grrgoyl

To give you an idea of what Tery is up against at the hospital, she was working Reception alone the other night but knew it wasn't going to be enough.  One of the assistants would have to go home (and the only choice was a girl who'd already been sent home by Tery twice that week).  Tery, tired of always being the bad guy, phoned down to Dr. E. (the medical director) and asked her to "cut A. loose."  A few minutes later A. came upstairs and cheerfully informed Tery she was there to relieve her, thinking she was doing Tery a big favor by sending her home (Tery had worked like a 12-hour day). 

Later on the phone Tery pointed out Dr. E.'s mistake to her.  "Oh, THAT'S what you meant by 'cut her loose.'  We need to work on our code words."  What?  In what language does "cut her loose" mean anything besides "let her go"?  My god. 

Consequently yours truly needed to make some sacrifices on the weekend, which I'm normally happy to do.  Friday night was actually pretty busy with patients so I had to stay the whole shift.  Saturday I had one patient, a small, bony, shivery chihuahua Parvo puppy, who only required two shots of antibiotics from me -- one at 9 pm and one at 5 am.  I had to stay a full night just waiting to give the dog one stupid shot.  Tery was desperate and asked me to give up three hours, but of course I still had to stay to give the shot.  True, I slept most of the time, but the only thing worse than giving up three hours from your shift is giving them up and having to "work" them anyway (which I realize is technically illegal, but like I said, I wasn't exactly the paragon of industry during that time, and in fact rarely am after midnight).  She promised to ask her doctors to give a little more thought to the med schedule in such a situation.

However, this was my first weekend with the new hours, sleeping in until noonish or so on Saturday, and it was HEAVENLY.  Almost like a proper weekend.  Meandered out into the living room whenever I damn well felt like it, watched a little TV with Tery, enjoyed a luxurious breakfast.  All lovely.  And it turns out the four hours on Sunday night pass so quickly (evidently Sunday always has a huge workload so I actually get to spend the whole shift on just one account, as opposed to the weekdays when I'm bounced all over the place) it's barely like working at all.

~*~

Last weekend I got pulled over on my way home from the hospital.  The cop looked exactly like Matt Lauer, and said he got me doing 50 in a 40.  I found all my documents except my insurance card, which it turned out he didn't ask for a second time, fortunately. 

I knew damn well why he picked me out of a herd of other vehicles that was leaving me in the dust even before his lights came on.  Because a few miles earlier there's a place where the road crests into a big hill, and just below the edge of it you can see the top of a building that has always made me insanely curious.  The roof is shaped into a series of four sequential domes, each of which has a ceiling fan lit from below.  A fancy parking garage?  A greenhouse?  I had to know, and that night I drove down there to find out.  It turned out to be not nearly so interesting from below -- only one discernible entrance with a soda machine next to it, and no windows at ground level.  A group home of some sort, I surmised.  But I noticed an SUV skulking around behind me, approaching on the side street I would be turning onto to get back on the main road, and slowing down to a crawl to obviously let me go in front of it.  I have a strong suspicion it was this cop. 

Sure, my detour probably looked a little suspect.  The building was on a dead-end, so I really had no other reason to be down there.  It wasn't exactly the nicest part of town either.  He pulled me over, saw I was harmless, and then made up an excuse about speeding (he didn't ticket me or even give me a warning).    Since I don't always think the most clearly at 5 am, I stutteringly asked if this was about my explorations, and tried to explain my curiosity -- evidently not very well, because then he asked if I'd been drinking.  I of course pooh-poohed that idea, but I often worry about being given a sobriety test after working all night, if I would fail it out of fatigue (one would hope they'd use a Breathalyzer as well). 

But my real point is, where are these johnny-on-the-spot cops when I've got some asshole climbing into my backseat despite there being two other lanes to pass me?  Or when some dick needs to get into my lane WHATEVER THE COST and cuts me off, despite there being five empty car lengths behind me?  Nowhere to be found, that's where.  But pull ME over because I stopped to check out some unique architecture.  Yeah, I know.

Since I no longer need to hurry up and sleep, I now take my very leisurely time getting home (which drives the tailgaters round the twist -- yet they refuse to pass me, making me think it's less about being in an actual hurry and more about forcing me to go faster.  I don't take kindly to people trying to force their will on me) and NO detours. 

