“Suck-uppy“?

I don’t even know what to say to that one, other than my new favorite phrase: “Fire the Copy Editor! Fire the Copy Editor!” And yet, it’s just so terrible that they should fire the writer along with the Copy Editor.

So, I have three months until I have a double major under my belt and need a job. I wanted to stay in Seattle, but if I get desperate, maybe I should look up the Editor-in-Chief at Knight Ridder Newspapers.

Ways my first name has been misspelled:
Mibsy
Mitsy
Mincy
Minry
Minsy
Minfy

Intresting to note: according to BabyNames.com, none of the above are real first names.

Ways my last name has been misspelled:
Messinger
Messeingeir
Messunger
Messing
Mezzinger
Mezzer

I find all of this ironic as I personally feel I have the most crusty white bread, English name possible. I guess it’s just too easy of a name for people to actually spell it properly. Even worse, is that most of those misspellings were on packages from various- and supposedly reputable- online merchants wherein I actually typed out my name over their secure online form so that they didn’t have to botch it in the first place. (Ahem, Bed Bath & Beyond… Amazon.com… Barnes & Nobel… I’m looking accusingly in your direction)

It was probably the most disgusting thing I have ever done. It was just like a story a friend told me about why she didn’t take drugs any longer. She had tried speed once in high school and all she could do was sit on her bedroom floor and pick up dust particles that she had never noticed before. Every time she thought she had picked up the last miniscule dust particle, she looked around her room and realized that there were more she had missed. She wasn’t sure how long she sat on her bedroom floor picking up dust, but she was pretty sure it had been a number of hours- she stopped about the time she sobered up from the speed.

So there I sat, scraping away with my right thumb and forefinger. I scraped and I scraped and I scraped. I think it was about an hour of constant scraping until I realized that not only the neighbors might a hear vague yet constant scratching sound through their bathroom wall/kitchen floor, but that I was also ruining my fingernails. But as soon as I thought about ruining my fingernails, I scornfully countered with, “Screw the fingernails! It’s not like I get them done and actually care about them! Hahahahahaha!” Consequently, I kept scrapping.

I don’t know how much alcohol I had had since most of it was an attempt to rid our pantry of mixers purchased three years ago for Tyler’s legendary 21st birthday party (probably the best party in the history of our cluster of friends, thank you). The rest was consumed after I was drunk and had decided I needed more rum/whiskey/dry white wine in order to keep myself at the happy drunken stage I was already at. It worked, as I think I listened to and bounced around to Danse Macabre and Danse Macabre Remixed ten times each. (See, this is why I plan on becoming a “great drinker”– I don’t know when to stop.) Hopefully, it was loud enough to piss off JamesandSarah.

Anyway, all I can say is that I’m still drunk, yet I must have sobered up enough to realize just how disgusting it is to use your fingernails to scrape four months of collected foot scum and dog scum off the sides of your bathtub. Gah. How am I going to live this one down? It has to be the worst drunken moment of my life. Thank <insert god of choice here> I was the only one around to witness it.

“Perhaps”? “Perhaps”?!? Perhaps what? Perhaps I’m a fucking retard who can’t write? No, perhaps that damn Christian fundamentalist of a copy-editor is at it again.

Not only did they bastardize a decent title (which they always do), but the UW’s illustrious student newspaper also managed to bastardize all 66 of the interesting words I wrote at the top of my article. Which, by the way, could someone explain to me how the hell you completely ruin a small paragraph of 66 words? It doesn’t seem like there’s enough to ruin in the first place.

Will someone at a reputable newspaper in Seattle please hire me right now before The Daily ruins what last strangling hope I still have for writing? You can see what articles I have written here. Personally, I think I would be an asset to your fine newspaper.

P.S The 66 words they ruined are as follows: “Many spent last New Year’s Eve crammed between random and disjointed elbows in a bar that ran out of fries, nachos, and decent beer. Others are not yet 21 and can’t even begin to fathom the intense talent it takes to reach one’s drink through a sea of misplaced limbs. But in a city like Seattle, bars aren’t the only option for a New Year’s celebration.”

