When Squirrels Attack

I was watching the news the other day and I saw a news story about squirrel attacks. For a second I thought it was fake because there was this hilarious picture of a squirrel baring its teeth, and it reminded me of the onion. Apparently there have been a rash of attacks in Mountain View, California. There have been so many, that they are putting up signs that say "Beware of Squirrels".

In addition, I found this awesome clip:



Who knew that squirrels could be so dangerous?

Toilets, Vaginas, and Hair, Oh my!

So last night I was at a friend’s house when I had to use the restroom. Being that it was bachelor pad to four men, I was somewhat wary of using the facilities. After about a half hour of trying to convince my bladder that it didn’t really need to be emptied, I finally accepted my fate and asked where the bathroom was.

Let me start by saying that this bathroom was one of the most horrific things I have ever seen.

The seat was up, so I used a piece of toilet paper to put it down. A ring of crust had formed inside the bowl. Now I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always scrub my toilet bowl on a regular basis so on occasion residue builds up. But this looked caked on and it was probably two inches wide. The floor, the sink, and the top of the toilet were all covered in hair and dust fuzz. I noticed that someone had spilled liquid hand soap on the floor and had just left it there. It looked like a hairy orange monster.

Now, I don’t consider myself an extreme girly girl or anything, but when I go to the restroom, I need some atmosphere. Some candles, little scented soaps, a nice soft rug, and maybe even some shells in a basket. If a bathroom doesn’t have these sorts of things, I start thinking about what goes on there, and then I become very disturbed. So you see, I need the distractions. If I am busy smelling the soaps, I’m not going to think about the grossness.

But I digress. I set about the daunting task of hovering over the bowl. I did not want my vagina within a foot of that toilet’s surface. Call it paranoia, but I did not want anything to be able to make the leap from that toilet seat to my goodies. See, guys have it easy. All they have to do is aim for the giant hole, and the offending toilet is nowhere near their kibbles and bits. Afterwards, I flushed with my shoe, washed my hands, and opened the door again with my sleeve. Hooray! Mission Accomplished!

So guys, if you want your girl to be comfortable in your bathroom, at least put a candle in there. I guarantee that she will appreciate it.


I also found some really interesting links while doing an image search for dirty toilets on google:

Improv Everywhere is an improv group based in New York City. Click here to see one of them posing as a Mcdonald's bathroom attendant. (it is hilarious!)

Ever wonder where every single public loo in Australia is? Check out the National Public Toilet Map of Australia

Work Update

So things have been going pretty well at the new job. I haven't had any problems except for last week when some of the pipes under the bathroom sink became disconnected and gallons of water started shooting out of it. It was insane! In the span of a couple of minutes, the whole bathroom was flooded. There was so much water, it began leaking through the floor and down into the basement.

Here's the conversation I had with the maintenance man on call:

me: um...there's an emergency here. There's water shooting out from under the sink, and it's flooding the bathroom and leaking into the basement.

maintenance guy: Oh.... Well I'm out of town right now. (this is followed by a long pause) I won't be in until later.

me: uh. Okay? (long pause. Watching as water continues to gush out of sink) What should I do?

maintenance guy: Call the other maintenance guy. *click*

Wow. I wonder if everyone else gets such stellar customer service? "Oh, you have an emergency? Well, call someone else!"

Luckily the other guy knew where the water main was so I could shut it off. Unfortunately, the map in the basement was backwards, so it took me a little while to find it. When it was all said and done, I was soaked, and there was water everywhere. But I didn't have to clean it up, which was awesome. I got to go on my lunch break instead.

So basically, everything is going great. I'm just trying to get used to this whole getting up at 7 am five days a week thing.

Feeling Reflective

The last place I lived in was a somewhat old house that our rental company had just bought. It had been awhile since anyone had lived in it, and being old, it was full of all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies. One of the doors in our walk in closet had to be taken off the hinges to get to another interior storage closet. Inside we found a few beer bottles and two notebooks that had been left there by a previous tenant. The notebooks turned out to be journals.

It’s interesting to get glimpses into the secret parts of other people’s lives that you normally wouldn’t get to see otherwise. I find things of this nature fascinating. I am intrigued by all the things that people feel, but do not share with others. When I read them, I feel guilty because they are someone’s private thoughts, yet I cannot bring myself to get rid of them because they are thoughts that someone obviously felt were important enough to record.

