The bad thing about the Internet is that when you discover that on-line people share some of your unreasonable fears, you assume that everyone shares all of your unreasonable fears. After discovering that many others in real life feel like they are being watched in public places, I went on to share with my co-workers my fear that my cat is trapped in the refrigerator and that sometimes it takes me a long time to leave the house because I have to keep checking to make sure he’s not in there, that unless I can see him as I’m actually closing the door, I have to go back inside and make sure he didn’t sneak into the refrigerator when I was checking to make sure he wasn’t in there. Judging by the looks on their faces, I should have stopped there, but so great was my relief to discover that I am not alone in my unreasonable fears, I went on to talk about my fear that squirrels would someday take over the world, and that I always try to befriend them with gifts of peanuts and other assorted snacks because when they finally make their move, I want to be on the winning side. I also mentioned that I’m convinced that sites like MySpace are actually secret mind-control programs created by aliens or possibly squirrels, and that when the majority of the world is completely obsessed with MySpace, the aliens or squirrels will activate the secret mind control rays, and everyone who has a MySpace page will have these mind control rays beamed into their heads the next time they log on and they’ll be forced to do the aliens’/squirrels’ bidding.

My co-workers no longer speak to me.

*****

So, the other night, I changed the talking alert on my computer. It now says “OH FUCK!” in a creepy, Muppet-like voice every time something requires my attention. I originally meant to turn the talking alerts off entirely, but the temptation to make my computer swear was too great to resist. After playing around with the speech settings for a while, I became distracted by something else and forgot to turn the alerts off. Normally, I turn my computer off when I go to bed, but I was in the middle of downloading something that night, so I left it on. I should have at least muted the computer before I went to sleep, but of course I forgot. As a result, I discovered that very little is as frightening as being startled awake at 3 a.m. by a creepy Muppet screaming “OH FUCK!” loud enough to be heard throughout the entire house. It took me a long fucking time to get back to sleep after that, I tell you what.

*****

Know what I’m doing this weekend? NOTHING. Not one goddamn THING. I am so excited, I just might burst into happy tears. This is the first weekend since early fucking JULY that I haven’t had to travel up north or work or something else. I am going to sit on my ass and watch cartoons and eat toast for two days straight, I swear to GOD. I am going to sleep in and take naps and sloth around the entire time. I will don my pj pants and most comfortable tee shirt on Friday, and I have no plans to wear anything else until I return to work on Monday. It will be lovely. I have sworn the roommates to secrecy about the free weekend. They are instructed to tell NO ONE about it, because if people find out, they’ll invite us places and ask us to do stuff and come over to hang out, and IT’S NOT HAPPENING. It’s not that I don’t like to see people or to go out, but I need a weekend without plans, without structure. I need time to rest and regroup, or else I will have a nervous breakdown the likes of which this world has never fucking SEEN. I am tired and crabby and tense and stressed out, and if I don’t have my entire weekend of nothingness, I will crack. CRACK RIGHT UP, I TELL YOU.

last - next