Blog Posts that Weren’t: A Week in Clips

This week I had many blog posts floating around in my head. I even wrote a few. But then I read them and I realized they all made me sound like a raving lunatic, which leads me to wonder if I am, bit by bit, actually going mad. Here is a compilation of this week’s failed posts:

An Irrational Rant about a Local Podcast/Radio Personality Who Won’t Shut the Hell Up about His Stupid Juice Fast and How he Lost Twelve Pounds in Six Days: After a torturous seven months of losing thirty pounds, I’ve hit a plateau, and the last ten pounds are just not going to come off. I will never be at my fantasy weight again. But instead of just accepting this like a normal, healthy, non-eating disordered type person who does not obsess over her weight as a hysterical displacement activity to avoid dealing with  her real problems, I projected all of my rage and irrational sense of failure on to said podcaster:  

Fuck you, Local Radio and Podcast host. Look, I like you, I’m a fan, I’ve listened to your show for years, I’ve even donated to your show, but for Christ Sake, but I EAT ALMOST NOTHING just to maintain my current weight. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT IT TAKES FOR ME TO LOSE 12 POUNDS??? After an all-out war to lose 30, I have about ten more to go, and my body is stuck fast. I can’t eat less without passing out, so I’m hosed in the weight loss department. GUESS WHAT? It’s HARD for women in their 40’s with a family history of obesity, so please stop bragging about your stupid easy-peasy athletic-young-man weight loss that you obtained by the mere act of not snarfing 6,000 calories worth of fast food and booze every night. I don’t need to feel worse about myself because I can’t magically melt off ten more pounds through the power of liquid broccoli. And god, please-- don’t anyone else tell me about their diets, ever. I don’t want to hear about your herb regimen, your low carb vegan diet, how you swore off processed foods, became a loca-vore, or healed through the magic of macrobiotics. Nothing is more obnoxious than someone patting themselves on the back for their clean, virtuous, healthy, perfectly perfect food “choices.”

I read it, deleted it, realized I was probably just hungry, and ate a taco.

A Classic First-World Problems Gripe about the Online Company who Has, Three Times Now, Screwed Up Mr. Typist’s Birthday Presents: I came home and found the long-awaited package—finally! And it was in the wrong size, again:

Since when is it just universally accepted that total sloppy, inattentive, indifferent customer service is the norm?  Look, I know I’m not exactly a high-end customer, but I’ve ordered from them faithfully for the last seven years and they can’t be arsed to pay attention to what I ask for? Or to apologize for all the time I’ve had to spend trying to fix their mistake?? Does no one take any pride in their work anymore? I know that my anger is completely out of proportion to the situation, but this means yet another round of long-hold-time calls, complicated e-mails, and another trip to the post office, waiting in another line, to mail back the stupid wrong sized shirt that they sent—TWICE IN A ROW. It’s not the shirt itself that upsets me so much. It’s the TIME I have to spend fixing their mistake. I live in America and I am ENTITLED to order a gray cotton poly-blend Tim Thomas commemorative T-shirt on the internet and have it arrive on time and in the right size.

I realized that made me sound spoiled and petty and like someone who has no wider perspective, and even though I am, I’d rather not advertise that fact, so…delete!

An Open Letter to Bicyclists, I Which I Said Very Mean Things about Bicyclists: That they are smug, self-righteous, passive-aggressive and almost universally able-ist. That they have a persecution complex and seem to almost want to be hit by us heedless, callous, environment-wrecking car drivers just so that they can reinforce their image of themselves as long-suffering victims who are making a great sacrifice in the name of reducing their carbon footprint.

Now in my defense, this was not unprovoked. It was the direct result of a hair-pulling interaction with one of the most aggravating Seattle clichés I have ever had the frustration of dealing with. I was a passenger in a car. It was dark, it was raining, and the cyclist had no reflector on the back of her bike, and no reflective gear on. She was technically in the bike lane, but right on the white line. The driver of the car didn’t see her, and his passenger-side mirror grazed her arm. He pulled over, and I got out of the car to go find her and make sure she was alright. She was fine, but the minute I asked her if she was injured, she started rubbing her arm in a dramatic fashion, all while sighing. Did she want to exchange contact information with the driver? Sigh. No. Did she want us to take her somewhere to get her arm looked at? Sigh. No. All she wanted for us to know that we had hurt her, sigh. And that drivers in this city need to be more aware of their surroundings. When the driver pointed out that he she didn’t have any reflective gear on her back, she gave us a sad, crossing-bearing, smile and insisted that she was literally covered in reflective tape. When I apologized, she just stared wistfully into the distance and said, “It happens all the time. You’re hardly the first.” Then she went wobbling off on her bike, her face a mask of environmental martyrdom.

Still, though. We did, technically speaking “hit her” I suppose, although it was really more of a brush than anything. And I want peace on earth, and agitating the already contentious relationship between cyclists and drivers in this city runs counter to that goal, so…delete!

There, now you have had a glimpse of my ugly side. All this unaccountable rage has led to a slide into depression, which cumulated in me bursting into tears in the car yesterday when Mr. Typist told me I was being judgmental about his driving. I was being judgmental about his driving, that’s why what he said was so hurtful. I was being judgmental because I was depressed. So I gave up and spent the whole day yesterday playing “The Secret World” and pretending that I am someone else. That always helps. Today I am going to try to act like a grown-up and clean the bathroom and file stuff.

--Kristen McHenry