Great Mysteries of Life Ctd.: Oh And I'm Feeling Directionless Yes But That's To Be Expected

Speaking of great mysteries in life I don't understand, the cashier at the Fredrick Douglass Avenue Dunkin' Donuts -- who, in case you're wondering, and I think you are, sported an unzipped fly, appeared approximately 100 years old and was possibly drunk [he smelled strongly of something sweet and rotten] -- just requested ID when I paid for my iced coffee with a gift card. This has never happened before, and if it had, I would have been similarly confused/suspicious about Big Brother.

Me: "Why do you need my ID? That's a gift card."
Him: "We must always ask for ID in these matters--" [Holds up gift card as if to physically demonstrate the meaning of "these matters," which I guess is "matters of plastic."]
Me: "I mean, I have ID, I just don't understand what you need it for. My name's not on that card, so like, it's not like you need to match me to the gift card. Anyone could use it and it would be legal. It's a gift card."
Him: [looking at the card more closely] "I see." [thinks again] "No, we must always ask for ID in these matters."
Me: "Like, what are you going to prove about my ability to use that gift card by looking at my ID? I have one, I just don't understand the point."
Him: [apparently resigned that I'm not handing over the ID, possibly already thinking about his next drink/masturbation session] "It is just our policy on these matters."
Me: "Well, I really don't get it, so ..."

[Stand-off]

[Stand-off continues. My iced coffee waits for me, untouched, tantalizing and then ...]

[His co-worker/drinking buddy says something to him in another language which I assume translates to "You are wrong, asshat," because my Robert Murdoch-y Cashier resigns and scans my card sans ID. Also, I think I should make a little Dictaphone and just record myself saying "No Sugar," and then I can play it for the goldfish at D2 every day when they ask "No sugar?" and I respond, yes, that's right, "No sugar."]

I thought I had like ten million "mysteries of life I don't understand," but I realised upon sitting down to write this that I just had a lot of miscellaneous petty complaints about life's small tragedies that I wanted to complain about to as many people as possible. I asked around to jog my mind, and here's what I got.

Crystal's Great Mysteries:

Re: Why does the fire alarm in my building only go off on certain floors? Like, surely you'd evacuate the whole building.
It's natural selection, I think. Probs they get rid of the people who use their powers for evil instead of good.

Re: Why won't Qantas fly me from Vegas to New York?
Why won't Qantas fly me everywhere? If they flew me everywhere, I wouldn't be afraid of planes.

Re: Why, after years of continual typing, am I still a retardedly slow typer?
That is weird.

Re: Why do people keep calling my phone even when I never answer?
I could not possibly "totes" this answer more than I already do. TOTES. I wish I knew, but I think it has something to do with bills and a dead body.

Re: Why do people always try to talk to me when I'm trying to enjoy a cigarette?
People are annoying and weird and assume people would rather talk than do just about anything else there is, that's why we've created g-chat and such, so that we can be chatting all the time with other humans. I don't know I think it's because people don't know how to deal with being needy. That's a long answer. I wish people wouldn't try to talk to me when I'm trying to enjoy a book or an ipod or a fake usage of phone.


Lozo's Great Mysteries:

Re: Why do girls care so much about eyelashes? Thickness? Length? Eyelashes aren't penises. Are they?
I think there's a subtle effect of mascara that you're failing to notice. Also they are penises. That's how gay people do it. Like butterflies.

Re: Why are there signs on the highway that say, "speed checked by radar"? What the fuck else would you check it with? Is that supposed to scare me into slowing down?
I realise I've literally always assumed there was some other method I just hadn't noticed before. Like, "Oh, by radar, cool, not that other thing, totes." 'Cause otherwise that'd be totes retarded, which clearly they are. Maybe it's because of radar guns.

Re: Why do they put cereal in boxes? They put chips in bags, can't they put Cheerios in bags?
This convo led to me discovering Lozo cares about the rainforest, it was strange.


Lainy's Great Mysteries:

Re: Why do I keep smoking even though it makes me feel like shit and I know it's killing me?
I feel like I can describe most of my life's activities as things that make me feel like shit, things that're killing me. There must be a patch for this or something, a different way to get the same drug, a change in method.

Re: Why do I break electronics so easily?
I tell myself that it's not me, it's the electronics. Headphones are the new crack.

Re: Why do I say the most inappropriate things to the most inappropriate people but with people I care about I oftentimes am shy?
It's what's at stake.

