Tova-xander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Today fucking sucked.
I mean, really fucking sucked.
I've had worse things happen to me. But really awful things are usually the only bad thing that happens in that day. The thing about a bad day is that it's comprised of a shitload of small, otherwise manageable trials. It's just that when a few of them happen, you can't manage any more. They string together like notches on a bedpost. Or a belt. Or some shit like that. Tiny things become insurmountable. An untied shoelace is akin to skinning your knee. Getting caught in the rain is akin to a car breaking down. And a car breaking down? Well, I might as well be kidnapped.
The day really started out just fine. The majority of it I was in a car, insulated from the evils of the world. I sang along to Blues Traveler and godawful a-cappella. Well, it may have been raining, but nothing could ruin my mood. Little Squirt slept in my lap and tried to eat my yummy bowtie pasta and chicken. I got soaked at a rest stop when I tried to pee. Not soaked by pee. Ew. It was raining really hard and the closest parking was like a half-mile across the lot. I swear, if the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year, the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the second busiest. I waited 20 minutes in a fucking filthy bathroom with screaming children being dragged to have their diapers changed. I skipped the winding lines for Famiglia Pizza and Chili's Too. Not worth the wait. What was also not worth the wait was the line to get back on the fucking highway. It was backed up from an accident and took another 20 minutes to get on. From then on it was predicted stop-and-go traffic from an accident at mile 152. At mile 160, however, I saw a Geo Metro, intact only moments before, with its entire front end smashed in. Clearly the driver had made some mistake the traffic while approaching the original accident. How ironic.
Anyway, I make it to Pittsburgh after only six hours. Not too shabby, considering the rain which turned to snow which turned back to rain and the backed up traffic. I was still ready to get home and conquer a group project for which I'd been rushing to get home.
So my neighbors have parked close in on either side of the driveway so I can't pull in. It's a narrow street and I can't get in at a wide enough angle the clear the cars. It ends of taking like 12 passes while the cars that are trying to get by honk at me.
I finally make it down the driveway, unfettered. I step into the house and my nipples fucking freeze off. It's a sultry 40 degrees inside. We had set the thermostat low while we all left for Thanksgiving. I just hadn't realized how low. So I turned it up and padded upstairs to freeze my ass off in the shower. I rushed around to gather all my materials for my group and run out the door in a sweatshirt. I get to my car and hear a strange hissing sound. Then I notice I have a fucking flat tire. Then I notice a fucking nail in the fucking tire. Fuck it.
So I run to the bus stop close to my house, realize I'll be waiting forever on a Sunday, and walk to the farther, more frequented stop. I still end up waiting for a half hour. In the rain. I'm late, but I'm not the last one to arrive, so still I have to wait.
I end up doing nearly the entire project by myself. I write the whole powerpoint and then have to teach how to search journals, have to teach what a journal is, and have to teach how to write an annotated bibliography. No one is cooperative. No one offers to do some of the project. Everyone forgot to bring articles and sources and to do the preparation for the meeting. So I have to compensate for it. I spend five hours in the library, doing that and other things. I wait a half hour for a print-out that never comes.
After dinner at McDonald's, the entire 20 minutes of which a creepy guy was staring at me and listening in on my phone conversation with my brother, I go to wait for the bus. Any bus. Usually one comes within ten minutes. But I waited for 40. In the rain. Wearing a sweatshirt. To make matters horrible, a drunk and possibly mentally disturbed man harassed me the entire time. He kept asking me where I lived, what I was doing, what were my goals in life. He asked me how old I was, and I said, "Does it really matter?" He asked me what bus I was waiting for and I said, "Whatever fucking one comes." He keeps mumbling about the 61A, and I vow to not take that bus if it's the first one that comes. Then he gets the idea that I want to steal his 6-pack and starts screaming, "It's mine! It's mine!" at me and whoever else walks by. He won't fucking shut up, and he starts talking about "fucking bitches controlling his life" and such. The bus that does come, mercifully, is not the one I really want, but I take it anyway and walk the extra blocks.
That's really the end of Tova-xander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I guess it wasn't so bad. There were a few goods things.
I finished three things on my list of things to do before the end of the semester. Only seven to go.
Squirt napped on my lap and kept me warm the whole drive home.
I made it home safely.
Dena made lodging accommodations for Dublin next month. Something great to look forward to.
I pet Cosmo, the adorable Westie who lives across the street. He has soft fur.
I have new boots and a brand new designer handbag from Abi.
Oh, and I had a fucking great, relaxing, wonderful, cathartic Thanksgiving. The best in recent memory.
Maybe it wasn't so bad after all.
FUCK.

