Chronicles of Madness

The boyfriend called me this morning to tell me that he had programmed me into his cell phone.

He didn't want to do it earlier and jinx us.

Which is funny.

I feel jinxed writing this.

And also incredibly stupid. I've turned into one of those gushing girls that I've always wanted to bitch slap in front of a crowd of strangers.

This weekend he designated one of the bathrooms for the the puppy (my puppy has his own bathroom? how f'n cute is that?), and said he would be keep being just as nice as long as I stayed in front of the stove and occasionally took a break to clean the house.

I laughed and said, "I hardly ever cook."

So he laughed too, and replied, "Well, that's why there's a restaurant down the street, and I already have a maid so we're good!"

Yeah. I think we're good.

'I remind you of what?'

That's what she wanted to know. What I reminded her of. As if we hadn't been sitting and having coffee for two hours, as if I hadn't confessed the doings of my day with humor and grace, as if we weren't half in love already.

That, that's a woman for you. One moment eating out of your hand, the next painting banners on why you're the biggest asshole in the world.

'I remind you of what?' And she sets the coffee down on the table with a distinct clatter. Crosses her arms. Sits back with eyes narrowed and eyebrows raised.

You remind me of a girl. She was beautiful and had a locker three doors down from me. The air was soft and fuzzy around her and I got the feeling that if I crept close enough to touch her skin that we would feel wet and tired from the humidity. I never asked her out and then two years ago I heard she died in a car accident. All that warm muggy air dying with her. I had never spoken to her, but for four years she made me happy, and when I heard she had died I thought I would never feel that way again.

Then, I put my coffee down too, motioned for the waiter, paid the bill.

There's something that's been bugging me on and off for the last couple of years, but this week I've finally just had enough.

OK.

When I call you? Don't announce you're mother fucking name and then be surprised to hear my voice on the other line.

I have caller ID.

You have caller ID.

Even your stupid, tips a quarter, grandmother has caller ID.

SO STOP IT!

The next time I call, just say, "Hey Terra, what's up?"

retard.

First off, I was fucking late. Fucking late for the second day in a row. Fucking fucked up late. Yesterday someone died or almost died or something on my small windy road and so I had to back track all the way over the hills and through the woods to find civilization again. At which time I was promptly lost. Today I pass that same spot and learn something interesting, people can die and leave no landmark. It’s chilling in its sadness. But whatever, at least I’m not going to be late again. Fucking fucked up highway backed up for no god damn fucking reason that I can see. I’m late. Again. A motherfucking gain.

Whatever.

Shake it off.

Go apologize to the boss.

Kiss ass.

Oh, yeah. My brakes. They were screaming for mercy on the way to work. Call Midas. Explain that your last pontiac did this too, no squealing warning, just metal to metal. Try to get an appointment today so that you don’t completely fuck up your rotors. A hundred bucks. A hundred bucks that you don’t have. Check to see if your rent check’s cleared yet. Nope. You get paid on Friday. So… if you write a check today, maybe it won’t clear until you have money again? That would be sweet. Plus, my landlord’s out of town on business. He hasn’t cashed the rent check yet. Sometimes he’s a week late… and even if he isn’t late this week, this is obviously going to be one of those times when you knowingly overdraw your bank account.

Fuck

It

It’ll take thirty minutes, some guy named Bo says. Bo. Like those dirty rotten Hazzard County boys. Fine. I’ll be there at two.

Eat lunch at my desk.

Drive down there at two trying to downshift into stops.

Sit in the waiting room with the bitch from hell while they inspect the car.

The bitch from hell hates her car, rolls her eyes at Bo, yells at her boyfriend and Bo to repeat every fucking god damned thing. She yells about the policy, she yells about her car, she yells about the price. The boyfriend says, I’ll pay it today, you pay me back tomorrow. Bitch stomps around the motherfucking room like she isn’t being done a goddamned favor.

Fine. Have them do the oil then too.

