Okay so I thought to myself one thing… what if I use Ree Drummond’s amazing stuffing recipe and put cauliflower in it instead of bread? It’d be a soup then. I’m still on the fence about it but once I go to Sam’s Club for some chicken base, I’m in. I’ll need to get another cauliflower, too. It might take me another few days to finally go to Sam’s…
I’m bummed. I got this cabbage like two days ago. I start unfolding leaves to cut it up and eat it and I see what we all dread most: MYSELF… nope. Wait. MOLD!!! Da fuq?! I just bought you.
I’m gonna have to stop going to Wegmans, sadly. No more fabled grey eyed deli men. No more frosted tips deli men that have an odd intensity looking at me. (I really don’t understand human beings.) This is the last time I buy something rotten. Produce should be able to last two whole f’ing days… and there’s no way that mold started growing just after I got it home. “Just take it back!”
[HISS.]
No. I refuse. I will take my business elsewhere. I already told them their fucking berry display is infested with mold. It’s gotta be, after I found moldy strawberries three weeks in a row. Now it’s spreading. Maybe I’ll just write their complaint department online, because when I went to get a refund for my strawberries, I told them then. This is the third time. Maybe I should have specified it was the third time that month I’d found moldy strawberries. (It’s actually the fourth.)
This poor guy with a zit was stocking things each time I told him the strawberries were moldy. I told him three times, now I’ve told the service desk. I shouldn’t have to complain so hard to get them to fix this… That guy should be looking at the food he’s moving around for his employer for quality control, shouldn’t he? Maybe my standards are impossibly high?
You know, they put a freezer in the area over there briefly in the summer months and I smelled a whiff of mold when I passed it and it disappeared the next day. I wonder if that’s how their berry display got infested with it? If so, then the pizza display is also suspect. The freezer was even closer to that. (I did buy a pizza crust once for my ‘rents and it became moldy in a day, but I can’t remember if it was before or after the freezer appeared and disappeared.)
Eh. I’m no Columbo.
Anyway, I was sorry I stared at that guy’s zit while telling him about the mold issue. I was just thinking it must’ve hurt… sorry if I made you uncomfortable, bro. I can’t judge. I can’t stand having zits. I still get them. I’m old enough to not get them, if you ask me, but I still do! The deep ones hurt like a bitch for days before they surface, but I’ve got a trick, my friends! Put a Band-Aid on overnight. It usually raises the infection right to the surface so you can squeeze it (if it doesn’t just open up and drain by itself) and if you don’t like doing that, folks, it at least stops hurting by then most of the time. I found over the years that squeezing out all the ick means it stops hurting, so I always pop them and drain them as completely as possible. What can I say? I like being comfortable and having a small pain on my face every time I touch it just isn’t comfortable.
So… get a Band-Aid, young man! STAT! (Or any standard bandage, anyway.) And start washing your face at night if you hate them as much as I do. Chances are, you’re going to be dealing with zits well into your 40s.
Actually, I might be going to the premium super market in the area from now on. God just told me they have the best produce in town. Produce is all I can eat, so… I’ll have to go prove God wrong (or right, pending.)
Yeah, God’s my buddy. Or is it just insanity? Just another person talking in my brain, pretending to be special because they can play God with me? I hope they’re getting what they need out of it, because if we ever meet, I’m taking a sledgehammer to his face. Yes, it was fucking premeditated murder, now feed me vegan food STAT!
And some meat, yo.
Anyway, I don’t really like violence and it’s not the answer to anything… it’s just that after 18 months of constant harassment that I cannot escape (and of course imagining several men swooning over me that I wouldn’t even know existed if it weren’t for these voices in my head), I’m so done. I’m so over it. I don’t want true love anymore, God. Let me be now, wouldja?
Sansara Solsinger — I much prefer the Quran over The Holy Bible. It actually makes sense.
Zanthius — Could you explain a bit more about why you think so? I am interested
Sansara Solsinger — I haven’t read the entirety of either book. I’m going to start with that fact. Next, I will mention that the old Englishy part of the KJV (and even the way they translate other English versions) look like a dyslexic nightmare. I have to literally write down the words in the order that makes sense because my brain won’t rearrange it into proper order. In certain verses (no clear example to share — please forgive me) the third sentence should be the first one. So for instance, in the English THB, it could say something LIKE…
The red car
right there
full of people
But that’s not what that means, those words altogether. Those words mean “There’s a red car full of people right there.” I felt that way through specific areas of Exodus and other books. I don’t feel like I need to read these archaic words when we have modern ones that are much more suitable for conveying the message. All Anglicized versions I have looked at do this… I found a parallel Bible site just to make sure, too. >.< (edited)
They repeat the same exact word without enough context constantly in the English bibles, too, which irritates me to no end. The words lose meaning as it stands and require being looked up to regain context, which makes the whole book ‘trash’ to me because I don’t respect it as a work of literature or art. [We’re not talking about the message, just the way it’s written in English.]
