A case of the grumps

I hate the phone.
I hate entitled attitudes.
I hate being hungry.
I hate, um, spiders.

Huh.  I was going to write an exhaustive list of things I hate today, but I kind of ran out of steam there.  I suppose that's a good thing, right? 

Maybe I'm just hungry, which makes me irritable.  Time to up the old blood sugar.

Let me just clear this up for you.

I know we all love to hear the "Marilyn Monroe was a size 14 so there you chumps!" schtick.  It's kind of empowering to think that one of the most beautiful women in the world was a size 14.  But.  Let's get this clear.  A size 14 in the 1950s is equivalent to a size 6 or 8 today.  Even at her heaviest, sweet Marilyn was still pretty small, although curvy.  What I think a lot of people don't understand is that movie stars (then and now) tend to be shorter than we assume and thinner than average.  People also don't understand that sizing has changed a lot in the last 50 years.  If it makes you feel awesome that Marilyn was a more voluptuous sex-symbol than many celebrities today, that's awesome, but don't kid yourself.  She was never considered "plus-size".

Don't even get me started on the number of old Hollywood stars who had drug addictions and eating disorders.  It's a sad, sad thing, isn't it?

I'll just get this out of the way right now

1. I don't want to find a new place for my master key at work.  The place I've hidden it for the last few months has been great, but this morning I came in to find the clip on the floor and the magnet nowhere to be found.  I ask you, how hard is it to put things back the way you found them?  How do you lose a big magnet?  Now I have to find a new place for my key because, without the magnet, I can't put it where it was.  Fun.
2. Maybe I'll just keep the key with me at all times.  That'll show 'em.
3. At least I was able to find a parking spot.
4. We're out of water bottles for the water cooler.  My quest to stay hydrated is thwarted!  Thwarted, I tell you!
5. I don't understand how someone can be kind, generous, and thoughtful, and yet wildly immature at the same time.  It's a paradox.
6. If you've had a bronchial cough since Thanksgiving, you should probably get that checked.
7. You know how sometimes you hate yogurt but there's nothing else quick and convenient?  It's been like that for the last couple of months.  It's all I can do to not gag while eating it.
8. At least I can listen to Paul Simon's Graceland online.  That's very helpful.

Wrong question!

Asking me "where do you see yourself in 20 years?" is not conducive either to my mood at work or my desire to keep working here.  Here's the short answer:  If I'm still at a job like this in 20 years, I may or may not be suicidal over it.  Just don't ask, ok?  We'll get along much better if you don't ask me about my future.

Klassy with a K

In retrospect, I suppose I should have known I'd get a call from a frustrated mother, and then accidentally hang up on her while trying to answer her question.

I had a late rehearsal last night and by the time I was done my stomach was hurting so much I had a hard time standing up straight.  I'd been awake for 19 hours and apparently hadn't had enough to eat and my stomach was NOT PLEASED with me.  I got home, took off my makeup, had some toast, and put away two days' worth of clothes before reading a little and sleeping.  I thought I'd given myself plenty of time this morning to get ready, but I had a couple of things leftover from last night I had to do, and ended up leaving my house with enough time to get to work but not enough time to brush my teeth or put my sunscreen on.

So I brushed and sunscreened in a work bathroom. . . after parking in a VIP spot at the risk of being ticketed because there was NO parking in my lot, and having to move my car right after I checked in at work.

Klassy with a K.  That's me.

I Will Never Be an Expert, Even When I'm an Expert

I curse the internet for this.  I curse it.

You know how you study and work for years and years to know about the things you're interested in?  And how some upstart reads one book and is suddenly an expert because he or she has a Blog with Opinions?  And then how you are terribly discouraged because you have put in so much effort to know things, but no one believes you know them because you don't have a Blog with Opinions or a degree in the subject?

Maybe that's just me, but there are days I really hate Wikipedi@ and the awful bloated glut of information, often misinformation, out there.  There are so many fashion blogs and history blogs and vintage blogs that I feel displaced.  I can't swim against the current when everyone assumes (based on faulty research) that 19th century women had their ribs surgically removed, for instance.  Or when they buy a couple of vintage dresses and now they know all the mores and motivations behind WWII "make it do" fashions. 

Granted, there are some people who really do know what they're talking about, but finding them amongst the flotsam is hard.  In this age of instant expertise (I read it on Wiki!), how do the dues-payers cope?  I don't know everything even though I've always thought I know quite a bit, but public opinion seems to be against me because I don't have a cutesy blog with kooky pictures of myself wearing vintage dresses with ugly boots.  I fear that even if I DO get a masters in the area of clothing/textile history, I'll still not be taken seriously.  I'll be dismissed because I won't accept most research at face value.

On the other hand, if I really do this (if it pans out as planned), should I CARE what some 20-year-old wannabe sartorialist says or does?  Should I CARE that people will always take for granted what they've been fed out of poorly-written books?  Should it bother me at all that some people will never take me seriously because they dress like teenagers? 

I probably shouldn't care or be bothered, but more often than not I want to reach through my monitor and throttle people who don't know what they're talking about.

Let's get the new year started with a rant:

Does it really take that much effort to respond to a text?  Does it REALLY take too much time out of your precious day to push some buttons?  DOES IT?

Because this little black duck is tired of it and is thisclose to deleting a couple of people from her phone, her Facebook, and her life.

It's the classic "I thought we were friends" line going around and around in my head, but I won't actually say it out loud, because it sounds so junior high and immature.

BUT.

HONESTLY.

The only reason I'm keeping one of these people in my phone is so that IF This Person calls/texts, I will know who it is before I answer, but it's starting to feel like a very thin reason.

I'm so tired of this crap.