I rant because I'm just so goddamned happy to be alive!

The BBQ Pit
1

I just got a new job. It’s in the same city as my girlfriend, whom I’ve been dating at a distance of 200 miles for over two years, it neatly includes my love of ecology, biogeography, and my expertise in GIS, and oh yes, it pays me 1.5 times as much as I’m making now. After three years in this hellhole of a job, I’m finally getting out!

I moved back to Alabama a few years back, after I had started to become established in Washington DC, working for World Wildlife Fund. Why? I fell in love, of course. We made all these shiny, wonderful plans for when I moved back. As soon as I stepped foot in the state, of course, she dumped me.

Ever since then, there’s been a miasma of foolish compromise and failure that’s hovered around my professional life like the stink of old gym socks. I took a series of lousy retail jobs, tried my hand at management (blech!), got fired, and finally settled into the state job which I currently “enjoy.” In reality, it’s a pointless, paper-shuffling gray expanse of nothingness until retirement. It has nothing to do with what I’ve worked for for so long.

Well, folks, in the interim, I started dating Katherine, and she’s been a steady beacon of intelligence, humor, love, and support. And just last week, I got the job offer, and I’m getting out of this freaking city! I’m going where it’s green! I’m going to do something enjoyable!

Plus, you’ll have to forgive me. I just took a half-hour run in the 97-degree midday heat, so I’m either flushed with endorphins or brain-fried. Either way, I’m happy.

I feel loquacious, ebullient. Positively fucking effervescent!

So, because bitterness and bitchery has been my lot for so long, let me whine about something incredibly petty (with a big grin on my face: )

ahem

To the woman standing in line behind me at Subway:

Please. Back the hell up. I’m sweaty, cranky, hot, and tired. I also have a sense of personal space. Any time I tilt my head up, say, to feel a the breeze from the ceiling fan on my upturned face, and the back of my head smashes into the bridge of your nose, you’re standing too damn close!

By the way, that one pore on the side of your nose? It looks like it may be abscessed. How do I know? When I turned aroud to see what the heck I’d hit, it was about half an inch away from my right eye. Nasty.

Thank you.

[sub]woohoo! :)[/sub]

2

OK, I give up. Lame rant? Lame joke? Both? Would a moderator move this to MPSIMS, then?

I have a feeling this may be a bit too smug for the Pit.

3

Can stuff get moved out of the pit? Scylla always posted his creative writing stuff here, for reasons I don’t know, and it usually stayed.

If a thread suddenly breaks out in reason and good, solid, researched answers, can it get GQd?

As for this thread, look at it this way, Ogre: She can still break up with you, or you could suddenly be smitten with some rare disease that turns you into a quivering mass of pus. You’ve got to look at the bright side of life, right?

4

Excellent point! I have hope after all!

I’d type more, except my finger seems to have turned into a quivering mass of pus. Odd. I’m sure it’ll be OK in the mornbnbllllarggghh.

5

Hello.

6

I, too, am as you put it “goddamned happy to be alive!” but only because I am constantly tormented by the knowledge that I am, one day, going to simply cease to exist.

7

There’s no torment in it anymore for me. It’s simply something I consider a fact. To allow myself to be tormented about an inevitability (not to mention an abstraction) is to waste my time. I have much more concrete things about which to expend my energy and worry…such as how much this new job and new place to live is going to totally fucking rock.

8

I recommend booze.

9

I don’t drink, but there’s always Valium.

10

Hey Ogre? where is it your moving to? Somewhere I thought I read a post you mentioned Huntsville? Details damn it you let out the details.

Jinwicked I always considered TV and the war between the sexes as the great distraction from out impending doom. I am not much a TV person, but I have had many a relationship that shifted my focus from my eventual death to more important isues, such as where am I going to his THIS body?

All joking aside, the Valium idea has merit, Oh and I love your website you have some fantastic work pictured there.

11

Yup, Osip. I’ll be moving to Huntsville for the time being, and working at Russell Cave National Monument…still quite a drive, but I’ll probably eventually move to Chattanooga, since it’s so much closer.

Oh, I have to agree with mouthbreather. There is nothing like booze for total self-destruction.

12

Very cool, let me know when you get all settled in. We can go out and get a drink or two or something.

13

Sorry to break into this love-fest, but…

does this mean you might be able to come to the BamaDope in August?

[sub]I hope I hope I hope…fingers crossed[/sub]

Sorry about you losing Girl 1, and happy you found Girl 2.

Oh, and if it makes you feel any better, I’ll be mean to everybody at work tomorrow on your behalf. [sub][sup]Not that they’d notice any difference in my behavior…[/sub][/sup]

14

Osip: will do. You going to be at BamaDope?

Silky: Very, very, very, tentative, ghostly, cold-breeze-on-the-back-of-your-neck possibility I’ll be able to come to BamaDope. I’m supposed to ship off to Ft. Collins, CO for training on August 5, and frankly, I dunno how long it will take.

Oh, and you met Girl #2. I think I’ve done pretty well. :slight_smile:

15

Ogre, sweetie, just get you that new Flatlanders album, and the old one , too, if you don’t have it… Round it off with some Lucinda Williams, and Fred McDowell. You’ll be good to go in the mornin’, hon!

16

OH! That was Girl 2. Oh yes!! Way good! I am definitely happy about this! :slight_smile: You’ve done really, really well! [sub][sup]Hi, Ogre’s ONLY and who care’s about the rest of 'em Dollbaby![/sub][/sup]

Ok, I can settle for cold-breeze-similar-to-a-ghost-type-hope for the BamaDope, now. I can certainly quit sweating out meeting the “new” belovedest-in-Ogre’s-life, too!

[sub]We still gotta find somebody that can do math without a pencil, dude…let’s be real, here…[/sub]

17

Oooo…the new Flatlanders album! Yeah, I need to pick that one up.

Meanwhile, I’ll listen to some Mark Eitzel. That oughta dampen my spirits.

Down, spirits! Down!

[sub]woohoo!*

18

errr…imagine those coding tags look remotely alike.

19

Sure am :slight_smile:

20

Well, I am happy that you all are happy.

But I can’t find my Mariners on the cable, and I am consequently less than happy. I just thought I would share this, since with all this happiness wafting around, I thought maybe you could solve my problem.

No?

Oh well.