"pam": origins and the fishnet saga

So there is this girl who lives in my suite. She's batshit crazy. Not in the "American Psycho"-running-naked-with-a-knife sense of crazy, but the passive-aggressive, serial-killer-next-door sense. Which is far, far worse than the former.

(Note: I will not use her real name. Instead, I will call her "Pam," because it has some letters from her real name and also starts with "P-A" for passive-aggressive. How fitting!)

It's my fault that she lives with us. Last year when my RA/BFF was looking for potential suitemates, I suggested Pam. BFF said, "But she's creepy! I'm afraid of her!" I believe my exact words were, "Nah, she's harmless."

Ohhhh, me. How wrong I was!

Here I will recount some of Pam's batshit crazitude.
~
The Fishnet Saga
Last October, BFF and Pam bought me a betta fish for my birthday. I loved him so! He was peach with blue fins and I named him Silvester. When it came time to clean his tank for the first time, I asked Pam, a betta-enthusiast (*coughNERDcough*), if I could use her little scoopy fishnet thing to get Silvy's rude ass out the way so I could clean his shit.

Pam acquiesced to my request and I headed to the bathroom, where she kept much of her fishular paraphernalia. But, oh! shocksandhorrors! The fishnet was not there!
[cliffhanger!]

A Brief Interlude:
Now, before I continue our Fishnet Saga, I must explain to you some of Pam's...mannerisms? Signs of devil spawnulation? Who knows?! Anyway. You know that little kid Richie in "The Hours"? Or basically any little kid in any movie ever? They basically just stare balefully at the adults and do not speak. That's Pam. She has this habit of, if your door is open, not knocking, but standing silently in the doorway until she is noticed. Scary as FUCK. Then when she speaks to you, her giant blue fishbowl eyes rarely blink, and her face is never creased with emotion. Ever. It's like talking to an android. Or a serial killer. She speaks in this quiet Hannibal Lecter tone and then you start to fear for your life. If your answers do not satisfy her, she will stand and stare until neither of you can bear it anymore. Then, she shrugs, says "meh!" and retreats into her lair. ZOMGWTFjusthappenedtomeee?!

She proceeded to interrogate every single person in the suite as to the whereabouts of her fishnet. Even the three girls who DO NOT OWN FISH. Pam's script went as follows:

"Have you seen my fishnet?"
"It cost me five dollars."
"Do you know where it could be?"
"I just wasted five dollars."
"Who would take my fishnet?"
"Why would they take my fishnet?"
"That fishnet cost me five dollars."

Ad nauseam for a week. Fuck me silly, dude. We didn't know where your damn fishnet was the first EIGHTEEN times you asked! And really, who pays $5 for a fishnet? You can get the goddamn things for under a dollar, but I imagine that would require removing your skull from your rectum first.

Moreover, you left the damn thing under the bathroom sink. What did you expect would happen to it?  Like the foreign cleaning lady knows why the fuck it was under there; she probs thought it was garbage. Which it kind of is, since you could not pay a fish all the freeze-dried bloodworm pellets in the world to climb into that bitch and leave his cozy goddamn tank!

So, after this episode, you'd think Pam would learn to not leave her shit around where the cleaning lady will throw it away. Oh, hell no! A couple months later she came to my door asking to borrow one of my fishular items.  What had happened to it? "I left it under the sink and now it's gone..." O RLY.

¡¿por qué, Jesús, por qué?!

Anddd my interview is not in the school paper this week. Great.

The epic saga of why I am behind this week.*

*Or, if my life were an FML post, why you'd want to click "I agree, your life is fucked."

I had to interview some people from Spain for the college newspaper. Put succinctly, it was a FIASCO!  Soulie was kind enough to spend 20 minutes receiving the AIM version of this tale.  Most names have been changed, as per usual, and I kept it in IM form to protect the integrity of the mood I was in when I typed it out.  Also it looks like a free-verse epic poem!