Mark Patinkin Style

A la Mark Patinkin, I decided to post some obnoxious and glaringly obvious inane commentaries about life in general. Thoughts-at-large:

1) I have yet to come home to my apartment having left my dog there, and not be greeted by a puddle of pee. It's as if he's punishing me for leaving him alone. Or he still hasn't learned the difference between inside and outside in his new place.

2) On the bus today there were two people rocking out to cd players. One guy took his Temptations cd out of the player and replace it with...God knows what? Probably The Four Seasons. The other cd-listener was a woman of indiscriminate age with Downs' Syndrome. I have no idea what she was listening to, but she sure was getting her fucking groove on to it. She had all these booty moves, all the more hilarious because she was sitting down and therfore unable to shake her overweight, white booty. So most of the moves were really just wave movements with her arms, dripping with attitude. When I glanced at her to give her a smile (you know, like a conspiratorial sort of 'you go girl' smile) she grimaced at me, as if i was interrupting her jam sesh. Well, it's good to know that some people don't care about what others think, and also that these same people aren't willing to give up their discmen for ipods.

3) Speaking of the bus, it was so overly refrigerated that I got off four blocks before my stop because my entire body, the clothed parts included, was laden with goosebumps.

4) Maggie sent me a "Baby on Board" suction cup sign for my car. She told me no one will fuck with me if I put it up, 18-wheelers included. My fear is that someone will hit me because of the sign, because they're just that angry at my entitlement to drive 15 mph without fear of repercussion. People are like that. "Oh you've got a baby on board? Why does that give you the right to cut me off, super-psycho bitch mommy? I'll teach your baby a gesture or two!"

5) Pitt has this fabulous printing system. You wait, vulture-like for a computer to open up in the main computer lab of the main library. When you're at the head of the line, eyes darting in every direction, you spring upon the first open computer, dry-heaving. You look back at the line waiting for a computer. "Suckers," you think, before turning to your PC. The next part is where the survivalist instinct cuts out. When you print whatever it was you had to print, you need not sprint to the nearest printer to hover along with 20 other students eager to get to the class they're 15 minutes late for. No, the lovely minimum-waged student workers collect all the print-outs from a private back room where lay students are not allowed. They place your bundle, along with a lovely school bus yellow cover sheet with your student print ID (mine's tat42, in case you wondered), number of pages in the printout, and number of pages you have left for printing, on a table outside the congestion of the lab. This table is laid out with all the printouts, in alphabetical piles. No grabbing so-and-so's poli sci paper! No missing the last page of your article because some bozo grabbed their shit before yours was done! Just a lot of wasted paper from the cover sheets. But hey, there's a recycle bin for them at the stapler station.

6) Who needs TV when your computer has all the shows online? I'm just trying to make myself feel better about my cable cutting out from the last tenant's last month, and I'm too cheap to pay. But oh, the taste was so sweet. Bravo reruns are the best while slurping down a bowl of Thai soup.

7)How is it possible that from every side of the house, at all times of day, from every angle, there is never any sunlight streaming in? This must be the world's darkest apartment. 

8) I found a house identical to my own. It's directly behind me.

9) I finally see the reason why people have been wearing high-waisted jeans for decades. They aren't just for moms anymore. Basically, you can wear whatever shirt you want with them because they entirely eradicate the muffin top. Oh, and no crack sticking out when you bend over. And if you don't care to have people knowing, just wear a shirt that covers everything above the hips. I bought a pair yesterday. And they make my ass look amazing.

10) My dog is really cute. Not only that, he's a good companion and keeps me from getting too lonely. I'm sure he'll stop peeing on my bookcase soon.