April 30th

Twenty-seven years ago today, two young people were married. At the time, they didn't know that they were making the biggest mistake of their lives. This seemingly harmless action resulted in three years of awkward arrangements, a child, and eventually a suicide.

But at the time, neither of them knew what the future would hold. They were just happy to be together, finally finalizing the love they felt for each other. Once they were married, they went on their honeymoon to Tahiti, not realizing that the fun, traditional trip to a tropical location was the beginning of the end. How could they, when they were so happy to be together?

It wasn't as though they fought, no it was the opposite. They got along so well that they should have seen the warning signs. No one can possibly be that happy together, not without making some sacrifices. While they were on their holiday, they spent money and spent so much time together that it's a miracle that they didn't burn out. They planned out their entire life while they were there- in a year they would have their first child and the woman would quit working, hopefully before too long they would have a second child, they would eventually move out of the depressing inner-city apartment they lived in and would get a nice house somewhere in the suburbs. In a few years, when the children were in middle school, the woman would go back to work and they would save money to put their kids through university.

Unfortunately, real life doesn't work out that way. The woman's grandmother needed someone to care for her, so she moved in with the couple, which put a bit of a strain on their relationship. Two years after they were married, the woman had an extremely difficult pregnancy resulting in a rather unhealthy baby- a little girl. She quit her job to take care of the child and her grandmother- both needed a lot of medical appointments. Slowly, her mental stamina started to wither away, until two years after she bore her sickly daughter, she shot herself.

In case you haven't figured it out now, the young man and woman were my parents. And in case you're particularly dim, the baby was me. Today would have been their 27th wedding anniversary, if my mother was still alive. It's a difficult day for me, especially because in three days is the anniversary of my great-grandmother's death. Usually today passes by unmarked, except for maybe getting some hugs and extra snacks from my coworkers, who know how painful this week is for me. Today, though, my dad called. Which isn't particularly unusual- he calls me a couple of times a month. But today he called me, just wanting to hear that I was doing well. It made me sad, to be quite honest. I wish my dad didn't have to feel this way every year.

Anyway, that's why I haven't been posting much lately. I've just been thinking a lot, about what happened, and how things might be different if my mom hadn't died. On Sunday I am going to visit my great-grandmother's grave and tidy it, which I do every year on the anniversary of her death and her birthday. I tidy my mother's on Mother's Day and the anniversary of her death.

Mormons!

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I got visited by some Mormons. I had just gotten home from work and was getting ready to relax with a nice plate of delicious kebabs and a can of ginger ale and watch a movie when the doorbell rang. I opened the door, and on my doorstep were two young men who looked like they were going to a job interview. But that was stupid, because who goes to a job interview at 7:00 on Saturday night?

Anyway, at first I thought they were looking for the downstairs neighbor, who occasionally has fancy-dress parties, so I told them they wanted to go the next floor down. They looked really confused, and then told me that they were on their mission, and wondered if I had a few minutes to talk to them about religion?

I'm not a rude person, so I said OK. They first asked me if I went to a church on a regular basis. No, I haven't gone to church since I was very young (before my mother died), except for funerals and weddings. They asked me what I did for a living, and I told them. Then they started talking to me about how finding religion could fill the void in my life with something productive.

We ended up talking for about ten more minutes, and then they went on to the next neighbor. It made me think a bit, though. Do I really seem so miserable that people who meet me for the first time think I need to do something? Admittedly I probably did look like I just crawled out of a basement (when I'm relaxing I wear crap clothes), and it had been a hard day at work, so I probably looked like I'd just gotten out of a fight, but really? I know I'm depressed, and rather depressing to be around, but if two guys who I've never seen before in my life think I'd be better off if I took on their religion can see it, then maybe I should try to be less depressed?

Just something else for me to think about, I guess.

The Name Zetsubou

My Internet name is a constant source of mystery to some. What does it mean? What language is it in? Why did you choose it? I'm going to answer those questions in this post.

Zetsubou, or 絶望, is Japanese for “despair.” I am not Japanese. If I was going to use my ancestral languages for my name, I would be “Neviltis” (Lithuanian, father's side), or “ochtayanie” (отчаяние – Russian, mother's side).

I chose the name Zetsubou because within my lifetime, I have had to work extremely hard to overcome a variety of circumstances, and I spent most of my teenage years in despair. My mom was dead, my great-grandmother, the woman who raised me, was dead by the time I was 14 years old, my dad worked all the time, and I didn't have many friends. I was “that creepy girl in the back of the classroom.”