~

so you know how I went to that Spanish concert thing last week?
the next day I went to the poetry thing that went with it
and I was like "oh hey, I will review these events for The Newspaper"
and all was well
so I emailed Pepa, just asking for photos of the 2 musicians and the poet-lady
and she was like "they're not leaving until Tuesday 9/22...you could interview them!"
and I got ALL EXCITED!
so i was like "dear Pepa, HELLZ TO THE YAYUH I will interview the Spanish peeps!"
and she was like "okay let's meet Tuesday morning in the café at 10:30"
and I figured since it was so last minute the interview could go in NEXT week's Newspaper
sooo
I wrote my questions
and I went to the editors' meeting last night
and DR was like "that's neato, but the interview should really go alongside your article if you can do that"
 and I was like "umm okay"
 and I had gone to classroom services yesterday to get a tape recorder to record said interview, and my sister brought me tapes from home
I told DR this and he was like "what?! no! make them give you the digital voice recorder instead of that ginormous tape recorder from 1975. they have like 6"
and I was like "oh sweet!"
and I rewrote my questions after the meeting last night and TRIED to do my homework for today
up until 2am
so
I get up at 8:30, get ready, I am nervous as shit
I eat breaky with The Swimmer and go down to classroom services
at like 10
and they are like "umm we don't have any more digital voice recorders. PROFESSOR DR has our last one. he took it out last spring and never brought it back"
OH but it gets better
we are only like halfway through this epic saga
I kid you not
so
I get the ginormous tape recorder from 1975
and go down to the café at 10:20
and I wait
and I wait
and I freaking WAIT
until 10:50
mind you my first class (for which I had not completed the homework!) was at 11:30
so I was like "eff this, Pepa and her crazy Spanish friends have stood me up!"
so I came back to my room
and I emailed DR and my editors
explaining the sitch
11:15 I am legit ready to walk out the door to my class
and my room phone rings
and it was a foreign lady who totes pronounced my last name wrong  
and I was thinking "freaking credit card telemarketers" 
but no  
it was Pepa!
and she was like "I'm so sorry! when did I tell you to meet us? ohh 10:30? we were out late last night, etc."
over 30 = too old for Monday night partying)
anyway
she was like "we can meet you at 1:00 in the Den!"
and I pondered this
decided then to skip my classes
to prepare for this interview
RA/BFF helped me download Audacity so I didn't have to use the dinosaur recorder
so 12:45 I go to the Den
and I'm hungry
but I don't wanna be eating whilst interviewing
so I wait
etc.
Pepa calls me on my cell
because we exchanged numeros
and she was like "we're at the bank and there's a problem with The Poet’s passport and her check, we'll be a while"
so like at 1:30 they FINALLLLLLY got there
and I interviewed them
it was all very confusing
and the hot, probs-gay pianist/composer
did not behave
he was like "it's really cold in here...where's the bathroom? I ate too much"
he was ridic
he totes CUDDLED with the baritone opera singer
poss an item? couldn't tell)
and then he stole Pepa's scarf and dropped it onto my sandwich on accident
and he interrupted The Baritone while he was answering one of my questions
and The Baritone was like:
"¡bástalo! grrrr. lo perdí. no sé qué decía..."
but it was funny
so then
I spent ALL afternoon listening to my recording and trying to figure out what was being said
I slowed it down in WMP
and then I emailed it to Pepa and I was like "help me fill in the blanks, I need this by 7:30 at the latest so I can get it into production"
apparently she thought I meant 7:30 in CHICAGO!
because I got it at 8:30, translated/corrected the bits she filled in for me
and sent it to The Newspaper at like 9:10
and now here I am, with philosophy homework yet to be done, and my face is probs going to fall off because I am a basket case

Can I go home yet?

I live on an all-girls floor in a co-ed dorm. There's probably about 40 of us or so, and we share a laundry room with 2 washers and 2 dryers.

Due to laundry mix-ups at the beginning of the year, the RAs put laminated cards on each machine and encouraged us to write our names/room numbers and the times at which we put the laundry in to keep people from dumping our shit on the floor.

But who remembers to carry an Expo marker back and forth from their room to the laundry room for 2 or 3 loads of laundry?

