The Blasphemous Hyperbole

I f-cking HATE Tow Truck companies. And Booters. And...the church?

Saturday morning, while I was unsuspectingly parking my car in a nearby LDS church lot, I remember thinking "I wish my shoot was in this building, then I wouldn't have to walk three blocks from here --the safest parking in the vicinity--to get to my shoot." Little did I know, that at that very moment I was being diabolically betrayed by my own religion, through the spawns of Satan themselves that were contracted by the church itself. Yes, I was about to be preyed upon by the most malicious evil that prowls or has ever prowled the streets of Provo, Utah: the Tow Truck people. Approximately forty minutes later, I came back to find my beloved 1993 Mazda Protoge...gone.

For a moment, I thought that it had been stolen. But then, upon further thinking I realized that no one in their right mind would steal my POS Mazda with the randomly placed bumper stickers that have long ago faded into unintelligibility and the numerous scratches from unclaimed parking lot travesties. Then who...? It was at that moment I realized that I had to be dealing with people who WEREN'T in their right minds. People who would steal a $350 car and attempt to hold it for a $150 ransom. People without souls. Tow Truck people.

Yes, indeed, my friends. My car was in fact stolen blatantly and (apparently, as I found from grueling hours of research and several elevated conversations) legally from a religious sanctuary. Or, at least I had thought of it that way. But don't be fooled. Here in Provo Utah, even the churches have fallen victim to the honeyed words and promises of vast fortune that these scavengars peddle to every lot in the community. Sad...tragic...faith shaking as it seems.

Just like Quasimodo, I found out the hard way that sometimes, no one can protect you. While swinging from the bell and crying, "Sanctuary...SANC-tu-A-RYYYY!!!" the priest himself walks up and cuts it loose. That's just the breaks, kid. That'll teach you not to mess with the REAL PTB (Powers That Be) in this town. That's right. It's not, as we previously assumed, the Mormon church. It is the friggin Towtruck Mafia.

The best part was when I told the guy on the phone that I couldn't believe I wasn't safe parking in my own church, even on a Saturday afternoon when the parking lot is empty and who does that bother, for friggin crying out loud!? And he goes, "Well ma'am, that building is just as much a business to us as any other building that we contract with in the community. And we enforce it just as strictly." What the HELL are you talking about, Towtruck Villain!? A church is NOT a business! Or, at least I didn't think mine was one. It's more like a non-profit, or a charity. In fact, I'm pretty sure it qualifies for tax exemption under code 1099. Suck on that! says I. Instead, the TTC Sumbich refused to even negotiate, stating his right to completely extort me out of half the price of my car. Just to test his soullessness, I offered to apostatize myself from the church completely based on this incident, as this particular church was clearly in league with the Devil. Instead of apologising, he just laughed and said "Whatever". I swear, sometimes I wonder why God doesn't just smite them all.

I'm probably going to get struck by lightening...or at least go to Hell for this. But it felt a little good to get it out.

You-fumisms.

You know, lately I've been giving a lot of thought to the way people in certain pockets of society view different things, and I've come to a few conclusions that I really don't want to recognize. The most recent of theses is that my life here in Provo has become one big euphemism. In case you're unfamiliar with the word, a euphemism is something that takes a blatantly true fact (usually one that would be considered socially unacceptable if uttered honestly and aloud) and tweaks it, just a scoche, so that it is ameliorated into something that is cuter, fuzzier, and less extreme. Usually, something that makes people feel more comfortable.

Who made this rule up? It's like someone said, let's take the thing that is the most upsetting in the room, complicate and ameliorate it, and then use an acronym to describe it! That'll change the world and make it a better place. Some of the most fun times we use these types of alterations are in the job industry, where sometimes just saying what you really do all day isn't going to socially cut it.

Here are a few examples: (How YOU TOO can change your undesirable into a comfy!)
I work at a gas station = I am a Professional Petroleum Technician. (PPT)
I am a Ho = I work as a male entertainment customer service provider.
a Pimp = Marketing and Technical Support for Male Entertainment Customer Service Provider
Poop shoveler = Excess Product Reduction Technician
Stripper = Reverse Apparel Auctioneer (RAA)
Drug dealer = Pharmaceutical Representative (PR)
Britney Spears = Working Class Teenager Role model, Fashion Icon
Telemarketer = Dinner Interruption Specialist (DIS)
Doctor = Placebo Recommendation Spec and Hypochondriac Enabling Services, MD - Nuff said.
Janitor = Restroom Sanitation and Excess Bodily Fluid Removal Technician
Nose Picker = Interior Nasal Excavation Person (INEP)
Butt Wiper = Posterior Fecal Sanitation Worker (PFSW)
Garbage Man = Recycling and Non-environmental Refuse Supervisor

You see? Euphemisms can be quite fun! And if we're using them for the sake of Humor, they can be even MORE fun backwards! (Euphemism = Basically, the real thing)