~*~

A few days ago I was completely harangued by a doctor in a dictation.  He started the report by saying, "I want you to call your supervisor right now before typing this report.  You people have been messing up my reports for years and I'm tired of it." 

Naturally that took me a little aback, but I wasn't about to call the supervisor without having an actual problem, and certainly not just because this guy told me to.  And for the record, I'd never done a report for this man in my life, so he wasn't talking about me specifically anyway.

Some dictators have what are called "standards," which are templates we can pull in for sections that are common to all their reports.  Most of the time these standards are numbered or otherwise easily identified.  This guy asked for one of his standards; he had six (three for each eye, right or left), and the broad, vague titles and very limited information that he gave made it virtually impossible to tell which one he wanted.  I eliminated one because he said, "NOT the one that uses this drug and this drug," and that was where his helpfulness ended. 

He provided a few more bits that would have fit into any of the standards, then signed off with "I hope you don't screw it up because you people are really getting on my nerves."

Do you know what's getting on MY nerves?  Slaving away for tuppence a day listening to doctors who apparently think we're all mind-readers, therefore it's not necessary to bother opening their mouths when they speak, or slow down instead of vomiting the report up in a single breathless stream of syllables that would make an auctioneer say "What was that again?", or stop chewing their lunch, or put some distance between themselves and the gaggle of shrieking, laughing nurses in the breakroom, or use a phone that doesn't cut out every third word, or not dispense portions of the report in between taking other calls while I sit and wait, making NO MONEY AT ALL, etc. etc.  THAT'S what's getting on my nerves. 

But I can't say that to him.  So I called my supervisor, explained the situation and his attitude, and asked her to please make sure I was using the correct standard.  She came to the same conclusion I did and okayed it, then said, "We've been dealing with this guy for years.  He's impossible."  She listened to the beginning of the dictation and sighed heavily.  "We've asked him to try to be more helpful and maybe number his standards, but he's apparently happier wasting five minutes lecturing us with every report." 

On a funny note, I did some reports by Dr. Shirley Nurse.  Dr. Nurse!  Sounds like Dr. Girlfriend from Venture Bros.  I need little moments like that to counteract Dr. Dipshit there (note:  not his real name).

~*~

I've got a whole saga about trying to buy an iClone, but since there are a few more chapters still waiting to develop, I think I'll wait.  Hope the suspense doesn't kill anyone.

I don't know if it's because of the new Pirates movie, but suddenly the place is just crawling with Johnny Depp movies. I've watched three of them in the past week alone.

I watched the first Pirates on TV for the second time, having no memory whatsoever from seeing it in the theater except a distinct bewilderment as to why the rest of the world was losing its mind over it. Sure, it had Johnny AND Orlando (who, I'm sorry, does nothing for me without his long blonde elf hair), but apart from that, it really wasn't that great a movie (which was Tery's very response when I told her the new movie had the top grossing weekend of all time: "That doesn't make it a good movie," she sniffed disdainfully. She's just jealous because people don't flock in those numbers to watch documentaries, her film genre of choice). I believe this proves that squealing fangirls are just as guilty of thinking with the "little head" as men are often accused of.

I felt similarly on my second viewing. I found myself only slightly more interested than Tery, whose attention was waning even before the cursed pirate crew made an appearance. Ah well, c'est la vie. It isn't like I don't have plenty of other fandoms keeping me busy. However, my little sister informs me that if I don't like the new movie, it could jeopardize our future relationship as siblings. I shall have to take my chances.

In summary, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl: 2 out of 5. Still.




I once read an article about Johnny that began by pointing out that his agent was the most frustrated man in Hollywood, due to his client's insistence on taking only the quirkiest, most bizarre roles out there. These next two movies will probably demonstrate that in spades.

I happened to notice a Depp vehicle coming up next on IFC's gay film week, Before Night Falls. Unbeknownst to me this was nominated for an Oscar and Tery actually had wanted to see it. Great! A movie that achieves that rarest of intersections between her interests and mine.

