On the Topic of No Topics 5

Usually, I start this off with some introduction that covers some of the madness which will ensue when I go off on rabbit trails.  It just occurred to me that the whole intro is rather ironic because usually rabbit trails are just that, not planned.  So it contradicts the whole thing.  But after this epiphany I would like to make it abundantly clear that I actually write the introductions after the fact.  There you go, some insight into my writing habits.  On the Topic of No Topics shall finally be continuing on!

(I have to wonder if this is supposed to be a celebrated rant because...it is divisible by 5!  Yes, that is why.  Read this.  It is divisible by five so it must be important.)

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Yesterday, I realized that it was Friday the 13th.  I find that rather funny considering that the entire week of Friday the 13th has been a living hell, except for the actual Friday the 13th.  I feel like in doing so I can defy the laws of nature itself.  Well, we have known this for many years; this just validates that theory.  What's wrong with me?  What is not wrong with me is a much shorter list.

I moved out of my house about two weeks ago and I have begun what I like to call "house-wife" lessons.  They include (but are not limited to) cooking, learning how to use a washing machine, learning how to use a dish washer, learning how to use a vacuum, and how to sort clothes so they can be stuffed in the washing machine.  (And special thanks to spell check who just taught me that "vacuum" is spelled with two "u"'s, no "o"'s, and does not have an "e" at the end.)

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Let me tell you of all the trials an tribulations I had to endure!

First of all, there is a science to sorting through clothing for washing machine use.  I took chemistry, and I still don't get it.  Not once have I attempted to do so without being utterly confused.  What I have been told is "just sort everything by colors" and "wash jeans separately".  But I can not do this because, like most women, I love to be at war with myself.  Here is a sample of what does through my mind:

But I have at least three different color jeans, what now?  Does a black and white shirt go in the white pile or the black pile?  Shouldn't I just go by genre of clothing?  But Ashley, I have a LOT of poofy pajama pants and they are special....because they are warm and fuzzy!  And I don't want them to loose their POOF!

Hari will make a much better wife than I will - and I don't think that she will be thrilled that I just declared this for the entire world to read.  Fear not Ashley, as of today, as many as 9 people read this blog; one of them is you and the rest are all female.

Moving on, a dishwasher is slightly easier to use than a washing machine...if you know what/how much soap to use.  Every time I press the button on either one, I feel that it is only a matter of time before it erupts in an explosion of bubbles, enough to drown me, the dog, the flowers (both the ones that I have killed and the ones that are still surviving).

I then get horrible mental images of someone opening the door as a flood of bubbly water runs out, to see me standing there with the huge dog in my arms, balancing the flowers on my head, trying to save what is left of my burnt grilled cheese sandwich with my teeth.  Yeah, it has haunted my dreams.

(I also had a weird dream about my mom converting to Mormonism and marrying into the polygamist family on that show Sister Wives, becoming the fifth wife as of now).

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Actually, I can't find bread in this house.  The people who took me in are gone, I am house sitting, and they minimalists.  I haven't bothered searching for butter to make grilled cheese because I can't find the bread.  And alas, grilled cheese is the height of my culinary expertise.

On my rant about fortune cookies, I was surviving off of left-overs made by Hari.  My breakfast that morning consisted of her spaghetti and a milky way chocolate bar.

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I feel like I have failed my job house sitting, because most of the plants are dying despite my vain efforts of making them happy.  As someone I know once eloquently stated "I have the black thumb of death".  I have inherited that from somewhere down the line.  Flowers wilt in my very presence.  Remember my strawberry endeavors?  They started rotting and I had to feed them to my dog.  The end.

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Oh ok.  There was ONE terrible thing that happened on Friday the 13th.  I choose the wrong day to do laundry.  The dog that is in the house that I am now staying dug through my piles of sorted clothing to find my favorite sock and eat it.  It was indeed a sad day.

It makes me miss my mom's dog, Lorie.  I have wrote about her antics before, but I prefer that to what I have to tolerate now.  Lorie didn't bark at the littlest thing, she didn't make weird/gross/annoying/licking sounds like she was dying, she didn't shed like all her hair was falling out, she didn't play games when it came to me petting her or not, there was a shared understanding that most of the time I was content not chasing her all over the house.  And, most importantly, she didn't eat my favorite socks.


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The pressure of staying by myself gets to me sometimes, and in my loneliness, I find pleasant little things that amuse me when I need a break from homework.  Just yesterday I was blowing on Kleenex to see how long I could keep it in the air.  After 8 minutes or so, I realized how I could make it to a grand total of 12 seconds.  I proudly announced, "Did you see that?  This is my new high score!"