Server = If you walk into this restaurant, I am your bitch.
Meat server = I sell beef on a stick
College Student = I have no money, no skills, and refuse to study, but please commit to hire me in four years pending receipt of piece of paper called "Degree"
Reporter = Public Tattletale
Director = Professional Yeller and Crusher of Self-esteem
Extra = Self-esteem Inflation Model
Assistant Director = Self-esteem Repair Technician
Manager = I've worked here a really long time; Competency not necessarily included
Sales Associate = If you walk into this store, I am your bitch.
Girlfriend = Socially obligated to be seen with you in public, and kiss you pretty much whenever you feel like
Boyfriend = Socially obligated to do nothing
RM = I don't have a job, know what my major is, or have a clue. But I can speak Italian!
R(Sis)M = I have a six figure salary job, can speak another language, bake, disarm nuclear bombs, grow my own vegetables, and I hate you. And myself.
Bartender = I can make drinks. And sleep with lots of people. I'll sleep with YOU. And make you drinks.
Pilot = I can fly a plane. Sleep with me.
Doctor = I heal sick people. And I have a wife. Sleep with me.
Security Sales = I make $30,000 a month by exploiting the gullibility of peoples in US protectorate countries. Don't you want to sleep with me?
Denny's Server = I work here to support my drug habit. Go ahead, stiff me I don't care.
Producer = I do pretty much all the same stuff as a secretary, only I don't get paid as much.
Law Student = In fifteen years, I will have paid off my student loans, and will then be making more money than God. In the meantime, I'm just gonna talk about it.
DL, AP, EQP = I've never even kissed a girl. And that makes me holier than YOU are.
RSPres = I've never even kissed a guy. And that's because I'm too holy to even think about it.

Okay, so some of these are a tad hyperbolic, and freaking sacreligious, but I'm giggling. Why aren't you?

Portugese, Pork, and Making Television

I'm moving on.

No more volcanoes, tears, knickers or guilt. No more ambiguous text messages and trips to Salt Lake where I'm not sure what I am, or who I am with. No more feelings of insecurity brought on by thinking I am not worthy of something I don't even know if I want, or know what I would do with if I had it. No more wondering, and no more overthinking things.

Today, I am starting anew. I am putting behind me all of those things that make me doubt myself. All of those things that have been making me lose sleep or lose focus. I'm throwing myself into a new occupation, and not because I am trying to get something else out of my head, but because I want something new in it. A whole lot of somethings.

I've realized a few things about myself and my head over the last couple of weeks, and one of the most important of these realizations is about housekeeping. It's all very well and good to say you're going to start fresh and start doing everything a different way, but more often we find ourselves instead looking for excuses to explain why we ended up doing the same things all over again. "It's not my fault." "I can't help it. Obviously something else needs to change before I can start over." But really, it's just because in your mind, and in your life you just haven't cleared a space yet. First you have to pull the weeds before you can plant flowers. Or, you have to pull the flowers that aren't growing to make way for other flowers that will. In any case, change comes after you jump into the unknown, with a plan of course.

For me, that plan is going to include another new job. A new house. And probably, hopefully, a new social life with people who will love me for who I am and realize that even though I'm one of the busiest people they know, I still want them to call me. I still want love and I still want to be cuddled, even though I might not seem to stand in one place long enough to do so. It's time to make a change in the places I look, rather than looking for new things to come out of the same people and places I've known.

And so I'm moving on, leaving those behind me who won't or can't follow, to find what it is I'm looking for. It's time.

The Volcano.

It's building up, I almost can't keep it in anymore. Some days, it gets so strong I actually have to leave the room before any of it escapes. It's like I spend all my time either denying it or wrestling with myself to hold it in, to keep it from spilling out and making a mess of everything. Because it IS a messy thing. The truth, that is.

Why do I sit there every day and look across the table at you and pretend everything is the same? Why do I joke and dance all over the things I really want to say? Why am I so confused and why does my stomache hurt so much and why, oh why, can't I be stronger? Why do I ruin every moment with frightened babble, whenever we get so close to saying something that would change everything? Why is it so hard to jump, when we know it can't really hurt more than a few seconds. Or a few years.

Maybe it can just last forever this way, but then the truth whispers from the dark corner where you've shoved it and covered it up with laudry...no it can't. Things are bound to change. You can't be happy with the way things are... and then you're not again. Everything is perfect the way it is, but then why does the fire explode in your chest when you see them together? Is it because you wish it was you and someone else? Or do you wish it was you instead of her? The flames simmer below the surface, but it's just so much easier to temporarily blot it out than face it. The problem there is it always comes back, until you deal with it.

But what if you let it go, and it rages out of control and people flee for their lives? Or what if you stay hidden and years later steam rises... but it's too late. The fire is gone. The fuel is spent somewhere else and you find that all you have is stone. What do you do then, when there are no more feelings to make sense of, to agonize over, to confuse yourself with in a flurry of smoke? You sit on the pile of stones and logic.

Please Don't Make Me Cry

I need a friend. This thought has struck me like the cattle part on the front of a train that I ignored right up until the point of impact, even though it was looming in my periphral vision for quite some time. I guess I didn't want to believe that my best friend (let's face it, my only friend come to that these days, or at least the only one who's still in my zip code) would walk away from me over something as simple as a bad night. Or nights. But I guess I should have stepped out of the way BEFORE the train hit me.

You see, when I love someone I choose to love them. There's none of this idiocy of "falling" in love, or "accidently in love" ala Counting Crows. I see, I think, I deliberate and then I feel. You might see it as sad, but I've learned to guard my emotional triggers from just anyone, and for very good reason. Then again, maybe there is no reason good enough. Even when it's just a friend, I choose to care but most dangerous is when I start to believe in them, to rely on them. It's then that it hurts to lose them. It hurt to see my best friend shunned out of Utah for her beliefs. It hurt to leave Racherella to move by myself and live alone. It hurt more than anything when the person I loved decided to take back our future together, and give it to someone else instead. But most of all, it hurts that I have chosen to allow it.

And so again, I find myself unconsciously, but somehow deliberately giving someone else the power to hurt me, the ability to make me cry. In one moment, everything I have built crashes to the ground like a pile of broken plastic; not quite as strong as I had thought. And suddenly I am no longer a strong and confident version of myself, but someone who feels ...not enough. If this is how caring feels, please make it stop. I don't want to care that much for someone else's opinion of me, I don't want to give a person the power to break me. From the inside.

If I hide my trigger, then no one can accidently set it off, and then no one can ever hurt me.
This way, you'll never make me cry.