Boyfriend looks around, he says, well. The thing is, I don’t have that much cash on me.

She stomps foot. It’s not like you’re paying for it anyway! I’m paying you back!

Boyfriend looks around like there is a bomb in the room, Yeah. That’s cool. But I don’t got enough to cash to front if you know what I mean.

Fine. Huff puff and the bitch stomps away proving once again my point that as long as some fucking bitch is cute she can get away with having shit for a personality.

Seriously guys, I know you just want to bang hot chicks, but y’all have hearing don’t you?
Anyways.

So the guy working on my car comes over and says, hey miss, why don’t we walk over to your car and I’ll explain the situation.

This about the time that I realize I’m in hot water.

So, he says, your rotors are completely gone. And, you see this back here? How your (some technical word I don’t remember) is wet? That means that your wheel cylinder (or something or other) is leaking. Once it’s dry your going to put the brake pedal down and nothing’s going to happen. You’re just not going to stop.

All this sounds vaguely expensive to me.

He continues by saying, you should probably replace it. I mean, I can pass on it, but it’s definitely a safety hazard and I wouldn’t feel right about it.

Oh, I laugh, c’mon now. That sounds like fun!

His face goes blank.

I mean, braking but not stopping? Who would want to miss out on that?! Sounds like a free trip to the amusement park to me.

Now he laughs.

Well, miss, all of this is going to set you back 430 bucks.

HOLY SHIT

Now he just looks shocked because I said this.

Well, I didn’t say it so much as yell it.

Then I apologized and immediately followed it up with HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

Because, four hundred and thirty bucks? Holy fucking shit is about the only retort I could properly come up with considering that I didn’t even have the original hundred.

I’m so obviously shocked that he takes 60 bucks off. Probably out of pity but I tell myself it’s because I’m so gosh darn pretty just to make myself feel better. It doesn’t work so I walk around the parking lot. When I get all anxious I walk. I pick stuff up and put it down. I am basically a bunch of motion without production.

I’m standing in the waiting room when another bitch walks in, already rolling her eyes and sporting the whole holier than thou routine. What the fuck is up with these females? Holy shit I hate girls! So the guy working on my car (and if you know a lot about cars and somehow think he ripped me off, please don’t tell me. I already paid the fucking place) asks her if she’s been helped. She rolls her eyes and states snottily, I have an appointment.

So fucking what you have an appointment! First off, Midas doesn’t make appointments, secondly, YOU STILL HAVE TO CHECK IN YOU WHORE.

I seriously have no idea how people put up with such rude behavior from customers. I wanted to smack her for him.

She’s wearing american eagle pants, some stupid white belt with stars, and way too much gray eye shadow, plus she even walks like a bitch.

BITCH.

I go for a walk.

I call up my friend and laugh hysterically over how broke I am.

I walk into Jack in the box, use the restroom, and wait in line to buy a soda. Which is when some drunk guy who can’t walk straight and keeps having to pull up his pants decides to stand next to me.

Then some other girl that is also drunk at three in the afternoon starts screaming for the bathroom. OH MY GOD!

YOU CAN’T WALK! YOU CAN’T STAND UP! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE!

I seriously hate so many people, and want to watch them die long horrible deaths, that I am afraid to see a therapist in case she’s required to alert the authorities about my possible murderous tendencies.

I leave Jack in the Box because all of a sudden, and for no apparent reason, I am disgusted that people would put such trash in their bodies.

Don’t worry, I know enough to know that I am only mad because I’m not having the best day ever.

So I go back to the waiting room where the only seat left is next to the girl who thinks rolling your eyes and acting like you’re better than the midas guy gets you into heaven. I sit down and she leans WAY OVER in her chair, gets up and pulls it away from me and sits back down.

Nice.

I took a shower today you bitch.

I was so tempted to pull that ferris bueller move and tell her her eye makeup made her look like a whore.

To top things off she called her mommy and told her to put the money in the account to pay for her shocks.