P.P.S. Yes, the rants should be ending as soon as Finals end (tomorrow). Just be greatful I didn’t post a rant about JamesandSarah this weekend. It would have been painful to read- trust me on this one.

Sure, and the day I post this— the day I fucking write this post— this asshole comes along and hotlinks one of my photos in question. In fact, he actually had the nerve to hotlink a photo I renamed “fuckyounohotlinking.jpg”! But the worst part about it is that he hotlinks it in a comment on someone else’s shitty ass MySpace site so I can’t very well replace the image with something fitting of my deep rooted, hate festering anger.

Has he no soul? Has he no decency? What are the chances? What are the chances?

Don’t mind me; I’m just stressed and depressed. I’ll get over it once Spring comes along and I actually graduate fucking college. Perhaps I’ll even get over it sooner- assuming I find some time to pick up some jasmine-lemon bubble tea.

Though, most likely, I merely need to scream “fuck” at the top of my voice over and over again until the anal-retentive neighbor upstairs who likes to exercise at 12 fucking O’clock at night comes down to bitch me out for screaming so much. ‘Cause god knows, I’ll feel better when I yell “fuck you, asshole neighbor who is fucking louder than I ever will be” to his weasel ass. I mean really, only anal-retentive pricks name their wireless network “JamesandSarah” so I know their fucking names and can slander them on the internet. Only asshole anal-retentive pricks who think it’s funny to move their fucking furniture above my bedroom at 2 in the fucking morning so they can vacuum their carpet at 2:30 in the fucking morning are put on this planet so I can cuss them out and feel better about my life.

I dare you to come down here and yell at me “JamesandSarah”, you anal-retentive bitch of a man-slut. Oh, I dare you.

P.S. This time I’m not drunk, just angry.

Every week, I can count on having at least one (often more) of my images hotlinked. I hate hotlinking. Can I stress how much I hate hotlinking? I hate hotlinkers.

Anyway, there are three images on my site that have the “privilege” of being the most hotlinked. Two of those images were taken with my camera and all copyrights belong to me. One image was lifted from a spam email sent to Tyler.

(By the way, did I mention how much I hate hotlinkers? I hate hotlinkers.)

So, I guess the point of this post is that I get a lot of hotlinks to my images. It’s been a really big problem lately thanks to Myspace and Xanga- two places that seem equally adept at harboring bandwidth thieves. I’ve even included warnings at the end of each post containing the popular hotlink pictures that I will punish hotlinkers. However, this has not stopped the rash of hotlinking I get each week.

And I highly doubt this message will do anything to stop the hotlinking, but I’m posting it because:

1. I’m currently drunk.
2. I’m currently alone with a dog that happens to fart and abandon ship, thus leaving me to suffer with her coma-inducing stench.
3. And, I really feel like ranting about how much I hate hotlinkers.

(I forgot; did I mention how much I hate hotlinkers yet? I really, really hate hotlinkers.)

So, anyway. If you decide to hotlink any of my images, please don’t underestimate me. I’m really quite vindictive and creative when it comes to replacing my images. Eventually, I will post a tutorial of sorts that shows just how far I go when it comes to hotlinking. I’m serious. I actually have a folder on my precious little iBook titled “Hotlink Death”. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. It contains all documentary evidence of hotlinkings and the consequences therein. Oh, and also- whatever you do- do not understimate my ability to look at my dear friend Goatse, especially while intoxicated.

I haven’t been writing on this site much because I’ve been spending most of my energy writing for the UW’s illustrious student publication, the Daily. Anyway, I put my version of all the articles I’ve written under the “Other” section for writings.

For those who care, or are interested in seeing the “editing process”, links to any available online editions are at the top of each article page. These articles are exactly the same as those in the print versions, minus the awesome photos from my personal photographer and the annoying subtitles I always have to include.

I say “my version” because each time I submit an article it goes under the cataract-infested eye of the copy-editors at the UW’s illustrious student publication, the Daily. This means that all manner of grammatical errors that weren’t present in the file I submitted suddenly crop up in the print and online editions. It also means that the few grammatical errors (read: a missing quotation mark being the only one I have yet to find) also go unnoticed.

