O hai. I r dying.
I think someone at work gave me a disease. I’ve been freezing to death for two whole days now, and my nose and throat feel sad. Maybe it’s just PMS/allergies combo, though.
I hate being around stupid people who think they’re smart.
Seriously as hell. I’m not trying to be mean, but it really grinds my patience to get stuck in a conversation with someone who thinks she’s way smarter and more interesting than she really is. I say she because I see it happen a lot with women. Semi-pretty women, who probably at one time were told they were brilliant by some guy who wanted to sleep with them. Oh, and by their parents.
I’m a magnet for this sort of person, especially now that I’ve sold a book or two. This sort of person corners me and brings out her brightest, wittiest, cleverest conversational topic. Then goes on and on and on. And there’s usually a thick underlayer of barely concealed resentment, right there in her voice. Like, “You think you’re so smart because you’re a writer, but listen to me. I’m just as smart as you, and I will prove it to you now with this monologue about celebrity fashion, my precocious childhood, and my quirky, enlightened religious beliefs! Take it, bitch!” And I feel like the teacher of a spoiled, bratty child, who never gets enough attention.
Really, it’s not the stupidity that bothers me. People can’t help being born un-smart, just like people can’t help being born un-handsome. But un-smart people can still be interesting, and often are. Failing that, they can learn the golden lesson of staying quiet when they have nothing interesting to say.
Not these certain chicks who surround me, though. Nope. They are not smart, and they are not interesting, but you can not stop them. It is their God-given right to annoy the shit out of you with their endless babbling and self-complimentary anecdotes. Isn’t it? It must be.
Some day I want to tell someone, “You aren’t as smart as you think you are. I was listening to you to be polite, but now I’m going to walk away, because you’re boring me.”
What would happen then? Maybe the world would explode.
No… probably just my grandmother would fly down from heaven and slap my face, for being rude.
I know you know people like this. What do you say? Is there any way of changing them? Do you just avoid them?
That was mean. Let’s say nice things now.
Uh…
Well, the weather is nice, and I really hope we get off our butts and go to the beach this weekend. Me, my boyfriend, and the kids, I mean. It will be awesome. All we have to do is pack up a bunch of stuff, borrow some extra lawn chairs, put $50 of gas in the van, and drive for an hour. That’s all. Woo hoo. I don’t know why we don’t just do it.
Whatever it is I think I see, becomes an embedded advertisment to me.
I’m getting tired of reading blogs and magazine articles that are filled with “subtle” product placement. You know what I mean? And that’s all I see anymore, I guess because all media is owned by, like, two separate entities now.
I used to like In Touch magazine, because they always had interesting photo features. Like:
- “Out of these two celebrities wearing the same hideous designer gown, which one looks best?”
- “Look at this expensive outfit this actress is wearing. Now, we will show you clothes just like hers from Target and H&M.”
- “Are these celebrities down-to-earth or diva-ish? This one is washing his car! This one is getting a parking ticket! This one is getting a face mask made of 24 karat gold!”
That stuff’s dumb, I know, but I liked it.
But now, everything in In Touch, and every other trashy magazine, is a freaking ad. It’s like:
- “Pictures of celebrity hairdos, alongside pictures of the hair products we’re getting paid to pitch this week.”
- “Incessant coverage of a romantic relationship between two actors you never heard of, who, incidentally, are starring in a new movie that opens in theaters this weekend!!!“
- “Bulleted lists of alleged celebrity sightings in which every celebrity is holding a brand-name product or thoroughly enjoying their time at a chain restaurant or theme park.”
It makes me not want to buy magazines anymore. [Sighing.]
One last, very petty, yet very important thing.
Back when everyone was first getting into Sudoku, I said aloud, to everyone who’d listen, “Sudoku has been in American crossword/puzzle mags for years and years, except they called it something less fancy than Sudoku. (Number Lines? Number Cubes? Something.) Furthermore, those aren’t even the best number puzzles in the puzzle magazines. The best one is Cross Sums. Cross Sums rule my world, and people who love Sudoku are living pale, shitty imitations of my life.”
So I went to CVS the other night and looked at the magazines, and next to the fifty-seven publications about Sudoku, there was something new entitled “KAKURO! (Cross Sums number puzzles).”
See, all you have to do is give a number puzzle an intriguing Japanese names, and then it will be famous.
Will I be doing Kakuro puzzles on the bus with you now? No, I won’t, because I burned out on Cross Sums long ago. But I hope you number puzzle freaks enjoy them. Wait til you get to Trigons, which you might, when they change the name to Trikurasakas.