It's the story of Reinaldo Arenas, a gay Cuban novelist living in Cuba when Fidel Castro comes to power. It was interesting, I suppose, although an hour and a half into it I was starting to suspect that this was yet another indie film cashing in on having one big star attached (actually two -- Sean Penn makes a very brief appearance and is virtually unrecognizable as a peasant farmer. I recognized him but Tery didn't, and argued with me about it. She joked that as an indie film, they could only afford South American actors who vaguely resembled Hollywood stars. NEVER question my movie acumen, bitch.) Every time a new character was introduced, I asked, "Is THIS Johnny?" Since everyone had dark hair and dark eyes, he could have been anyone. But I persevered on the dwindling hope that Johnny might be a romantic interest for the star eventually.

Reinaldo gets thrown into prison and it is there we meet "Bom-Bom," a transvestite known for his impressive capacity for smuggling in contraband (I will say no more). Bom-Bom's on-screen entrance is made from the rear (oh, it gets worse and worse) and as we watched the back of the shapely but unmistakably male character cross the exercise yard, I joked, "Is THAT Johnny? Ha ha ha." Hooboy.



Would you believe it wasn't until I started looking for internet pics for this post that I noticed Bom-Bom has facial hair? I'm still up in the air about whether Johnny makes a pretty girl or not. I'm leaning more towards "unsettling," sad to say. He restored his masculinity in the next scene where he plays a sadistic warden (who, nonetheless, starts to beat off for Reinaldo in a short fantasy sequence), but this just confused me. Was Bom-Bom the warden in disguise? Or were they two separate people who looked inexplicably similar?

Like most gay-themed movies, the ending was dismal and depressing, and had I known Johnny's total screen time was less than 10 minutes, I might have just left Tery to it. Eh. 2.5 out of 5




Finally I rented The Libertine from Netflix. I was excited to see this since first hearing about it many months ago. Johnny plays John Wilmot, who sounded like a less extreme Marquis de Sade of his age. It was also a fairly safe bet he would be on screen for more than 10 minutes in this one. And here I will cut, since this is a recent release and I will never be counted among the inconsiderate filth who doth blab the spoilers.

( ::The Libertine:: )

It was strange. I liked it, though not enough to watch it repeatedly. 3.5 out of 5



=============================

COMPLETELY unrelated, a short tale of road rage. Yes, these are boring to everyone but me, but some days I suspect this can be said of anything I write.

I was driving home from work last night, minding my own business (yes, surprisingly I am yet again the innocent victim in this story). It was just me and one other car on Parker Road, the massive 6-lane freeway street my road branches off of. Suddenly, literally out of nowhere, another guy came cutting across three lanes to get behind me. I don't know why he didn't get in front of me, he had plenty of time and he could have saved us both a lot of stress. But he didn't, and there he sat behind me.

"Tailgating" is such a small, inadequate word. This guy was INCHES from my bumper. INCHES. I could have leaned my head out the window and caught a whiff of his aftershave, he was so close. Think NASCAR minus the skill and handy roadside medic crew. He also had his high beams on, lighting up my car's interior as bright as daylight, he was so close. I tried the flipping the mirror up tactic, but I could still see him in the side mirrors and of course, his blinding headlights. For an entire block he breathed down my neck like this then, delightfully, he also turned onto my road. We continued and he didn't back down one tiny bit.

I put up with it most of the way up my street, then I just snapped. I pulled over to the side to let him pass, admittedly slamming on my brakes first, because why should I make it easy for him? He didn't pass me right away. First he pulled up alongside me to gesture at me silently (with my windows up). Yeah, mister, I'M the one with a problem. I'M the asshole. Tell me I'm the first person who won't tolerate your guerrilla driving style. For my part, I started screaming (though I doubt he could hear me either) "GO!!!!! Don't just sit there, you're in such a fucking hurry, GO ALREADY!!!!!!!!" If you think I was coming unhinged unnecessarily, you're still doubting me when I say he was INCHES from me. Unless you've got someone giving birth or bleeding to death in your backseat (in which case you shouldn't be heading home), ain't no reason on the planet for driving that close to me.

He finally moved on and I pulled out to follow him. Is this better, sir? Do you enjoy having someone behind you who's pissed as hell at you, you fuck? Of course I didn't tailgate him because two wrongs don't make a right, lucky for him.