Maybe I’m biased, but I’ve also found that the stronger the article, the more mangled it becomes by the hands of the copy-editors at the UW’s illustrious student publication. Are they jealous or just stupid? I can’t really tell you as I’ve never met them. Though, I’m leaning towards stupid, given the type of mistakes they’ve made when “editing” my work.

I’m not saying my work is flawless mind you, I’m just venting my frustrations at having lazy and stupid people edit what I write.

I also published an article I just finished today. It’s named “Air flair”, courtesy of Tyler’s- um… skills at naming things and my lack thereof. I have no idea when it will be in the Daily. Think of this as an “online exclusive” for my readers, but also as an angry “fuck you” to the UW’s illustrious student publication. I say “fuck you” because I’ve published it here first, which is typically not a nice thing to do in the world of publication. But hey, I have yet to turn in my hire packet so I’m still technically not on staff. And that means I can do what I want with my material.

For four years, there were medicated ear drops sitting atop the dark wood dresser in my bedroom. I was four when I had an ear infection which was also where the ear drops came from. All I remember is that they stayed on my dresser and I knew they were there. Sometimes, I would randomly request that my mother give me the ear drops so I could put them in my ears. I don’t know why, other than I must have thought having medicated ear drops sitting on my dresser was cool. “You want to use those ear drops?” she would always ask me in a voice laced with surprise. Since the drops were no more than a cleaning solution, she saw no harm in letting me use them. Yet, she always remained surprised in a motherly way that attempts to guide you towards second-guessing your desires and actions. Whenever she handed them to me, I would happily drop the oil into my ears and lay on my side as the thick liquid slipped downwards, blocking out all sound save for an ocean of air humming louder than sea shells.

Eventually, I found ways to reach the ear drops without commissioning my mother’s help. It didn’t take long before I discovered how easy it was to reach the top of my dresser by creating makeshift steps out of the bottom two drawers. I would boost myself up high enough to reach whatever object I wanted, and then jump off just as the teetering dresser threatened to topple onto me. One day, in an effort to reach the medicated ear drops, my fingers brushed against the cap of the bottle and knocked it farther back. I stretched my arm as far as I could and blindly felt around for the bottle. Again, my fingers lightly brushed against it and I could feel the cool plastic vial reeling even further away from me. Determined, I jumped off the dresser and pulled the third drawer outwards just enough for the toes of one foot to curl around the rough edge. The dresser teetered hazardously the instant I raised one foot higher, but I paid it no heed and sank my toes into the dark denim jeans stuffed in the drawer. The dresser tilted forward, and I quickly tried to shift my weight to balance it. However, I was only five at the time and had another year before I learned the subtle art of balancing the dresser with my weight as I climbed it to precarious heights. In a roaring crash, the dresser pushed me into the carpet and dumped dust and various bottles and medications I never knew I owned onto my head. Among the legion of mysterious bottles of pills, there was the oft used bottle for my yearly head lice infestations (daycare will do that to you), something for the chickenpox I had when I was two, something else for the skin rashes I randomly developed from the ages of three to four, and a bottle of the pink children’s flu goo of the 80’s that was made to taste like five-minute old Bazooka.

“What happened?!?” my mother shrieked as she threw open my door and found me squashed beneath my dresser, my face covered in a layer of dust and outdated medications.

Despite being full of clothes, my dresser was made of fake wood and therefore was pretty light and easy to squirm out from under. I had fully wriggled my way to freedom by the time my mother came over to lift the dresser up and reposition it. “I wanted something,” I answered after she asked me what happened a second time.

“Why didn’t you just ask me to get it for you?” she asked.

I shrugged, not possessing the proper vocabulary to express that I simply wanted to be self-sufficient. She stuffed my clothes back into all the drawers and then shoved the drawers back into the dresser. She then scooped up all the medications and dumped them haphazardly back atop the dresser, sans dust. “Don’t climb that dresser,” she warned me, “you can kill yourself if that thing falls on your head.” I sat mournfully staring upwards at the invisible ear drops that had returned to their resting place atop my dresser. Unfortunately, this time they were in a place I had not put them, which meant that I had no idea where to blindly reach my hand when standing on the second drawer.