Re: Why do I like to stay up late even though I enjoy the morning?
I was just asking myself the same question. Maybe we really like all the parts of the day, every single hour, all of it, all of it, the hours, the hours.

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And now ... My Great Mysteries!

What happens on my street every morning at 8:21 A.M.?
It's like a honkers convention, where all the cars in the city drive to my street and make sure their horns are working properly. Like, let's test them out doing a variety of long beeps and short beeps, all at once, good, again. That sound has awoken me from slumber for the past three days, it's unbearable, though it gets me out of bed early. But first I lie there, half-asleep and annoyed, fantasising about leaning out my window and dropping large rocks on people. Who knows where thoughts come from, they just appear, they just beep and crash.
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Am I Hungry?
Sometimes I can answer this. Sometimes, it is pure mystery, because it is a kind of wanting and wanting is mystery.
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How Did I Just Get Two Bug Bites? WTF? THREE!!
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Why do people put songs that play automatically on their MySpace profiles?
In what circumstance would I think "Oh, thank G-d for that song that just started auto-playing on top of the music I'm already listening to! Your song and my song together equals the best song I've ever heard." You know? Put a player I can opt into employing, but making "Gimme Gimme" auto-start is not gonna make me give you jackshit, no custody, no nothing woman, no-thing. Not a thing, you hear me? Especially if you've already got a lot of other things going on on your profile. This is why I like facebook better, because myspace makes my computer explode.
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Also, on the topic of myspace, what the f is up with those ads?
Srsly, any humans who'll cop to exclaiming: "OMG! I totally know the answer to this pop quiz, it's Jennifer Aniston!" and rushing to click the ad or "I know New York's real name! Totes! Free iPod here I come!" I guess you'll need a free laptop after yours melts following the virus that ad clearly leads to. There's an asterik, even, qualifying that the ad won't do what it promises. I thought myspace advertising space was really expensive, so I'd just expect higher standards from it's advertisers.

I guess I don't know the answer to that one. Usually they're pretty obvious. They're clearly targeting a demographic of people who watch that show, which as far as I know, doesn't include very many smart people. Like "Two and a Half Men," if they were like: WHICH OF THE MEN IS ONLY A HALF? I'd be like "DURRR."
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How do all these terrible television shows get greenlighted?

This upcoming television season, which I know about because I sometimes read retarded magazines and am intrigued by the consistently ridiculous things that happen in the same world that like, invented trees and other really neat things, features many programs that are not necessarily worse than root canals. Like, for example:

-"Carpoolers" -- in which four douchebags sit inside a car driving to work and bitch about their wives. Like, really? That's typically the kind of thing I'd avoid being anywhere near, let alone turning on my television with the express intent to view for 22 minutes.
-"Cavemen" -- Based on those commercials that apparently everyone loved but I found intensely annoying. About what it's like to be an "outsider." You know, as a modern caveman, like Encino Man, great film. It sounds to me a lot like a show about what it's like to look like a douchebag.
-"Life is Wild" -- They advertise during 'Gossip Girl,' it looks like a bunch of douchebags running around in the jungle.

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Who wants to be on television talk shows or reality dating shows? How could that possibly make life better? [Unless you're America's Next Top Model. Then you can live your life as a Cover Girl, which is awesome, it covers 85% of lines and has a smooth sheer finish.]

Who says, "OMG, I am so glad I ran around naked on television hitting my ex-husband's wife's lesbian lover's stepdaughter's aunt who's really my transsexual wife with a folding chair, that was so healthy, ever since I got back to Greenbo everyone's been recognising me at the Stop & Shop."

Or: I'd rather not compete with one girl over a girl I like, let alone an entire house-full of people competing for the girl I like.

Sooooo ... guess what?! I've been invited to appear on "The Tyra Banks Show"! I'm guessing they messaged every twentysomething bisexual on MySpace though it's highly possible I was hand-picked because clearly, I'm a shooting star and the camera loves me. The guy explained that they're seeking "a really fun and energetic Bi Woman" to go out with one girl and one guy. Apparently, this is a "social experiment" to "observe the differences between a woman on a date with a woman, and a man on a date with a woman." Really Papi? He's coming right out and admitting that's the point? 'Cause there's no way I'd actively contribute to perpetuating negative and counterproductive stereotypes about bisexuality, although also, I kinda would: I'd hope to trick them, turn it around. But they'd probs find a way to edit out my clever wisdom -- so --- back to no. But also, is this how she recruits girls for ANTM, "We'd like to break you into a million pieces, trap you in a house with a bunch of hyperactive anorexic loons and convince you that developing a signature walk and embodying the spirit of a desert flower or a crime scene is the most important thing you've done your whole goddamn life, then edit you to appear as insane and ugly as possible, and then -- in a matter of months, the entire world can watch your rejection on teevee!"