He turned off about 50 feet later, and again I was left wondering how the story would be told from his perspective. "...and then this crazy bitch suddenly just slammed on her brakes in front of me! Yes, for no reason, why do you ask?" This as always is closely followed by the question of how Tery can drive to and from work 5 days a week and never once have this happen to her. People. Should. Die.

What if everything around you
isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know
is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
is it all you want to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
would you find yourself
find yourself afraid to see? - NIN

Chapter I

My MST obsession is coming along nicely. I found out the guy I chose to be my supplier actually isn't including the commercially-released eps (which I am certain was never stated in the eBay listing). This news brought with it frustration at my collecting scheme suddenly developing some speed bumps, but I admit a tiny bit of delight at facing the challenge. I started to look at eBay with an eye towards buying anything I could as cheaply as I could, before it occurred to me I might be able to just rent VHS/DVD copies and copy them (but you didn't hear that here...) I went to my local Hollywood Video (I haven't set foot in Blockbuster since writing my strongly-worded letter. By now I'll bet they're reeeeeally feeling the burn of my missing $4.08 a month, bastards). The problem with Hollywood is they have such narrowly-defined categories for anything that isn't a new release. I stood in the middle of the store, staring at the back wall blankly for a good minute or so. Where would they shelve MST3k? I started with the obvious location, Comedy, but no. Science Fiction? No. A bit of a stretch, but Mystery perhaps? Still no luck. It sure as hell wasn't Drama. Special Interest then. Nope. I FINALLY stumbled upon a lonely, cobweb-covered section for Cult Classics, where I found an ep I already had, an ep I didn't already have, and a copy of the film, all on VHS. I grabbed Mitchell as a good starting point (Joel's final ep). The punk-rock looking kid that checked me out told me how funny it was, one of his favorites, and that he hoped they would do a sequel to it. ....the hell? I didn't have the heart to break it to him that the show had been cancelled for some years now and probably would not be producing any new eps.

Bolstered by this small bit of success, I zipped up the street to the other local Hollywood in search of a different selection. It was much smaller than the other, so small it had no room for a Cult Classics section. I tried again searching other likely categories but soon noticed that not only was the store tinier, but also regarded the alphabet as more of a loose suggestion for displaying titles than an actual criterion. This didn't take long to piss me off so badly I had to leave.

But I am also enough of a freak that I went to Best Buy to get a sexy Body Glove CD binder to store all my soon-to-be-acquired lovelies, as well as sat down with a list and made a note of which disc would eventually go in which slot, so it will be a little like collecting trading cards or stamps. I suppose it's a good thing I don't have more days off like this.

Chapter II

As further proof that I am a certified Asshole Magnet in traffic, this happened to me the other day. Tery and I were driving to work, heading for the highway on the route both of us take many times a week. We were driving on S. Parker, as I've previously stated a secondary road commonly treated like a major freeway (posted speed limit: 45. Average speed: 60). Suddenly we saw Ms. Dangerous Idiot come careening across 4 lanes, from the far left to the far right (on-ramp to NB 225). Then, she wildly veered back across 2 lanes, apparently to stay on S. Parker. By this time I had come up alongside her just in time for her to change her mind AGAIN and start to veer straight into my lane, and when I say "my lane," I actually mean "me." I've drawn a helpful diagram (such as would be seen in the courtroom had this ended differently) to make this description clearer (no, she wasn't driving an AMC Pacer, but because it's one of the ugliest, stupidest-looking cars ever made I felt it was much more appropriate for her IQ level. I am the one in the more attractive, more sensible Honda Civic):



It wasn't until I lay on my horn with all the ferocity I could manage that she seemed to finally notice there were other cars on the road besides her, and she actually stopped and let me pass. (A note here about car horns: As much as I adore my Honda Civic, the factory-installed horn falls dramatically short of the intensity of emotion I am trying to convey with it. But until someone comes out with a horn that shoots searing hot plutonium death rays directly into the skull of the other driver, my tinny, whiny little substitute will have to do.) I agreed with Tery that sometimes when driving there comes a point where you have to face the fact that you are in the wrong lane and live with the consequences. In this case, the consequences are a bit more bearable when one takes into consideration the fact that there is another SB on-ramp about a block further up the road (note diagram), which this person obviously didn't know.

