RANDOM BABBLING!!!

It just seems like it's been a million years since I wrote anything, so I figure I should just blurt out some stuff...

First of all, September can NOT be over quick enough as far as I'm concerned. This month was annoying. Not horrible - just filled with annoyances.
It seems as though Leigh and I were attending no less than thirty-eight birthday parties a week. What's the deal? How come so many people were born in September?! (yeah, I know... lots of people 'celebrating' on New Year's produces many babies... it's still annoying)

So - HALO 3 came out the other day... I was all prepared... had it on reserve at Target... paid for... locked in... all set. I had just finished BIOSHOCK (quite possibly the most cerebral video game ever... viva la Ayn Rand!) so my appetite was perfectly whet to settle in with the sequel to my favorite game. Oh - and did I happen to mention that I now have a big-screen HD television? It was going to be erotic.

So I get home - put the fucker in... and my XBOX 360 decides to shit all over me and konk out. Oh - not COMPLETELY, mind you... THAT would have been far too simple. It plays OTHER games just fine, and it plays DVDs just fine... IT JUST WON'T FUCKING LOAD HALO 3 FOR SOME GODFORSAKEN REASON!!!!

Yeah yeah yeah, I returned the game figuring it was defective... this, too, would have been FAR too easy. I exchanged the four - yes - FOUR TIMES and still no go.

The only moderately good news is that the 'Box is under warranty - but that means I have to send it in and WAIT for them to repair/replace it... which will, undoubtedly, take a minimum of 4 weeks.

Meanwhile, everyone else in the world is playing HALO 3. I hate everyone else in the world. Go to hell, all of you.

Anyway - as you can tell, this has me extremely grumpy.

I was gonna bitch about other stuff (it's still impossible for me to go to the movies without wanting to murder people) but I gotta get back to work.

Since sex sells, here is a completely random drawing of a girl in a red dress.

THE TELEPHONE SCARES ME

I've come to realize lately just how desperately I hate telephones.

This is odd, because I love to talk. I love chatting. I love conversation. But phones terrify me. I hate calling people, I hate getting calls from people, I hate getting voicemail messages, I hate leaving voicemail messages (although those are slightly less awful because if I'm leaving a voicemail, it means I've fulfilled MY end of the bargain by making the call, and now all of the pressure has been passed to another unfortunate soul).

Every time the phone rings, I'm convinced it's someone calling with awful news.

Every time I call anyone and they actually answer, I'm always certain that I've called at the absolutely most abominably inconvenient time and now they hate me.

The weird thing is, I'm not one of those people who is afraid to fly on planes or get on a boat... hell, I've jumped out of an airplane... I've navigated a raft down whitewater rapids! I also don't consider myself "panicky" by nature... I've found myself in "emergency" situations before where I've remained calm and dealt with the problem without losing my head. Oh, I can be high strung depending on the circumstances, but I like to think I've gotten progressively more easy-going over the years. I'm also not one of those people who is intimidated by speaking with other people... I'm a GREAT speaker! I used to perform improv comedy in Detroit... I give lectures at schools... I can spontaneously get up in front of a crowd and make a speech and be perfectly poised and engaging...

But lord help me if the phone rings and I'm taking a nap... when I'm asleep and I hear that "alarm" go off, I get a jolt in my chest that feels like a mini-heart attack and my brain instantly assumes that the minute I pick up the receiver I'm going to hear a voice relay some message of unspeakable horrors.

What's embarassing about this is that I pride myself on being extremely rational and this phobia of mine is about as far from rational as you can get.

I suppose I could try and trace back to when I first started feeling this way about phones, but - really - what does that actually accomplish? The fact is, it's not the kind of phobia that has kept me from enjoying life or accomplishing things... I'm not SO scared of phones that I refuse to USE them... I use them constantly... it's just a bit of a struggle.

I guess the best way of labelling it (if I must) would be to call it a "nagging anxiety." It's more annoying than harmful.

Anyway... I dunno what my point is. I just felt the desire to get it off my chest. You have my blessing to make fun of me for this to your heart's content as I am fully aware of how stupid it is.

Now I gotta go return some calls...