Roomie's mom is a teacher and gave us a ton of extra Expos for our white board, etc. But I put one in the laundry room with delusions of grandeur that we could all share and not screw each other's laundry up.

Naïve little girl.

Some a-hole stole my marker!

So, being the kind, forgiving (okay, too lazy to carry my own marker) soul that I am, I put another one in the laundry room.

It's gone.

Fuckers.

*Sigh*

My brain feels like it's about to explode. Not sure why. I would say it's due to lack of sleep, but, well, I went to bed at ten last night and awoke at six thirty this morning. That's...eight and a half hours of sleep. More than enough to make a person chipper and happy as a freaking clam the next day. Or so it would seem.

Instead, I stand here in the library, not sit, stand, and listen to stupid people approach the information desk. "Um, I'm looking for a book." ...Really now...I don't think they have any of those here. Maybe if you look in a building that wasn't made specifically for that purpose, you'll have better luck.

It ticks me off when people in my supposed Social Advocacy classes say things about people with disabilities that are completely out of line and stupid. For example.

"Do you think any of the students who are coming into our class will talk in front of a crowd, Nick?"

"Well, they all, like, talk. Cuz, you know, they're all, like, higher."

Higher. I don't think she was talking about their functional level, genius, I think she was talking about how shy they will be.

*Sigh*

New category.

As I'm sure my readers have realized, I'm easily annoyed. And I've decided our blog needs a new category to describe some of these annoyances, but the proposed title is too long to fit in the little box gracefully, so I am posting it here so people know what the acronym means.

Ridiculous Shit That Offends My Delicate Sensibilities
(or, RSTOMDS)

Examples:
-grammar/punctuation errors
-sexism
-general ignorance
-people who feel as though your preferences in fashion/music/religion/politics needs "saving" or "fixing"

And there you have it.

Awkwardness is a social construct.

I'm making a declaration.
I hereby abolish the word "awkward."
Why?
Because it's abused and overused.

Example: I was showering here at school when I heard two girls come in to use the bathroom. Apparently, one of them was a first-time visitor to our fine institution, and had never seen our toilet paper dispensers, which are not in rolls, but are in stupid little rectangular sheets of which you have to use like 57 for any real efficacy. This girl said, "Wow, these toilet paper dispensers are awkward!"

Um. Sorry. This may seem dense, but...what capacity does a toilet paper dispenser have to be awkward?!
TOILET PAPER DISPENSER: Hey baby, you've got a nice...um...never mind...
GIRL: What?!
TPD: I'm sorry. Wow, that was...really out of line. Have 36 more sheets.
No. Inanimate objects ≠ awkward.

I myself am guilty of "awkward" abuse, and I resolve to only use the word "awkward" to describe situations that are legitimately so.
Most situations to which this word is ascribed are merely silly or uncomfortable. In fact, awkwardness in itself is a social construct. Nothing's ever really awkward until someone points it out, is it?

Ugh. Really?

People are so dim sometimes. I was reading an old Dan Savage column and I put up a line from one of his responses as an away message:
"Confidential to Shelly: No, you're not crazy, and yes, your boyfriend loves you."
But, I decided it'd be funnier if I put "%n" in place of "Shelly." On AIM, this has the effect of inserting the screen name of whoever's reading the away message. Apparently I am on some random people's buddy lists, and things got crazy...
~
1:47pm
RANDOM GIRL #1: ?
ME: who is this?
RANDOM GIRL #1: your away message has my sn in it... who is this? I just noticed you on my buddy list and my name in your away creeped me out
ME: oh it's not you, when you put %n in an away message it automatically puts the sn of the person who's reading it in there
RANDOM GIRL #1: oh
RANDOM GIRL #1: haha sorry
RANDOM GIRL #1: i was just a bit confused. sorry about that
RANDOM GIRL #1: have a good one
ME: that's okay, you too
~
5:04pm
RANDOM GIRL #2: who is this
ME: this is Ashley...
ME: is this about my away message? because someone else IM'd me earlier...it's not necessarily your sn. when you put %n in an away message then whoever reads it sees their sn in place of it
RANDOM GIRL #2: haha kk
ME: haha no prob...are you in Soulie's hallway?
RANDOM GIRL #2: no i'm in my room
ME: oh I meant do you live in her hallway? because the first paranoid girl did :)
RANDOM GIRL #2: no
RANDOM GIRL #2: who is this
ME: this is Ashley, I'm a freshman
RANDOM GIRL #2: haha no i dk you or how i got this name
ME: yeah Idk either!
ME: sorry :(
RANDOM GIRL #2: that's fine
~
Seriously? People are so paranoid. I'm the one who should be paranoid! How did they get my screen name?! Also, they acted like I was the one doing something wrong when they were the creepers who had some random innocent (*cough*) freshman on their buddy lists. Augh. Some days I just don't know how people can fit such massive amounts of stupid into their heads.