Can you tell I only got 2 hours of sleep last night?

Driving to work last night I was waiting to turn out onto Parker Road, a 6-lane, insanely busy thoroughfare that wants to be a major highway but isn't quite; which you couldn't tell at all based on the average speed of the people using it. Trying to work through this morass were four emergency vehicles, cops, ambulances, sirens blazing. To my astonishment and disgust, no one was pulling over or stopping for them, just driving alongside them in their own lane. I can't begin to imagine what was going through these selfish peoples' minds, or maybe they were too wrapped up in cell phone conversations.

After the four had passed I entered the stream, only to stop further up because a firetruck was trying to pull out of a notoriously difficult intersection just before the on-ramp to the highway. Again, no one else was letting him through. These people had better pray I never become Ruler of the World, because if I do my first order of business will be to see to it that every last one of them or someone they love dies because their ambulance is stuck in traffic, surrounded by self-centered, idiotic drivers.

I could see the accident just past the on-ramp and under the overpass. I headed for the on-ramp but just then a minivan (who I know for a fact was one of the offenders) came to a complete stop ON THE RAMP to rubberneck in front of me. Sir, if you don't get your ugly-ass minivan moving, so help me I will ram you and give you a front row seat to your very own car wreck, you stupid fuck. Is exactly what I thought. That and I wondered where the Darwin Principle was when you needed it, and how many times a day the dangerously moronic are saved by the actions of smarter people.

We will wave to them from such great
heights
"Come down now," they will saaaaaayeyahay.
But everything looks perfect from far a-
way
"Come down now," but we will staaaaaaayeyahay.

Nope, I'm sorry. The healing power of Garden State can only go so far.

P.S.: Note to the owner of the Ford Excursion, our neighbor who moved in a week ago and is already pissing me off: Obviously you are incapable of parking your behemoth of a vehicle properly, i.e. without crowding into the spaces on either side, it being roughly the size of a New York City studio apartment. Do you think you might stop taking up 1-1/2 of the primo parking spaces in front of the building and park off to the side where no one would mind so much? But I guess if you had that level of sensitivity and consideration you wouldn't have bought such a ridiculous, impractical car to begin with.

I wouldn't consider myself a workaholic, but I am psychotically opposed to being late for work. It isn't the unprofessionalism of it that bothers me as much as any time I miss is money I am not getting paid. Even five minutes makes me insane. It is gratifying that this attitude is so widely recognized by my co-workers that if I'm not in the store at least fifteen minutes early, people start to worry about me. Tery, on the other hand, doesn't share this viewpoint, not by a long shot. We even have a running joke after countless mornings spent sitting in stoic silence in darkened parking lots for twenty minutes at a time because I drove like a demon unnecessarily, and sheepishly muttering, "We're a little bit early, honey" as she glares at me from the passenger seat.

For this reason it is amazing I survived our trip to work Saturday night. It was a store situated more or less in downtown Denver that I dislike going to only because the traffic is so hard to gauge on a Saturday evening. We left at 4:20 for a 5 pm start, Tery insisting she needed to stop for a soda first. As I pulled into the convenience store across the street I could see out onto the main road where traffic was at a dead standstill. I panicked momentarily and she irritatedly told me to forget stopping, but I did anyway, because without caffeine Tery can be just about as unbearable as me. After buying the Coke we approached the three lane parking lot main street and had a bit of luck in the form of one thoughtful motorist who let me in front of them immediately. As it turned out, this was the only luck we would have for the next practically two hours. <-----note skillful foreshadowing

Nosiree, the traffic really wasn't moving, it wasn't just a trick of the light. We couldn't see how far ahead the problem lay, so clung to a faint hope we could at least get to the highway on-ramp, a mere mile or so away. The stressful lack of motion was not helped by the presence of kids in the road, weaving in and out of the trapped cars apparently distributing flyers for one of the local businesses in the plaza we just left, so even when you got a small window of opportunity to move a precious foot or two you had to be careful to avoid hitting one of them, or at least I knew a more levelheaded person would be careful of such things. They wisely avoided my car, I wouldn't be surprised if at that point the hostility was emanating off the roof like a heat mirage. After traveling only half a mile in 30 minutes I had resigned myself to the fact that we were indeed going to be late, no doubt about it. An uncustomary peace comes with such a revelation, and I myself am quite proud of attaining it, being a horrible control freak. I was glad I hadn't begrudged Tery her Coke at least, I would never have heard the end of it. We speculated about what the holdup could possibly be. She loosely quoted from Raising Arizona, "There'd better be a spherical object on the highway."