I suppose that this wouldn't be that weird, except as previously stated, I am alone.

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But sometimes I am not alone, and awkward moments are bound to follow.  I just don't know what to do anymore.  You see, I have a "room-mate".  She works very odd shifts at work.  Not only that, but she appears and disappears out of nowhere.  Like now.  She randomly started vacuuming.  I feel guilty because this was supposed to be my job.


I can't complain much.  I have had my share of strange room-mates in the past.  The first such awkward encounter was on my Europe trip.  I had a room-mate of "that kind of persuasion" who wanted me to be her girlfriend, after how I had rambled incoherently about how my friend, who I call Black-kun, sleeps with her eyes half way open.

Another weird room-mate encounter was freshman year on retreat.  This is the situation: one room, a 2 superficial basket cases (think barbies), gothic emo girl, and me.  I hate stereotypes usually.  But this is just the way it was.
Long story short: One of the superficial basket cases asked if anyone cared if she slept naked, her friend had no objections (her opinion was the only one that obviously mattered), gothic emo girl looked like she wanted to pulverize the her.  I protested both (although deep down I shared the same feelings as the gothic emo girl).  Obviously no one really listened; the barbie continued to disrobe while we still voiced are complaints with our heads facing the wall.

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With that out of the way, my current room-mate isn't half bad.  She is straight, so she obviously doesn't hit on me.  Nor does she insist on sleeping with her clothes off.

But sadly, I have come to the conclusion that I am in fact the strange room-mate.  Yes, the roles have reversed themselves.  I always let her shower first, shamelessly exploiting the fact that she will have to brave the cold water so I won't have to.

Alright, that it not too bad, as she most likely hasn't even caught on, but it gets worse.  She really does come in out of nowhere, particularly when I am doing something incredibly stupid.  This is my current list of evidence as to why she thinks of me as her weird room-mate.

Exhibit A:  She walked through the door to see me stumble out of bed around noon, tripping over the overly large generic snuggie that I am wearing, face plant on the floor, and resemble a deer caught in the headlights when I saw sunlight.  This left her only reaction to be "...um I see you just woke up".

In my defense, I stayed up till 5 a few nights before studying for finals.  And I toss and turn in my sleep, and being a person who is too lazy to see the point in making my own bed, I slept in a snuggie too.
But having just woken up, I couldn't find a way to respond to this without making it even more awkward.
So, with a mouth full of carpet and snuggie, I mumbled "yup" and began the task of feeding the dog.  And I forgot that the sliding glass door was locked as I stood there pondering why it wouldn't open.

Exhibit B: The one time I actually did shower before her was when I didn't know how late (or early in this case) she would be returning from work.  I was singing a Japanese song, in Japanese, about cake.  I sang loudly, boldly, and obnoxiously.  And when I emerged from the bathroom to see her waiting, I shuffled into my room nervously.

Exhibit C: Remember how I said that the dog ate my sock?  Well, it would seem that my room-mate is constantly rescuing my laundry before it gets devoured completely.  I found out that I am physically incapable of walking back to my room with a finished load of washed clothing without dropping something.  Almost always, I drop a sock.  And trust me, I would be extremely happy if I could write to you that it is 100% of the time a sock.  But alas, only 90% of the time it has been a sock.  The other times I accidentally left my panties behind.  And by they way, since my room-mate has already figured this out, I prefer my panties to be just as brightly colored as my socks.

....oh for the love of...I must type something else to redeem myself from the fact that I am blogging to the entire world about my underwear....

Exhibit D:  Crap.  I find myself at loss of ideas now.  No other specific instance has come to mind.  Perhaps that is because she is like a ninja or a ghost.  One minute she is here, and next moment she is gone.  And vice versa.  Well, I suppose I have done a lot of dumb things since I moved in here.  So it is fair to say that she has seen me dancing to no musing in particular, pleading my case before the dying plants, accidentally breaking a knob off part of the fan in my room, stepping on the dog's plastic toy bone and squeaking in pain, cutting my finger while trying to slice cheese for the grilled cheese sandwich that was never made, and I am going to stop now because I have just done a lot of silly things.

So yes, now it is blatantly obvious that I am not the strange room-mate and I should embrace that as my role in life.



I am just gonna end this here, seeing as I have a lot of writing to do that actually matters for my college class.  I have to finish another 5 discussions, edit two essays, start another two essays, start the final, and then write back on this blog one I have something a little more entertaining.

Next time I write here, my brain will be final-fried.  So take that into consideration when you marvel at my insanity.