It’s hypocritical, too, using the word INIQUITY some 300 times and turning around to parade examples of polyamorous/polygamous relationships where the women are hardly equal to the men. (Where are their extra lovers? Why do men get to do all the cool stuff? Why is Vashti divorced in Esther for not wanting to parade herself in front of men at her husband’s whim?)
I’m guessing how many times Iniquity is used. I looked it up once but I forgot… it wasn’t as many times as I figured it’d be used but it stands out like a sore thumb nonetheless.
So I turned to the Quran and read through the first two books in one sitting, taking notes on the important stuff. There isn’t as much “God is great and terrible” in it.
Whereas it took me a year to get through the Old Testament in the KJV.
The Quran reads more like a judge’s contract or a letter or something and the KJV just makes me want to poke my eyeballs out and run around showing them off to people while making nonsense noises.
I hope that is a thorough enough explanation now that I wrote you a book.
Too bad I got muted on this server for “victim shaming” someone. I’m a rape victim (as you can read in the rest of this public account of my life) but I prefer to be called a survivor at this point, thanks to Ani DiFranco’s bravery. Her words helped me gain the language to speak about my experience. Thank you, Ms. DiFranco, I shall be forever indebted to you. I’m facing up to sing right here, right now, just as you called out to the nameless masses to do in one of your songs.
I dared to have an unpopular opinion that conflicted with another woman’s point of view, which in turn made her decide I was victim shaming her simply because I think she is wrong when she says she should be able to wear anything she wants to in public, including underwear, and the rest of the human species must adjust accordingly so as not to fap to her ever even though she’s naked in public.
She was offended by a man approaching her to tell her she’s so hot he’d take her to bed. Okay, that’s sexual harassment, that’s true. But I can tell you as a super model sort of lady that I don’t get sexually harassed just because I’m beautiful. I stopped wearing makeup and I stopped showing skin and voila, boys can contain themselves, suddenly! It’s like motherfucking magic, bro!
Being sexually harassed isn’t the definition of rape, however. I have absolutely beyond doubt been penetrated against my will and that is rape. I have been forced to have orgasms against my will and that is rape. My body has been forced to comply with sex acts without my consent. That is rape. Being told I’m “bangably hot” is just a guy too stupid to know how to flirt the right way, if you ask me. It’s annoying, yes, but he didn’t put his hands on me. He didn’t hold me down to kiss me and force me to accommodate his body within my own body. He simply wasted my time, stopping me in the grocery store to tell me I’m beyond attractive to his animal eyes. So what? And apparently having that opinion makes me a victim shamer.
However, they silence me, the real victim of rape out of all this, on this retarded server. I thought I liked the Theology server at first because their propensity for being civil and cordial even if you have an alternate opinion was acceptable… until they didn’t want anyone to talk about rape. You know why rape was on the radar? Halloween, my friends! I bet Ms. Victim Shamed bought herself a negligee of some sort and called it a costume. I put on pink fox ears and a choker with normal attire and people thought it was adorable, not “bangably hot.” As in all my extremities were covered! It’s cold, anyway, wtf are you people doing wearing underwear in public in the cold? Do you live in Florida? Damn, it’s cold where I live. Some days, my nipples could cut glass. Or should I say, Halloween-themed and all, it’s colder than a witch’s tit.
(Why are you feeling up a witch’s tit, peeps?)
So, the bottom line is, it don’t matter if you’re a super model or not. If you want men to stop coming onto you, you need to stop dressing for bed in public. I’m telling you flat out, ladies, this is the cure: stop putting on makeup that makes it look like you just fucked, stop teasing your hair for the same effect, and stop wearing underwear out and about. You do all these things while saying men are the problem, simultaneously pulling down the hem line of your micro-mini-whatever-the-fuck-you-call-it. We are a visually stimulated species and even I think you’re all bangably hot, I just have enough sense to never tell you to your face. [Besides, I can smell your propensity for disdain from a mile away. No, thanks. I’ve met plenty of stuck up bitches that are a carbon copy like you. Your mind is poison to the public.]