The financial compensation the Tyra Banks Show offfers is paying for the date. P.S., Tyra, I think you can afford a little more than that. Also, that surprises me, I think they'd be desperately interested in who might pay for dinner, the man on a date with a woman or the woman on a date with a woman. Like, as a social experiment.

Last year, following my appearance in a Marie Claire dating article [I was pictured as the "open minded dater" = laughably false], The Keith Ablow Show, which hadn't yet aired, asked me to come on. Not my thing, but also I was scared it'd be a trick like those shows often are. So I was like "No way, weirdo, I'm not gonna walk into that trap! I'll go out there all proud w/my gender theory, and you'll shove someone from high school who wants me dead in my face, or I'll be sitting next to my grandmother."

I think most gay women in NYC got the Tilla Tequilla casting call -- come live in a mansion with a Maxim model and 13 other hot lesbians, it's the first lesbian dating show ever!--obvs it was a trick.
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Does anyone really ever get Toxic Shock Syndrome?
I used to be really scared of this when I first read about it.

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Why does everyone in my neighborhood walk so slow?
I feel like Roadrunner when walking down 125th. I swear, no one else on the street has anywhere to be at all whatsoever like, ever. I just figure, I'm going, I may as well go fast. That's why they call me Flash Gordon.
These are the problems, as I see them:
1. An abundance of strollers and "walkers." I think everyone in this 'hood either has three babies or is almost dead and deaf in both ears. Howevs, I'd like to add that we could all move a lot faster if more people opened doors for strollers and walkers and if more people helped old ladies across the street. Seriously, I feel like I help a lot of lunatics cross 125th, I cannot continue to carry the whole team.
2. A plethora of street salesmen hawking wares including DVDs about the apocalypse and large photographs of Erykah Badu and slave executions and Urban Lit. I support the Urban Lit, but the rest of it can go, except the coffee guy.
3. We just need a greater sense of urgency cultivated in this 'hood, or more space between street-vendors and the street for someone to do the I-live-here-street-walk. Also, perhaps there could be hoverboards like in Back to the Future, I feel like we've totes passed whenever all that stuff was supposed to happen, what crap.

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Why isn't there a way to search for random word frequency?
Like, I want something to search my documents and tell me if I'm using any particular word too much or more than once. Does this exist? I'm not asking to search for a specific word, I just want it to look at a document and be like "you used the word 'enable' 15 times." "You used totes 500 times." "You talk about Haviland too much."

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Why am I like, how I am?

Angela: Why are you like this?
Jordan: Like what?
Angela: Like, how you are.
(My So-Called Life)

I mean, seriously. I guess that's what this blog is about, but also in doing that, I hope to write about why you're like, how you are too. You know? A few months ago we had mice, and Roommate-Ryan put out these no-kill mousetraps that mice can sometimes get out of and asked me You think they'll fall for it, don't they know better by now? They'd just keep going back to the same situation? And I was like, yeah, they would, I mean, you shouldn't ask me, of all people, to say they wouldn't run right in there, all earnest about peanut butter. In the morning, I sometimes lie there for a second wondering if I remember how to breathe, if it's smooth sailing from here on out, cool customer, congruent, catastrophic, sweet like memory and words and hands, my lungs open, I grasp through the dark.
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What should we Vlog about?
Haviland and I are going to do more vlogs, since it was superfun. Howevs, we need you to tell us what to talk about or ask us questions. This is a Great Mystery of Life, and I want you to help me to understand. See, you help me, we make jokes, and then in China, a butterfly flaps it's wings and saves a village of children, who were hungry but now are not. It's magic. Like Puff. The Magic. Dragon. Sometimes, I wonder, why don't I just write stuff down here that I shouldn't say? Like what is it that creates the decency between my brain and my methods of communicating how my brain is operating? Will it die before I do? I admire it, it is stronger than me, I am grateful it exists. There are so many words I want to say but until I say them, they aren't real. I say a lot of words, so it's the ones I restrain from vocalizing or writing that astound me the most, at the end of the day.

So what should Haviland and I Vlog about? Topics. Email, comment, whatevs. Just throw out a topic if you want to and have one. Any topic or question. We've already used "football" and "blow jobs," so none of that.

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