Told.

Not asked, but told.

Little princess slut.

Somewhere along the way thirty minutes has turned into three and a half hours.

Jesus fucking christ I’m going to get fired.

FIRED.

Whatever.

Shake it off.

On the tv screen is maury, then tyra, then montel, where people confess the most horrible shit while smiling.
I helped my dad rape my friend.

My ex-husband married me as a front to cover for his gay lover that committed murder that was hiding from the law after he (my ex husband) paid for his sex change.

My ex-husband gave me aids after sleeping with multiple strange men.

I turn to Bo and say, what is wrong with these people? This is the kind of stuff you don’t tell your mother, let alone the whole nation, and then sit there all proud. These people should go live in a whole.

He laughs.

Bo has an annoying voice, he talks all loud and cocky and interrupts everyone, like they’re deaf or he knows them well enough to complete their sentences. It’s slightly annoying, but he’s not an asshole, so I don’t really care. Personally, if I were him, I would’ve sprayed half of my customers with bullets years ago.
Bo overhears me leaving a message for my boss explaining that I’m still in the shop, when I hang up he says, Oh just go in there and bat your pretty eyes. I’m sure you can get out of whatever trouble you’re in.

Nope. Doesn’t work on him.

You’re kidding!

This somehow makes my day slightly better.

Which proves another one of my random points. Women like compliments, especially when they’ve had a bad day.

The end.

On Friday I was going through my bookshelf (Yes I have a bookshelf and yes I can read. Do you really think I kidnap people and make them right down this shit for me? Well, I do do that, but not because I can't read) and realized that I would love to do a literary spotlight.

There are some books that I own that make me breathe differently. Stronger and deeper, and sometimes wetter depending on the emotions that they invoke.

This book made me breathe in with wonder.

I love this book.

It's one of my absolute favorites.

It's fucking brilliant and I wish I'd written it myself, or had it in me to write anything at all like it.

Oh, and it's scary.

House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski is one of the most original, visually breathtaking books that I have ever read.

Let me first start off with the actual premise of the book. The book follows (mainly, there are a lot of intricate subplots going on) mainly one family, a husband that works making documentaries, a wife sick of being left at home while her husband goes on location, and their child. The couple has reached a crisis in their marriage and the wife has issued an ultimatum, spend more time at home or we're through. So they buy a home and he tries to ignore his wanderlust.

It's not going too well.

He wants out and she wants to decorate.

Which is when they notice, through measuring for renovations, that the house is larger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Not only that, but the interior measurements change from day to day and moment to moment. A door appears where once there was no door, and before you know it the husband is creating a documentary exploring the basement his house doesn't have that never ends and posesses some strange monster that growls and growls.

When I first began reading this book I thought, Ha, now this isn't half as scary as I thought it would be. Until I put it down. At night. And then tried to walk around the house.

Yeah.

Big mistake.

But not only is the book extraordinarily good, it's creative as all hell.

Every single time the word house appears it is blue. That's right. Blue text amonst a sea of black.

On the pages where the man goes down the endless stairs into the bottomless basement the text goes down with him.

When he goes up, the text goes up.

There are manuscript pages (in the subplots) where the font changes.

There's a whole chapter where the paragraphs are in SOS format.

There's poetry about trees in the shape of a tree, and text boxes within text, words that go in circles and messages upside down.

It's a book that is a painting that is unlike anything else that I've ever read.

Just to make this clear. I don't read underground literature, anything self-published, etc. I like mainstream everything. Mainstream music, mainstream fiction, mainstream movies. Because, if it's not mainstream, then I'll probably think it sucks.

And also, I hate all those people who stop liking an artist once they go mainstream and call them a sellout. It's popular because people like it. Stupid.

So, maybe there's tons of great shit, just like this book out there that I'm missing out on. But the point is this. None of those books are at barnes n noble, so go piss off.


And, read this book. Seriously. It's great.