I’m a rational irreligious heterosexual cisgender woman. My opinion is that you should be in pornography rather than walking down the street, rather than shopping in the grocery store. You should not be in public whilst wearing next to nothing. (Did I sexually harass you now?) (Are you a victim for wearing clothes men invented so they could stare at your tits and ass, fapping endlessly by blue screen light?) (Is it because I’m a woman?) (Is it because I’m not in your face, looming, almost threatening because I’m bigger than you and have a bunch of muscles?) [Men, take note… stand ten steps away when you call her bangably hot — see if it changes anything.]
I’d tell them not to do it at all, but some men just have to learn the hard way. Probably in handcuffs. But you can’t get people arrested for sexual harassment unless they work with you, right? Man. The lawyers are falling down on us. If that could happen, well. The jails would be even more full of people who did very little wrong. Is that really the answer? Punish any man who thinks you are a goddess while you walk around pretending to be a porn star? Oh, you don’t see it that way!? They’re just messing up your mojo! Your whole day is ruined because a man thought you were hot (and he wasn’t Brad Pitt.) (I’m sorry, Brad, you’re just still too relevant decades after your heyday.)
Because of all you women out there dressing in your underwear and wearing makeup to show off what you look like after sex, no man will approach me because I’m “too hot to approach.” They think I’m going to act just like you. They think I’m going to slap them, tell them off, frown and scream, or something otherwise undignified and unladylike. All because, somehow, I’m mistaken for one of you.
I remember one time, dressed up real nice and made up, a man stopped in the middle of traffic in the street. He was driving a white van for some business I can’t remember and he yelled at me from his driver side window: “Hey baby, what’s your number?” Was I supposed to walk into the middle of the street rather than shouting it at him to give everyone in earshot my number? Wow. Narcissist… or, a man who was thinking with his dick rather than his head. They are taught better, you know. They absolutely are. He thought I was a street walker because I was smoking on a busy downtown street.
I don’t go to bars because I know I’ll get the same thing: men thinking with their dicks instead of their brains. It’s easy enough to avoid, but then I have the opposite problem as these bitchy, catty women who like to wear underwear in public. “Nobody tells me I’m pretty.” Good thing I don’t need that from the general public… but how many women crying wolf over being told they are bangable really want reassurance that they’re beautiful? It’s a double-edged sword and a crappy way of life, womenfolk everywhere. You tell men to drool over you and then you push them aside because they’re not the specific man you want to drool all over you. You have to look hot so you yourself would fuck yourself! That’s how you know you’re going to attract… wait..
Yeah, I said it. “I look good for myself.” You mean, you made an illusion you’d fuck if you met it on the street. Narcissistic, don’t you think?
And then you scowl at men who agree with you? You’re the victim because they agreed with you? Da fuq? What are you? Insane?
“What is wrong with you, boy?” he asked himself again. “She was wide open to receive and you blew it! How many chances do you think she’s going to give you? For crying out loud, she couldn’t have made it any easier than standing there, staring at nuts next to the break room door. We fumbled again!“
She wished he could hear her in the back of his mind, like she could hear him. She’d already spent months whispering sweet nothings to him, exchanging details about him that she couldn’t possibly know otherwise, and so on. She knew exactly who he is, not who he’d pretend to be to her face, and she liked him just fine. More than liked him, really, but putting labels on feelings contains them and there was no need to do anything other than let this one run amok for as long as it wanted to.
She knew he spent many hours role-playing talking to her. She responded in ways he couldn’t possibly dream up easily and she knew that. She figured he didn’t know, though. Sometimes, she said the funniest thing that came to mind and he guffawed unabashedly, which made her smile. Most of the time, she gave straight answers, but to a mind that couldn’t realize it was speaking to the subconscious of multiple people (including her) — which is why it’s so noisy and negative, might we add — she knew it was lost on him anyway. Why do you think you admonish yourself unkindly when talking to yourself? It’s your exes, boy.
“Does she know what she does to me?!?!” Well, not exactly, young man, but she wants to know. She has something of an idea, her heartbeat leaping into her throat as two ships passed in the night, silent. She has something of an idea, standing there, staring at fancy almonds [contaminated with dairy, which she is allergic to], listening to him try to convince himself to go back out there and ask her for her number. Or a date. He was on the fence on how to approach her.