So most of my life, I've been alone. I developed a bit of a warped personality because of it, but I promise that I'm usually a good person. I'm not going to bite you if you talk to me, and if I like you, I'm pretty friendly. I have a well-paying job, and I've grown comfortable in my own skin. But occasionally, that old despair creeps in, and on those days, it's almost impossible to get out of bed. I've been told by doctors that I have dysthymic disorder, but I don't really care what it's called. All I know is that it's difficult for me to function on days that I feel that way. It's gotten better since I got a job, and I have to say that I'm quite grateful to my boss and coworkers for making every day a lot more fun.

I call myself "Despair" not so much because I am in it constantly, but because I do not want to forget my roots, where I came from, and what motivated me to become what I am today. If it hadn't been for those times where I felt lonely and empty, I might never have been motivated to become what I am today.

How To Traumatize Your (Straight Male) Coworkers

1.Find computer with several gigabytes of yaoi on it.
2.Tell coworker, “hey, I've never seen a virus like this one before- have you?”
3.????
4.PROFIT!

Oh my god, I don't think I've ever laughed that much in my life. I guess I should start from the beginning. Today a college girl came in and asked me to de-virus her computer, but she was very insistent that I be the one to do it. She didn't want G to touch it at all. I thought maybe she had embarrassing images of herself that she had taken for a boyfriend or something, so I agreed and told her to pick it up in an hour and a half. She left, and I got to work.

While I was scanning for viruses, I found her, uh, “special time collection.”For those of you who don't know what yaoi is, it's basically pornographic drawings/animations of gay males. Now I've seen a lot of it in my life (you see a lot of crazy stuff in my line of work), and I've become inured to this type of stuff. Seriously, you just stop caring after a while, and it becomes more of, “Oh, another sick fuck with horse porn on his PC... well, better switch out the network card.” But today, I was in a particularly lulzy mood and can stomach yaoi pretty easily (some of it is quite well drawn), so I decided to torture G.

Z: Hey, G, this is a really weird virus. I've never seen anything like it.
G: Are you sure it's a virus?
Z: Pretty sure. Can you take a look?
*G comes over to see what I was talking about and gets an eyeful*
G: ZETSUBOU, YOU BITCH!
Z: *laughs hysterically*
G: You bitch! You're horrible! How do you sleep at night, knowing you're more corrupted than a bad batch file? (Yes, he seriously said this. He likes to make bad computer references)
Z: *laughs even harder*

At this point, R came back from his lunch break and saw what was going on. It was probably a bit bizarre to be honest- at this point I was practically falling out of the chair from laughing so hard, and G's face had started to look a bit like a tomato from embarrassment. So he decides to check it out too, resulting in more lulz.

R: Zetsubou, what the hell is going on? Are you alright?
Z: Ahahahahahahaha... computer...virus.... WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
R: Computer virus? Since when do you think computer viruses are funny?
Z: hehehe, take a look and see! It's really great!
G: For god's sake R, don't do it!
R: *ignores G and looks at the screen* You're terrible, Zetsubou.

He just shook his head and walked away, resulting in me laughing even harder. Eventually we got the viruses off.
...I'm a terrible person. And I love it!

to G and R- love you guys, and sorry. Oh well, you'll get over it, and I'll send you guys some extra-strength brain bleach (read: vodka) on Saturday.

Techno Remixes!

A lot of people will say things, and then some intrepid Internet user will set it to a techno beat. Yesterday at work, we all had great fun finding these and listening to them. The customers enjoyed them, too, since most of them had heard the quotes that had been technofied.

(300)- This Is Sparta! Techno Mix


(Senator Ted Stevens)- Series of Tubes Net Neutrality Dance Mix


(Spongebob Squarepants)- THIS. IS. PATRICK!


(Glenn Beck)- Get Off My Phone Radio Freak-out (TWILIGHT VAMPIRE REMIX)


(Death Note)- Potato Chip Remix


(Azumanga Daioh)- Sata Andagi remix (FYI- sata andagi are basically donuts)


(Jingle all the Way)- PUT THAT COOKIE DOWN!


(Star Trek)- Shatner of the Mount



(Pirates of the Caribbean)- I've Got A Jar of Dirt Remix


(Lord of the Rings)- They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard


There are a lot more of these, but these are some of my favorites.

And now I think I'm going to go eat a potato chip.

Falling off the wagon...

These past two days have been so incredibly stressful, and I'm ashamed to admit it, but I broke down. I haven't had a cigarette in over two years, but I broke down and bought a pack today. I was just driven by my exhaustion and irritation, and I had to pick up some Aleve at the drugstore. I lost it and bought a pack of Camel no. 9.