As we came up over the hill the stress temporarily increased tenfold when it became apparent the three lanes were becoming one (ours, explaining why for the most part we weren't moving) and then being diverted well short of the on-ramp (no spherical objects or any clue as to the cause of the jam in sight, I might add). Thus began the cutthroat car politics of who to let in front of us. I let a few in, but Tery and I were of the same mind that assholes who could see damn well that their lane was ending yet insisted on speeding on to the very last minute to get the farthest ahead in line did not deserve generosity. As we neared the front and these wankers became more directly our responsibility, Tery uncharacteristically spurred me into tailgating dangerously to shut them out, which I was only too happy to do. It also pleased me uncharacteristically to see the guy behind me clinging to my back seat to do the same.

Thus diverted onto another side street, I panicked as I struggled to think of an alternate route, customarily taking the highway to get to this store every time. Fortunately I had a large amount of time to do this, as this road was only moving the tiniest bit faster than the last. I was reminded of Office Space when I noticed a young woman walking on the sidewalk chatting on a cellphone and easily keeping time with us, often getting well ahead of us. We measured our progress based on hers until she reached her apartment complex and left us in the dust. Bitch. Naturally almost everyone was planning to make the same left turn I was, and naturally the left turn arrow mercilessly only let about four cars through at a time. It was about this time I noticed that I had to pee very, very badly. I complained to Tery who sat there smugly sipping her Coke. "You've got guts, girl," I said, "There's no telling when we'll see a bathroom again....let me know when you're done with that can."

At about 5:15 we finally made the left turn and started moving again, which raised my spirits somewhat. We made good time to a gas station where I thankfully solved one of my problems, raising my spirits even more. We weren't out of the woods yet, though. I knew the store was on 11th, but not the cross street, only that it was still quite a ways to go. Denver is laid out more or less in a grid, though not as concise a grid as, say, Manhattan. I knew from my first attempt to get to the store from this direction that 11th, or for that matter most of the streets, do(es) not go straight across as one would hope. Sure enough, what ensued became a comical string of errors as every road I tried to take across the city would abruptly end, necessitating a detour north or south, then over a few more blocks west, rinse, repeat. This continued so consistently and often that when I made another venture west and we immediately saw the road ended in a big old "Road Closed" barricade ahead, I burst into psychotic, uncontrollable laughter, the kind of desperate laughter you see in movies when you think it just isn't possible for anything else to go wrong, and then something else does. I took on an Alabama drill sergeant accent and explained to my troop, Tery, we were approaching the store "serpentine."

So it was that at 6:15 we finally triumphantly pulled into the store parking lot. Well, the triumph was diminished somewhat by a chick waiting to pull out of the parking lot. Since she was going left she was taking up almost the entire entrance. As I gingerly turned into the small lane she had left me, to my surprise I looked at her in time to see her giving me a spiteful, enraged middle finger. I am still trying to figure out exactly how I deserved to be flipped off in this situation. Even more surprisingly, she wasn't even driving an SUV, where I am used to encountering such an "how dare you drive where I need to be!" attitude. I would have kicked her ass if I weren't so grateful to just not be driving anymore. We were met with some concern by our co-workers, then gratitude that we had finally made it.

Tery couldn't wait to get home and find out what we had sort of been a part of. Apparently it was a gratifyingly large accident (to merit such a huge inconvenience, I mean). Someone had lost control of their vehicle on one side of the road, taking out a couple of cars, one of which flipped over the median and took out some more cars in the oncoming lanes. Two people were hospitalized in serious condition.

It is days like this that make me soooooooo grateful to have a work-at-home job most of the time.

-=Lainey=-