He might think there was a game afoot, if he knew that she knew his agony over this one little detail. The reality of it is that she doesn’t know if she’s insane or if she indeed hears a lovely man in her head pining after her. However, if she was merely insane, then one could ask how she continues to run into Sir Deli Man or ends up catching his eye like magic as oft as not. She does believe in magic, actually, but there’s always the element of chance, we suppose.
Besides, no man has ever asked her out directly in the real. No man has watched her face while bottling up his courage to put it all on the line. “Will you marry me?” is what she wants to ask him. Being that she’s either psychic or crazy, she might as well go all out, she figures. What’s the harm? The worst he can do is say no.
Actually, that’s not true. The worst he could do is say yes without thinking and not mean it. Ever. Go through with it, then divorce her later because she’s not a skinny bitch and that’s the only thing wrong with her… outside of being psychic enough to know how people around her feel about her and being patient enough to sit around for them to realize it for themselves consciously. (Too real? We don’t know.)
Sixteen men have fooled themselves into thinking she is not enough when in fact they were the ones lacking. They were ill-equipped to handle the amazing awesome adventure they signed up for by looking her way. She read each and every one of those men’s minds and knew exactly how they felt about her. She herself was chasing True Love(TM), but what they ended up giving her was far from love. Nay, it was hate. Could he, Sir Deli Man, break the awful cycle? It was a question worth questing for an answer to.
However, she’d had enough of sitting around waiting for men to decide she was a 10 out of 10 in their books and that’s precisely why they were together and should continue on as a duo. So, this time, she waited. Some days, she was impatient, others less so. The checkmate had been revealed, she thought, but instead of her opponent losing, he’d be a winner, too. That was her perspective on the situation, anyway.
She’d lost a goodly chunk of her lifetime so far to losers who were in denial about how amazing their relationship actually had been. She knows they were in denial because about a decade later, they all manage to crawl back. In fact, the next worm was due back any moment now… but, you see, she had this absolute knack for napalming the bridges between her and the past she ditched in order to look for a bright and promising future. A future with a loving and devoted husband worthy of her own love and devotion. He merely had to accept it, after all.
She thought he did, but it was possible he was not quite yet convinced.
In the meanwhile, she was focused on creating a blockbuster menu for a largely allergen-free health food diner. She was fairly convinced if anyone could do it, they could do it. She required a taste tester who wasn’t afraid to give their potentially unpopular opinion, someone who wouldn’t pull the punches on feedback. She needed a brave one who wouldn’t give up while she tweaked the recipe and tried again. She needed someone with ideas of his own, too, for she recognized she was a limited being by definition. Psychic powers only go so far, you know.
She was also baking (cooking?) a turkey well ahead of schedule because fuck Thanksgiving being a single day. There was no way she could pull off a full on feast for her parents in a single day, especially not when they were of zero assistance. Thus, she figured if she froze two thirds of the cooked bird, they could eat turkey all month and leave her the fuck alone as she experimented more on health food disguised as junk food.
Today’s half-successful experiment, by the way, is white corn bread. She really wished it was moister, so it’s something to work on. It was worth it to increase the salt content just a tad and perhaps a touch more oil, too. And, since she didn’t use leavening agents, she needed to make a double batch, she thought, if she was going to make something worth selling to people in the future. It’s a shame it’s not blue corn meal.
There is no such thing yet as blue corn meal. That was going to change one day. She resolved to change it herself, actually. She’d decided to revolutionize the world of food completely. It could be single-handedly, but she was standing still, staring at almonds she could never eat in a million years thanks to lax cleaning practices in the Wegmans deli that contaminated everything with dairy. Even the rotisserie chickens that didn’t have anything added except water and salt. Her spirit was extending its hand to his, but he wasn’t quite aware of it yet. She knew some day that would change. It was always incredibly slow, communicating from spiritual body to mental body. It’s what kept her in the failure zone rather than successful when it came to true love. The spirit had so many layers of conscious thought to break through before the mental body would ever catch up to the hearts she stole [and broke] completely by accident. Some day, Sir Deli Man would realize his own heart had been won over… and she hadn’t even done anything to “deserve” it, either. Her heart slowly went the same way; she was notoriously slow to warm up, as it was, but she never turned potential true love down, not once in her life. At least, not on purpose. She’s far from perfect, as is the human condition, and is sometimes blind to overtures of love.
