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i am a freak magnet.
Feb. 13th, 2001 12:02 amBefore I went to sleep last night (or rather, this morning, because I tossed and turned and sweated and swore and snacked until I finally figured out that I really just needed to turn the thermostat down a few degrees), I finished two books.
First up was The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll. I am a huge Carroll fan, enough that I own signed copies and UK editions and stuff, enough that I have "all" of his books. This is not one of his best. It has flashes of brilliance, and a good "message" near the end, but the plot doesn't quite hang together, and there are some things that are never really resolved. There was a point around p175 where the story started to sour for me, and after that it never really picked up again. It seemed to start as one book and then end as another. It's still better than After Silence, my least favorite of his books, but... I don't know, you can get the same type of story told better in Outside the Dog Museum.
Then I read all of The Owl Service by Alan Garner - it's a young adult novel that originally came out in 1967 and is considered a classic. It took me two hours or so to finish the whole book. I had wanted to read it for a long time, and only recently found it. I think it's good for people who like stories of myths mixing with contemporary life, and is a really good book, but it has that fault that YA novels sometimes have in that they tend to be under-descriptive and show events episodically, almost seeming like a novellization of a TV movie. Given my choice, the story would have been more explicitly developed, and there would have been more insight into the characters and their motivations, and the ending might not have been abrupt. It reminded me of an abridged version of one of Barbara Erskine's books... Lady of Hay, or the more recent one about the haunted medieval manor. Anyway, it's about a Welsh valley haunted by events described in the Mabinogion (specifically, the story of the Flower Bride and her betrayal of her husband and subsequent transformation into an owl), and about how three teenagers staying in the valley are fated to symbolically play out the events of the old tragedy. They find things like a set of dishes with an owl pattern that disappears after it is traced and a painting of the Flower Bride that has been hidden, and then they start seeing her apparition, and then tensions begin to flare. I would so much like to see an "adult" version of it - not pornographic, just with more psychological insight into the characters. An expansion.
Now about being a freak magnet - After much ado, we did haul ourselves out to the laundromat tonight. It seems that every time I'm there lately, some family is doing dozens of sheets and towels - all white, like from a camp or a bed-and-breakfast. It's not the same family each time. The people there tonight had brought a pickup truck, a van, a large car, and possibly one other vehicle, all filled to capacity with laundry! They took up almost the entire laundromat. This was frustrating while they were there (because a free dryer was hard to come by and baskets with wheels were scarce), but everyone was polite & it wasn't really a big deal.
After I got my stuff into the dryer - as I don't wash there - and my mom got her stuff into the washer, we found a corner to sit in. It was quite secluded except that I was sitting in front of one washer that was still spinning, and we were near another washer that had just finished. If we'd sat away from these two washers, one of which was easily accessible and the other of which would have required a simple "excuse me!" to get to, we'd have been blocking the entire row of washers. We just assumed that the people would come up and say "excuse me" and that we would move.
Well, a woman came up, probably in her late 40s or so, and just started WAILING on me. "Do you realise that you are IN THE WAY? Until you showed up there was no problem getting at anything, now you're sitting here in the way and I can't get to my laundry, you should get out of my way, you're rude, you're inconsiderate..."
I said in a conciliatory tone, "Ma'am, your load isn't done yet. I'll happily move when you ask me to when it's done. But as far as I can see, aside from you needing to get to your load, we're not in anybody's way."
She got closer to me and started on the same screed, saying she had already asked me to move nicely and blah blah blah. I repeated pretty much the same thing, saying that I had no problem moving for her but that it was ludicrous to blame the crowding of the laundromat on us when all we were doing was sitting in a corner that happened to be in front of the one washer being used in that entire row. This time, I was a little more defensive and argumentative. She reiterated that we were the rudest people in the laundromat for sitting there to begin with, that she shouldn't even have to ask me to shift my chair, etc.
Again, the screed, and she got closer and closer and started to get into my face.
This time, I stood up, tossing aside conciliation and argument, and going straight for intimidation. "Listen, Lady, I don't know what your problem is, but you are extremely rude, and you need to get over it. Nobody has any problem letting you get to your stuff, but you're being abusive for no reason. And you're -" I stepped closer, until my nose was a few inches from hers, and she started to realise that I was a good three or four inches taller - "getting in my face for no reason, and yelling at us, and I don't know if you realise how wrong you are, or how it feels to have someone in your face giving you a hard time." (or something like that. I don't remember the exact words. I do remember that I was pissed off but not swearing or calling her names.) I stared long and hard and coldly into her eyes.