f.m.l.

Oh god. Who had the horriblest day today? *raises hand*

Today had a promising start, as promising as a Monday can be. My shower was nice and warm, absolutely perfect. Nevertheless, I still can't shake my head cold. Which sucks.

So I got to English, that useless waste of time they dubbed "Critical Writing" (I'm quite critical of it), and my prof, Beastly Lady, handed back our drafts. She'd scribbled over and crossed out practically my whole damn thesis. The same thesis she helped me friggin' write on Thursday, mind you. So I complained. And then BL was like, "Oh yeah....forget about it then." Never mind that you'd sullied my glorious 2.5 double-spaced pages of 12-pt. Calibri with your CHICKEN SCRATCH, Madam!

On to breakfast with the Unfathomably Tall Swimmer, a wonderful soul from my class. His friend, the Sheltered Bostonian, wouldn't eat with us, however. He'd previously deemed UTS's attitude "too negative." But then UTS informed me that SB doesn't like me. And he wasn't joking, ha-ha. Which, of course, was news to me! This may be a D-thing to say, but I'm entirely unused to being disliked. I dislike many people and things, but I thought I was generally well-liked, or at least tolerable. Apparently I am "annoying" and "socially awkward." Not that SB could let me know any of this, no. What really bothers me isn't that he doesn't like me, it's that he is a big fake jerk to my face about it. Gawd. What happened to the natural social order of things, where if you like someone you talk to them, and if you don't, you pretend they fell off the face of the planet?! I mean, I'm good at being fake too, but that's more useful in high school. This is college, where you don't owe it to these random people to be nice if they aren't nice to you. If you're gonna dislike me, dislike me, dammit!

(Side note: I asked my roommate, Mrs. Icky, "I'm not annoying, right?" and all I got was a non-committal "mm." Ouch.)

Anyway, on top of the head cold, my breakfast disagreed with me and I threw it up 10 minutes after returning to my dorm. I definitely thought people would walk in the bathroom and be like "She's hungover/bulimic/stupid." I felt bad because the cleaning lady had seriously just left like 2 seconds ago. I could tell by the nauseous smell of lemony bleach. Augh.

That's when I realized my day had reached the point of total suckage. My only solace was that I'd be going to see a soccer game with Lil Joey the Class Scapegoat later. It was our high school versus their rival and it was going to be good.

So then I had to watch a video for Spanish, and I had no idea where to find said video. I went down to El Profe's office and he gave me the "Dear God, woman, are you completely retarded?!" face and mumbled, in Spanish, that it was in the library. I then encountered many technical difficulties in the library with said video.

By the time I got back to my dorm, I hadn't heard from Lil Joey about our soccer-game plans, so I Facebook Chatted him. He informed me that he "didn't feel so good" and that the plans were off. I offered my get-well sympathies and headed to class. El Profe came in a couple minutes late, as usual, and informed us that he was canceling class because HE didn't feel well either! (All college inhabitants, be they students or faculty, are squashed together so closely that plagues can spread at an epidemic pace, so I'm not terribly surprised that El Profe got taken down with us.) This was all well and good, right? I got out of class early and I didn't have chamber orchestra rehearsal. The only engagement I had was a photo op with the Anthropology Club for the school newspaper, and that wasn't for another hour.

