Four for the Price of None

November is NaBloPoMo, which I understand to mean as the month I get to feel guilty for not writing a blog every day, while simultaneously making jokes about head, because NaBloPoMo, amirite?

Yes, I'm 12.

Today is November 4th, so I owe 4.

Here they are.

And trust me, they are just as entertaining all on the same page as they would be if I had posted them individually.  

I don't know if that's a good thing.

Blog 1: Not For All The Tea In Edina

Does that tea store at the mall ONLY hire the hyper-active dudes that are SUPER psyched about tea?

What's the recruitment like for that place? DO YOU LOVE TEA AND SUPER-AGGRESSIVE SALES TACTICS? THEN COME JOIN OUR TEAM!!!

Imagine being trained to be the hallway guy at Tea Store (You know I'm talking about you, Teavana, right? You must know...). What things must that trainer say to the young recruit to make them successful...?

IF THEY MOVE, YOU MOVE! WATCH THEIR EYES! WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING AT? ASK THEM IF THEY WANT TO BUY IT! I DON'T CARE IF IT'S NOT FOR SALE! ASK! MAKE SURE THEY TRY AT LEAST 5 SAMPLES BEFORE THEY GET AWAY! JESUS CHRIST MAN, DON'T LET THEM LEAVE!

After 52 hours of verbal lashing, the formerly mild-mannered tea sucking hippy transforms into Mr. You Will Buy Something, raring to pounce on the next person wandering past.

I, being a glutton for punishment, went there on purpose, and $40 later walked out with a little bag of Ruby Spiced Cider tea, feeling violated.

But then I went home and drank the stuff and forgot the pain--kind of like you forget the pain of childbirth when they put that baby in your arms.

Now...it is worth nothing that after the baby, I did forget the actual *pain* part, but I was not so baby-zenned that I forgot to tell my doctor to make it so that birthing thing CAN NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN AGAIN--I DON'T CARE WHAT BODY PART YOU HAVE TO REMOVE.

If I was only half as smart as a tea drinker as I am as a mother, I'd suck up the shipping costs and order online.

It's either that or get a job at Teavana and learn their secret ways of persuasion. 

Actually, I'd just do it for the discount because $40, man? You're killing me! No wonder I felt violated...

Blog 2: Oh To Be Young And Stupid Again!

I started at a new job and I am the youngest person on the team.

For those of you not aware, I'm 108 (read: 50) years old, and I'm virtually never the youngest person in any gathering, these days.

Part Two of this equation is the fact that I work from home and my team mates also work from home and we've never seen each other in person.

I'm not sure if it's because I have a certain sound to my voice on the phone or if they're just mean, but I'm getting the impression that my team mates think I'm stupid.

Just to clarify...I'm not stupid. I'm frustratingly intelligent, to the point it causes me social awkwardness. My whole day is an ongoing "solve this problem, solve this problem, solve this problem," dialogue in my head, whether I want it to be, or not. I'm virtually incapable of relaxing. It's why I used to drink so damn much--just to shut it off. I'm also a bit of an empath, so I'm really tuned in to things...like, tone, for example.

And yet...these people act like the simplest task is going to be monumentally challenging for me. They speak to me slowly, in a manner I find condescending. 

Yes, it's probably more my interpretation than their intent. People talking to me like I'm stupid is my #2 Pet Peeve right behind people who waste my time, but as it turns out, people who talk to me like I'm stupid are also wasting my time while they condescend, so maybe they should be #1.

Recently, somebody that I know fairly well (outside of work) made a comment about how they were "too smart" to vote for the Democrat. They were excited about Mr. Trump and believed in their heart of hearts that Mrs. Clinton has had people killed to cover up her criminal activity, and blah, blah, blah, conspiracy theory times 20, that woman just can't be trusted. That same person surmised that I must be voting for Hillary and therefore must be a total moron. I made no mention of who I was voting for, they just went off because I didn't join in with their tirade against her.

Somehow I managed to keep a straight face and say nothing, even though I had never been face to face with anyone making such insanely ridiculous declarations. These are the same type of folks who decide that nobody is voting for Hillary and every piece of evidence to the contrary is faked, etc. It's an alternate reality to the one I'm living where people openly talk about her without sneering. There is nothing you can really say, you just...move on.

My job, right now, feels like a milder version of that moment. I'm trying not to freak out. I'm new. I keep telling myself to just shut up and take the money and maybe my comparative youth will mean I'll still be here after they're gone and I'll enjoy some kind of last laugh scenarios.

Here's hoping.

Blog #3: Related

Hey, they can't all be amazing.

Blog #4: Stress Relief

Once upon a time, I had a knitting blog. I posted pictures of things I knit and I made mild-mannered jokes that were appropriate to the knitting crowd.

Then I discovered that the knitting crowd was a lot more fun than I thought and I wrote about other stuff.

Then I put knitting (the hobby) on a back burner for a while.  

Too much sitting. 

Yes, that's a thing! I'm trying to lose weight, here! I've got 20 more pounds to go! I can't SIT!

But wow...the election and the job and just...fucking everything, y'all.

I take a long walk (5-ish miles) just about every day and that does help, and I think about other things and I don't watch the news. I'm coping, but knitting is zen. It's a problem to solve (See Blog #2) and it's soft and fuzzy and you end up with a useful thing.

That's what my brain needs right now. Knitting.

So I bought some yarn today. 

The giant kind.

The instant gratification kind, where you don't have to do a billion stitches for it to become a a thing...you can do, like, a a few thousand. 

I"m gonna make a thing--a pair of things, actually, and I'll have them done in time to watch the world burn on Tuesday. 

It'll be OK. I'll be knitting instead of worrying.

Feel free to do the same.