She hissed, "Get away from me, Ugly!" and ducked under to get at her other load.
I went up to the counter and told the people on duty what had happened, and pointed the woman out as she left in a hurry and a huff. As it turns out, she's done the same thing to other people, even in a half-empty laundromat, and she's now banned from the place. I really doubt she expected me to stand up to her.
My mom later told me she'd been really afraid I was going to hit the woman, or that the woman was going to hit me (in which case mom would have jumped on her in about two seconds) and I said truthfully, "No, but even if I had, I could have pressed charges on her for assault, even if she had pressed charges for battery. And if she had hit me, that would have just given me a reason to haul off and punch her." And truthfully, when it's people like that... whose buttons I can and will press because, I don't know, it's a personal failing, I'm usually very polite but I don't like people in my face fucking with me for no reason... when it's people like that I usually do think give me a reason, give me an excuse, keep it up, keep fucking with me, come on, hit me so I can break your useless fucking jaw. Which is not something I really want to do or be.
Especially when someone is acting as jaw-droppingly immature as that woman. I mean, come on? Playground taunts because she didn't like where I was sitting and decided to take it out on me instead of just nicely asking me if I could move? She was so busy arguing with me and abusing me that she never even gave me a chance to get out of her way! What a twit! What a freak! Where do these people come from and why do I keep getting to deal with them? I'm serious, this is like the fourth one in the last six months. Selfish, crazy people who have nothing nice to say at all. I mean, at least Repellent Guy who was sitting next to me Friday night was just ew, and didn't start harrassing anyone (nor did I harrass him, as icky as he was and as much as I might have been tempted). How do they keep finding me?
I did manage to spend the rest of the time I was at the laundromat studying, finishing clothes, and watching Rugrats with two cute cute cute little black kids. Aside from that, we stopped at the grocery store on the way home where I (I I I me and me alone) did most of the needed shopping in a whirl, and then came home and I watched my tacky cheese TV of the day, Undressed... man that show is bad, and addictive, too! :)
First up was The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll. I am a huge Carroll fan, enough that I own signed copies and UK editions and stuff, enough that I have "all" of his books. This is not one of his best. It has flashes of brilliance, and a good "message" near the end, but the plot doesn't quite hang together, and there are some things that are never really resolved. There was a point around p175 where the story started to sour for me, and after that it never really picked up again. It seemed to start as one book and then end as another. It's still better than After Silence, my least favorite of his books, but... I don't know, you can get the same type of story told better in Outside the Dog Museum.
Then I read all of The Owl Service by Alan Garner - it's a young adult novel that originally came out in 1967 and is considered a classic. It took me two hours or so to finish the whole book. I had wanted to read it for a long time, and only recently found it. I think it's good for people who like stories of myths mixing with contemporary life, and is a really good book, but it has that fault that YA novels sometimes have in that they tend to be under-descriptive and show events episodically, almost seeming like a novellization of a TV movie. Given my choice, the story would have been more explicitly developed, and there would have been more insight into the characters and their motivations, and the ending might not have been abrupt. It reminded me of an abridged version of one of Barbara Erskine's books... Lady of Hay, or the more recent one about the haunted medieval manor. Anyway, it's about a Welsh valley haunted by events described in the Mabinogion (specifically, the story of the Flower Bride and her betrayal of her husband and subsequent transformation into an owl), and about how three teenagers staying in the valley are fated to symbolically play out the events of the old tragedy. They find things like a set of dishes with an owl pattern that disappears after it is traced and a painting of the Flower Bride that has been hidden, and then they start seeing her apparition, and then tensions begin to flare. I would so much like to see an "adult" version of it - not pornographic, just with more psychological insight into the characters. An expansion.
Now about being a freak magnet - After much ado, we did haul ourselves out to the laundromat tonight. It seems that every time I'm there lately, some family is doing dozens of sheets and towels - all white, like from a camp or a bed-and-breakfast. It's not the same family each time. The people there tonight had brought a pickup truck, a van, a large car, and possibly one other vehicle, all filled to capacity with laundry! They took up almost the entire laundromat. This was frustrating while they were there (because a free dryer was hard to come by and baskets with wheels were scarce), but everyone was polite & it wasn't really a big deal.
