jane q. public

I went to Starbucks. I ordered an UNSWEETENED iced coffee.  Two blocks later I took a sip of my coffee.  It was full of sugar.  I threw it out the window of my car.*  I cried.  It’s stupid.  I’m sick of it.

*and I never litter.

That’s it.  I give up.  This day hates me.  I shouldn’t have expected better out of a day that had me walking out of work in tears…

Let’s say there was a guy you’d known for, oh, five-ish years.  Sometimes he’s your best friend, sometimes you can’t stand him, sometimes you sleep with him, all the time you still love him…  Maybe all the time you jokingly tell him that one of these days the two of you will just have to give up and get married.  Maybe most of the time you wish that could be true.

Maybe one day you have a super goddamn fucking shitty (that’s how you know it’s really shitty) day at work, and you’re down in the dumps and then you get a message on Facebook:

Subject: A Surprise for [guy you sometimes sleep with]

Hi! I am [guy you sometimes sleep with]’s girlfriend, XYZ, and I wanted to try and surprise him with a truly spectacular Valentine this year BUT I need your help to do it. On Valentines day I want to present [guy you sometimes sleep with] with a bag filled with letters and goodies from friends and family. Would you please write a letter telling why [guy you sometimes sleep with] is meaningful to you as a friend? It doesn’t have to be long. You can e-mail me here or you can hand write it as long as I get it by Valentines Day. This would be such a great surprise!

Thank you,
XYZ

PS sssshhhhh it’s a secret!!!

I was floored.  I mean, the nice side of me wants to think, “oh, well this girl’s just doing a really sweet thing for him, and she doesn’t realize that an email like that tears my heart into a million fucking pieces.”  The little guy with the pitchfork on the other shoulder says, “that’s her way of saying, ‘HE’S MINE, BITCH!’ (probably to all of the girls he knows)”  Either way, it wasn’t what I needed today.

I know I’m doing a lot of bitching and poor little me these days.  I apologize.  It’s there, it’s real, I can’t lie about it.

I think that I was probably misinterpreted here.  I knew I would be – which is why I closed the comments – because I was having a lot of difficulty finding the right way to put my thoughts into words.

If I can figure out a way to articulate the point I was trying to get across, I’ll come back and write about it.  I think most of you will end up agreeing with me.  The only ones who won’t will be the people who grew up sheltered by certain religious denominations that place little value on women and even less on their autonomy over their bodies.

I will say now, though, that I was in no way trying to devalue or demean motherhood or the idea of being a wife.  This is going to get me into trouble, but I absolutely want both of those things (damn biological clock) like crazy.  I hope the next guy I date doesn’t read this.

To go further and be perfectly honest, when I wrote that, I really had a specific person in mind.  Some things this person had said really bothered me, and that’s what got me thinking about the whole thing.

But I’m not saying anything else on the subject until I can decide on how to clearly state the point I was trying to make.

I was all kinds of excited when I heard a Publix was going in where the old H.G. Hill store used to be on Harding Road – Publix really doesn’t fit into my grocery budget, but I like having the option for certain items.  Specifically bagels.

I suspected that, because of the store’s proximity to Belle Meade, I would have to contend with some of the same old bleached-out, Botoxed, bitchy business that I had to help on a daily basis back in my days of working in Belle Meade Plaza.  I was right.

You’re endangering your life walking or driving through the parking lot, as you have to constantly dodge the tiny women in their 12-ton suburban assault vehicles, too busy on their cell phones making plans for brunch at the club to consider sparing your life.

I mean, seriously, what is it with the way the country club set drives and parks?  I was driving down a narrow street yesterday and a BMW started pulling out of a parking lot and nearly hitting me as I was passing, and it struck me (no pun intended) – “entitlement driving.”

Visit a parking lot in Cool Springs or Belle Meade and you’ll see a phenomenon even more common than entitlement driving – and that’s entitlement parking.

Entitlement parking includes Suburbans parked diagonally across two parking spaces, the able-bodied woman who parks her Lexus in the handicapped space, or the bitch in the Beamer who parks in the fire lane at the grocery store because she cannot be bothered with walking a few feet to the store (it’s bad enough that Pilar, the housekeeper, is taking care of her sick child and couldn’t go out to do the shopping for you, no?).

I should probably let these things roll off of my back, but I’m just in a grouchy mood, with the residual effect of having my feelings hurt yesterday still upon me.  But, trust me, if you had to sell these women engraved (pronounced as a nasally “in-grived”) Crane (pronounced as a nasally “Krine”) stationery for two and a half years, all the while not making enough to make ends meet, you’d be a little pissy, too.

But whatever.  I take solace in the fact that we’ve got our guy in the White House.  That can’t make them too happy.

[EDITED TO ADD: Yes, yes, I know that not everyone in Belle Meade is like that.  Al Gore is a resident of Belle Meade.  There are a few prominent Democrats (and big donors!) in "the Meade."  However, not only am I confident, but I'm also totally correct to say that folks like old Al are the the exception, not the rule.  It's hostile territory.]

There is something especially pathetic about spending a Saturday night watching “The Andy Griffith Show” with a dog.

I cancelled half of my plans (dinner) tonight because of a headache, but hoped that some rest would get me feeling better in time for the rest of my plans (college hockey).  My head’s mostly better, but I opted not to go to the game because the veracity of my headache was called into question which really hurt my feelings.

Actually, I think staring at the computer is making my headache come back.  Maybe I should just go to bed.