Yesterday afternoon, my body felt unbalanced and weak. The feeling grew throughout the afternoon and into the evening, knocking me out cold for a random few hours of sleep. When I awoke, there was a blunt ache in my head and I had to stand for small intervals of time in order to reheat leftover bean soup. This morning, every throb of my head had increased in pain and was countered faithfully by a throb from the deepest part of my right ear canal. My ear and head have been holding a petty debate regarding who is in the most pain since; every searing scream my brain makes, my ear has to counter.

I don’t have an ear infection, but I’m worried it might turn into one. The last time I had an ear infection, I was four years old. I remember both ears aching mildly for the duration of the day. I thought I had a headache, and my daycare lady made me eat chewable Tylenol. It tasted like poisoned chalk. I spent the day lying on carpeting in front of the TV watching “My Little Pony and Friends”, “Transformers”, “The Sharon, Bram, and Lois Show” and then afternoon reruns of popular sitcoms about rich people. Sometimes a kid my age would join me and watch a show or two before running off to play in the sun with the other kids. Mostly, the fussy babies kept me company from their playpens, occasionally assaulting my senses with their diapers. Despite my ears and head hurting, I remember my day being normal until I went to sleep. After some time spent tossing and turning in my bed, I sat up and began screaming. Our HMO didn’t have an emergency room open late back then. I remember spending a night of fitful sleep, crying and clenching my Rainbow Brite comforter until the morning when my mother was able to take me to the hospital. I don’t remember anything afterwards, other than the fact that I was prescribed medicated ear drops that would remain atop my dresser for the next four years.

Yesterday, while riding the bus home, I entertained Tyler with a work-related tale of horror and budget crises involving a stupid Master Use Permit for the building I work in and the Metro bus system. Naturally, it was a slightly long story as it involved two different inept factions of our local government. Tyler didn’t shush me even once, so either he had fallen on his job of keeping me in line while out in public, or I was not speaking loudly for once. However annoying I might have been or not been, it only took to the halfway point of my story arch before a man sitting across the aisle interrupted me with an exaggerated sigh usually aimed at bimbos loudly bitching to their boyfriends over a cellphone. As I don’t fancy myself a bimbo, I don’t own a cellphone that I feel the need to scream into for the duration of my bus rides, and I wasn’t bitching at my boyfriend, I took a mild offense to his treatment.

“I guess someone isn’t enjoying my story,” I said to Tyler before immediately continuing to rattle off my increasing horrors with Metro.

It didn’t take long before I noticed a ranting undertone competing with my story. I continued to speak, but looked in the direction of the ranting. It was the same man, who was scooting erratically in his seat and waving his arms. I caught some words about the “bus system” and “government” and realized that he was subjecting the innocent bystanders seated near him to an unfounded hatred for me. The fact that he felt the need to torment the woman quietly seated in front of him and the other older woman quietly seated behind him caused something deep inside my mind to twang.

“Excuse me! Do you have a fucking problem?” The words flowed out of my mouth uncontrolled, as often happens when I’m incensed with anger towards a stranger. I caught a wave of movement from my hazy peripheral vision as all the bus riders turned towards me to watch. “‘Cause if you have a problem,” I continued, “you don’t need to torture your fellow bus riders.”

“Is that what you think-” he began to counter, but my irritation had overrun the floodgates of reason, and there was no stopping me.

“I’m not talking that loud. And if you have a problem with what I’m saying- as it seems you do- than you can just move somewhere else. There’s plenty of seats in the back. Why don’t you pick your ass up and move to one of them?”

Determined to finish my story and thereby spite the psycho bus rider, I turned back to Tyler and continued where I had paused. The man sat stiffly in his seat, clenching his fists through the rest of what I had to tell. When my story smoldered joylessly to its end, Tyler and I continued to talk idly. The whole while, the man sat rigidly in his seat and directed waves of anger and hatred towards us, making me acutely aware of every word exchange. When I pulled the rope for our stop, and then walked to the front of the bus behind Tyler, I could feel the psycho’s eyes boring into the back of my head. I tried to look into the bus windows and return the man’s gaze of hatred with one of fearlessness, but distorted dark pine trees and a gray sky was all that reflected back.