’re OFF to start the weekend.

Beer me.

Saturday and Sunday are devoted to brunching, shopping, gyming (in the very rare case that my body does not feel like it has been hit by a Mack Truck), moviegoing, museuming, park galavanting - you get the point.

Every day of the week has something to offer except Tuesday. It is, by far, the weakest link in the seven-day-chain.

What’s the point of Tuesday? I don’t understand the need for its existence. There is nothing worse than waking up on Tuesday morning and dreading that full day of faux detention.

That feeling like you’re going to be at the dentist all day long getting cavities filled. Or that you have to spend eight hours in a candy store and can’t eat a single thing.

Yesterday wasn’t so very bad. We lucky Penguin ducks had Columbus Day off so Tuesday seemed more like Monday. I did laundry. Caught up on a bunch of DVRed shows. I make-believed it was Monday. 
 
But I am over the moon that today is Wednesday.

This week, at least, I can pretend Tuesday never happened. Sigh.