I keep a journal myself. I don’t write in it regularly, just when I’m feeling emotional or want to remember something in particular. I have always been horrified at the thought that anyone would ever read it, and I wonder if this person would feel the same. Why is it that we feel the need to keep so much to ourselves? And why are we so afraid to be who we really are? Looking back on my life, there are a few times when I wish I would’ve told people how I really felt, or how much they meant to me. Maybe they already knew, but maybe they didn’t. I just wish it wasn’t so hard for me to say these things to the people that I care about most.

I’m thinking about sending the journals to the Found Magazine website. I’m not sure yet. I’ve had them for awhile now, and I don’t know why I hang onto them. I guess I just hope that the person that wrote those journals found what they were looking for.

Douche Burritos

The other day I was on my way to work when “Blinded by the Light” came on the radio. It’s a song that always makes me smile when I hear it because I think it’s funny. But every time I hear it/try to sing along to it (alone of course), I find myself wondering what the lyrics to the chorus are. It sounds like he’s saying “Wrapped up like a douche…another runner in the night.”

I discussed this with a few of my friends, and they too were unsure of what the lyrics were. Everyone I asked said that they thought the same thing. It seems like the more you strain to listen to it, the more it sounds like douche. And while this would be extremely entertaining, it’s highly unlikely. It then developed into a game of finding other words that rhyme with douche that it could possibly be. After much speculation, I finally laid the mystery to rest and looked on the internet. So without further ado here are said mysterious lyrics:

Artist: Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Song: Blinded By the Light

Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night
Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night
Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night
Madman drummers bummers,
Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older,
I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasin', sneezin' and wheezin, the calliope crashed to the ground
The calliope crashed to the ground
But she was...Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, runner in the night
Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night
Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night
Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night ...

I'll spare you the rest, you get the idea.

So there it is.

I think I liked it better when I thought it said douche.

Quarter Life Crisis?

Lately, I’ve been getting some pretty intense headaches. I think they are stress related. I have this tendency to involuntarily clench my jaw, so I’ve been trying to keep myself from doing it by sticking my tongue between my teeth so that the muscles will relax. It usually doesn’t really bother me, but the last week or so it has been really bad. I start my new job on Tuesday, and I keep getting more and more anxious about it. This has been the longest two weeks ever. I know that once I start, it will be fine and I’ll relax, but in the mean time I just keep thinking about it and it’s freaking me out. So much so, that my jaw has been bothering me a lot more than usual. It feels like I am constantly clenching it, and I can’t make it stop! Arrgg!!

I’ve also been very moody recently; because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the path my life is taking. I’m talking about the ever-present question of “What do I want to do with my life?”

I guess I’m feeling a little jaded because all through school everyone always told me “If you go to college and get a degree, you’ll get a good job.” Well, I have that degree now. And guess what? There are no jobs for me. Not in my field of study, or that don’t involve me having to ask, “Would you like fries with that?” anyway. Every job that I’ve looked at either requires a master’s degree or 5-10 years of experience. Even the entry-level jobs require that you have experience. Maybe it’s just me, but if I’m applying for an entry-level job, it probably means I don’t have much experience. And how can I get any experience if no one will fucking hire me? It’s a vicious cycle.

And on top of it all, I keep getting asked, “What do you want to do for a career?” And the truth is, I don’t know. I’m too indecisive. I have lots of interests, and I’m not sure what I’m actually qualified to do. It seems pretty obvious that I’m going to have to go to grad school if I actually want to get a job in the field that I got my degree in. But first I have to decide what I want to do, so I know what to go to school for.

I guess I always thought that I’d get some sort of sign that would kind of let me know what I was supposed to do. A little nudge in the right direction, something to tell me that I am not totally fucking everything up. Well, I’m 25 and still waiting. I can’t talk to my parents about it, because my mom’s spent most of her life being a housewife, and the rest of my family all work in factories. I am the first person in my entire family to get a college degree. No one ever discussed anything about careers or anything like that with me growing up, so I’m feeling pretty lost.

Sorry this post is such a downer. I just wanted to get it off my chest. So if anyone knows the secret to knowing what to do with your life, want to share it with me?