While those men of the past were too busy misbehaving to try to get a rise out of her, she was taking note of how they treated her despite their spirits being completely taken with her own. She knew she held their hearts in her hands in the moments she gave them her attention, but they were certainly oblivious to it as they backhanded her with spite. She felt like a cruel mistress every time she broke them apart, severing their bonds because the mental body of her “victim” decided to sabotage everything. It was like they were completely unaware they even had hearts, including the man she proposed to out of the blue years ago. They would wise up one day. That would be the day they tried to find her again.
This time, however, she cut ties to absolutely all of them and disappeared in a poof of smoke. She created a new persona altogether with a new life in the digital world. She killed the self she used to be and created someone altogether new: Sansara Solsinger, 21st century messiah. The speaker for the dead, the speaker for the gods, the speaker for the meek, the speaker for those who cannot speak.
This world was a cruel one, she knew. That is how The Creator intended it to be. By observing nature, she could ascertain The Truth of All Things(TM). Anyone could do it, but nobody gave a shit about figuring out how The Universe(TM) actually works. Scientists who spend their entire lives chasing down rabbit holes of ideas still didn’t understand that gravity is proof of God. Nature, rather than nurture, is another proof of God. Being born with the handbook to life is God’s doing — how else can we explain it? Genes splicing together and dividing to create life: GOD. Instead, they try to prove String Theory relentlessly, not understanding they’re trying to reduce GOD to an EQUATION.
God is in everything and everything is in God.
Does that mean God is personal and wants to hear your whiny ass begging him for favors? Hell no. In fact, quite the opposite. He wants to hear gratitude. He wants to watch love, especially true love, unfold. And, so, when the messiah asked God for one thing… the one thing he could not just give to her… he was happy to nudge her along the correct path to finding it:
This path, right here, that leads right back to Wegmans deli for the second time today. He’s finally resolved to get her digits and has talked himself into doing it no matter what the next time he sees her. It’s time to put Crystal’s insanity to the test: is it real? If it isn’t, she’s going to interrupt her roasting bird just to find out it is all for naught. This isn’t the first time she took a leap of faith at The Creator’s insistence, and it was far from the last, but this time He was expecting some fireworks. (Where was that damn popcorn, again?)
This ought to be real good, kids.
Buckle up, Buttercup.
— God
The best is far from last, though, young man. You are at her halfway point in her recovery; it gets way, way better from here. I hope you believe in magic. She is pure magic, as you will see, stepping sideways through portals no one else can detect, dancing around reality as if she commands it herself. All she has to do is believe in herself, you, and all of reality. Believe in the goodness of humanity once more. If anyone can help her do that, I’d say it’s you. You are the horse my money is on, metaphorically speaking. It’s not as if I really need money. Neither do you human beans, might I add, but you’re a stubborn lot anyway.
Spoiler Alert:
You both want exactly the same thing. You’re incredibly similar to each other with many of the same interests. She simply needs your help right now. If you’d waited another year, she wouldn’t need you. She’d just want you. [You’re welcome.] She will not stray. She’d put you in a headlock and noogie you for at least a minute first and tell you that you’re a jerk, maybe even kick you in the balls if it was warranted. [I don’t foresee that at all, considering you’re a gentleman.] And yes, she was smiling at you. She has hardly any other reason to smile right now so it’s been you all of those times you’ve seen it, even your coworker “Dave.” She smiled at me like we were old friends. I manipulated the situation just a tad for ya. [What can I say? I’m totally on board with the underdog winning the girl of his dreams, especially since he’s just an underdog due to circumstances, not actual lack of skills or the desire to rise up the ladder of “success.” She’s also particularly fond of underdogs. I confess, it’s My fault.]
There is one little detail I have to settle, though: she’s ring size 7. [Yes, we’re serious, though you could just acquire them in person.] It’s really just a token to her and nothing more. She’s of the opinion that if you want to put something expensive on that hand, perhaps it can wait ten years when the funds are not lacking. [She might be too practical; I expect you to do it sooner if you want one on there. Maybe a year? She’d absolutely love it. She picked this one out several times now on different occasions.]
Good luck, you two. I’ll be watching over you carefully to guide you along to the next part of the treasure chest party quest.
P.S. If Crystal had wrote all that, she’d put the spoiler alert tag at the end because it doesn’t occur to her that it’s a spoiler until after she’s said it, usually.
Angel-Sansara 