So I jaunted upstairs, unlocked my door, and what? Mrs. Icky had put the chain up. She was in there with her disgusting boyfriend! I got the message and skedaddled to the lounge, fretting quite a bit. Then Mr. Icky opened the door, and I slunk in to get my books. The Missus was cuddled under the covers of her bed. Now, when I last left her, Mrs. Icky had just gotten out of the shower and was in her skimpy bathrobe-y type-thing. I assumed she was wearing that, or less, under said covers. (Strangely enough, Mr. Icky answered the door fully clothed...?) All the same, AWKWARD. I ran to the library to do research for a paper.

I was lucky enough to make dinner plans with a perfectly acceptable specimen, a.k.a. Future Husband. (Haha.) We discussed our mutual dislike of Mr. Icky and his putrid manners, which include, but are not limited to: smoking, crude language, disrespect of women, skipping class, and not knocking. Or knocking too much. Gawd. Unfortunately, I had to skip out early for this Anthro Club photo shiz. Most tedious, and in drizzly weather besides.

After my anthropological duties, I swung by the computer lab to check the ol' homework (aaaaaand the ol' Facebook). And what do I see?! "Lil Joey is going to the soccer game, GO FALCONS!!!...some people dont know how good they had it."

Ohh, Lil Joey. You are gonna have it. And not so good. Not that any of this is Lil Joey's fault, it just so happens that he put the cherry on my crap sundae of a day. Since then I have been sulking in my dorm, and it's a good feeling, let me tell you.

Things are shaping up to be pretty odd...

Okay. So. I watched Pete Wentz' new "video" show, FNMTV, which premiered last week. Much like communism, it's good in theory, cruddy in practice.

The live performances (Panic at the Sexy---I mean, Disco---and Snoop Dogg) were pretty good, but I felt misled by the "video" part. I mean, the whole hyped-up promotion said, "MTV is gonna show more videos!" And what does Pete Wentz do? He shows like 4 videos the whole damn hour. And then he shows 10-second clips of Michael Jackson and the Cure. *Yawn.* If these videos "made you who you are" or whatever, then show the whole damn thing!

Pete wasn't a bad host. He had a good connection with the crowd and he's not too hard to look at, but he's so....white. And short. Of all his guests only the Ting Tings weren't taller than him. (But they're English. Less sun means stunted growth, yes/no?) It was pretty amusing watching him try to do some ghetto-type gesturing while Flo Rida stood there smiling like, "Lookit the cute li'l white boy, subconsciously highlighting the fact that I am nearly a foot taller than he is." And why did Pete have to yell everything he said? He had a microphone!

Oh, and he had the Pussycat Dolls on there. Do not even get me started on the freakin' Pussycat Dolls. Yes, let's make all women look like skanks! And let's drool on them too! Yum-yum. At least Flo Rida had a pretty catchy new video/song and a thing about growing up in Miami...which I...didn't watch. Oops. I'm sure it was good, though. Also, the nursery rhyme about the Ting Tings was really cute.

I see that what they are trying to do is give MTV'ers more voice about the videos and crap, but I really could have done without the sorry excuse for a panel discussion. Travis McCoy acted totally strung out and really had nothing more significant to say than "the Pussycat Dolls are hot *Drooly-McDroolerson*" and the one British dude on the end was really obnoxious. I'm still trying to figure out what the purpose of the middle dude with the computer was. Pretty sad stuff.

I was awfully disappointed with the whole program. It left me wanting more, but not in the good sense of the term. More like, "...That's it??" But be careful what you wish for, because now MTV shows like, 5 videos an hour (when there aren't Made reruns--*gag*), complete with video commentary from viewers like you! Now you can dance like PCD or critique the tightness factor of Panic at the Disco's pants. More videos, and more crap too. I really wish they'd do it like VH1 does...a few hours of uninterrupted videos in the morning, no whining bloggers (*coughhypocrite!cough*), no dancing losers, no slurring commentary from sad rappers. Boo, MTV and Pete Wentz, boo.

...but I'll watch tomorrow's episode 'cause Duffy and Lil Wayne are gonna be there.