I'm so disgusted with myself. I thought I'd finally managed to kick the habit. Oh well. I only had two- I'll just toss the rest in the bin.

Blind Rage

There are very few things that piss me off more than people making fun of the disabled. They can't help their situation, and people who don't get that and think that it is acceptable to launch personal attacks on them make me physically ill. Don't do it in my presence, if you're smart.

There is a very sweet teenage girl who comes to the store sometimes. She happens to have Down's syndrome. Everybody around here likes her, since she's just a very pleasant person. Well, today, we heard a bit of a commotion outside, and R and I went to check it out. At first, we thought it was just your typical scuffle between a boyfriend and girlfriend. And then we realized what was going on.

Two disgusting little lowlifes who I hesitate to even call human were picking on this girl. She obviously didn't know what was going on, and these two "boys" (and I use that term loosely- cockroaches would be more appropriate) were following her around, throwing little pebbles at her, calling her names, and just generally being disgraces to the human race. As soon as the two of us realized what was going on, R ran inside to tell G and the boss, and to call the police, while I went outside to break it up before anything escalated.

Let me tell you- these troglodytes weren't pleased that their "fun" had been interrupted, and turned on me. Big mistake. I grew up in a "if they attack you, attack back" society. Before I could do any real damage, though, G came charging out there and started swearing at them, and the boss called the police. The boys ran off, we made sure our customer was OK. The police took her home, and we went back to work.

Those sub-humans probably won't be coming back around this way anytime soon, though.

IT Night Out

Last night, G, R, and I decided to go check out the new iPad. We went to the local Apple store, stood in line for about two hours, and then we got to hold it. That sounds so stupid when I type it out, but considering how long we waited to just see the darn thing I think that a bit of hyperbole is appropriate. :)

Anyway, we got to play with it for a while, then we had to hand it off to the next person. It was kind of fun, but really, it was basically a giant iPod. Very amusing, and rather fun, but I don't think it can really justify the $500 base price tag. Although R fell in love with it. I fully expect him to come to work tomorrow with one tucked into his computer bag.

After we saw the iPad, we went to Olive Garden for dinner. Personally, I don't like Italian food very much, but I was out-voted. Although I was surprised- this restaurant had food I could actually eat. The tomato-marinara pasta with Parmesan cheese was rather good. Still, I would have preferred to get Japanese or Indian food, or at least something spicier. Oh well. Next time we go out I don't care what it takes- we're getting something spicier.

Eating out with those two is always an adventure. G has a kind of stupid habit of making little houses and stuff out of the sugar packets, and R started a condiment war. If his wife could have seen him, she probably would have filed for divorce right away, since he amused himself by chucking sugar packets at G's sugar packet house to try to knock it down. It was like the middle school lunch table all over again, although I do have to admit that it was funny. At least they managed to keep their sugar-packet fight on a relatively small scale, so they didn't disturb anyone else.

After dinner, we went ice skating. I'm terrible at it, but not as bad as R. He actually crashed into me and we ended up in a tech-support worker pile. It actually hurt pretty badly, considering that I cut myself with the skate blade when I fell. I don't think we'll be repeating that part of our night out again, although we might try something similar again soon, since we all had so much fun.

Bullied to death

The Story

Another teenager is dead due to suicide, because she was tormented at the hands of her peers. What I want to know is how long this is going to go on before someone does something about it?

I don't give a rat's ass what a person's reasons for harassing someone else are. If they do so, they're scum. I don't care if your religious beliefs/political beliefs/the flying pink monkey that controls your thoughts/or your parents say you're to be intolerant of someone else- you just don't do it. I can't exactly ask if your momma taught you right or not, since mine obviously didn't. But you know what? I learned from a young age that harassing someone just because they are different is unacceptable. My great-grandmother would have hit me upside the head with a broom if she ever heard that I bullied someone.

I personally was never a victim of bullying. Well, technically that's not true, but I got suspended from middle school for a week after I beat the girl who tried up. Most people knew not to mess with me after that, since I'd Hulk out.

How many more people are going to end their own lives before we as a society do something? If we impose strict penalties on people who are vile enough to torment another human being, then it might stop. If we make people afraid that they'll be living with Big Bubba in prison for the rest of their lives, then they will stop. If we make people pay million-dollar fines if they get caught, then they will stop. If someone dies as a result of bullying, give the bully the same penalties you would give any other murderer. That will stop it right quick!

Maybe it's too much to ask. After all, "kids will be kids," the teachers say. Well, I say that we're killing the next generation by allowing this to continue. And if this is how the next generation behaves, then I don't want to live long enough to be in a nursing home under their care.