After I got my stuff into the dryer - as I don't wash there - and my mom got her stuff into the washer, we found a corner to sit in. It was quite secluded except that I was sitting in front of one washer that was still spinning, and we were near another washer that had just finished. If we'd sat away from these two washers, one of which was easily accessible and the other of which would have required a simple "excuse me!" to get to, we'd have been blocking the entire row of washers. We just assumed that the people would come up and say "excuse me" and that we would move.
Well, a woman came up, probably in her late 40s or so, and just started WAILING on me. "Do you realise that you are IN THE WAY? Until you showed up there was no problem getting at anything, now you're sitting here in the way and I can't get to my laundry, you should get out of my way, you're rude, you're inconsiderate..."
I said in a conciliatory tone, "Ma'am, your load isn't done yet. I'll happily move when you ask me to when it's done. But as far as I can see, aside from you needing to get to your load, we're not in anybody's way."
She got closer to me and started on the same screed, saying she had already asked me to move nicely and blah blah blah. I repeated pretty much the same thing, saying that I had no problem moving for her but that it was ludicrous to blame the crowding of the laundromat on us when all we were doing was sitting in a corner that happened to be in front of the one washer being used in that entire row. This time, I was a little more defensive and argumentative. She reiterated that we were the rudest people in the laundromat for sitting there to begin with, that she shouldn't even have to ask me to shift my chair, etc.
Again, the screed, and she got closer and closer and started to get into my face.
This time, I stood up, tossing aside conciliation and argument, and going straight for intimidation. "Listen, Lady, I don't know what your problem is, but you are extremely rude, and you need to get over it. Nobody has any problem letting you get to your stuff, but you're being abusive for no reason. And you're -" I stepped closer, until my nose was a few inches from hers, and she started to realise that I was a good three or four inches taller - "getting in my face for no reason, and yelling at us, and I don't know if you realise how wrong you are, or how it feels to have someone in your face giving you a hard time." (or something like that. I don't remember the exact words. I do remember that I was pissed off but not swearing or calling her names.) I stared long and hard and coldly into her eyes.
She hissed, "Get away from me, Ugly!" and ducked under to get at her other load.
I went up to the counter and told the people on duty what had happened, and pointed the woman out as she left in a hurry and a huff. As it turns out, she's done the same thing to other people, even in a half-empty laundromat, and she's now banned from the place. I really doubt she expected me to stand up to her.
My mom later told me she'd been really afraid I was going to hit the woman, or that the woman was going to hit me (in which case mom would have jumped on her in about two seconds) and I said truthfully, "No, but even if I had, I could have pressed charges on her for assault, even if she had pressed charges for battery. And if she had hit me, that would have just given me a reason to haul off and punch her." And truthfully, when it's people like that... whose buttons I can and will press because, I don't know, it's a personal failing, I'm usually very polite but I don't like people in my face fucking with me for no reason... when it's people like that I usually do think give me a reason, give me an excuse, keep it up, keep fucking with me, come on, hit me so I can break your useless fucking jaw. Which is not something I really want to do or be.
Especially when someone is acting as jaw-droppingly immature as that woman. I mean, come on? Playground taunts because she didn't like where I was sitting and decided to take it out on me instead of just nicely asking me if I could move? She was so busy arguing with me and abusing me that she never even gave me a chance to get out of her way! What a twit! What a freak! Where do these people come from and why do I keep getting to deal with them? I'm serious, this is like the fourth one in the last six months. Selfish, crazy people who have nothing nice to say at all. I mean, at least Repellent Guy who was sitting next to me Friday night was just ew, and didn't start harrassing anyone (nor did I harrass him, as icky as he was and as much as I might have been tempted). How do they keep finding me?
I did manage to spend the rest of the time I was at the laundromat studying, finishing clothes, and watching Rugrats with two cute cute cute little black kids. Aside from that, we stopped at the grocery store on the way home where I (I I I me and me alone) did most of the needed shopping in a whirl, and then came home and I watched my tacky cheese TV of the day, Undressed... man that show is bad, and addictive, too! :)
