I have no ass and I must poop!

[Doktor Howl]

Excellent analogy. Glad I'm not the only who can see this. When I allow it to happen I am torn between wanting to shake them to wake them up or to leave them all to their trances. The few times I have tried to wake them up didn't work so well.

Why not?

Remember the old movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Most of their responses were a lot like one of the invaders. They just wanted to point at me and scream.

I consider that a success, of sorts.  Sure, they didn't wake up MUCH, but they at least understood that something was going on that didn't fit into the sleep/work/drink/TV/sleep model.

But they immediately closed their minds and resorted to the same behavior.

1.  You can't win 'em all, and

2.  You still fucked up their day.  They deserved it.

[Adios]

Fair enough! 

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

Excellent analogy. Glad I'm not the only who can see this. When I allow it to happen I am torn between wanting to shake them to wake them up or to leave them all to their trances. The few times I have tried to wake them up didn't work so well.

Why not?

Remember the old movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Most of their responses were a lot like one of the invaders. They just wanted to point at me and scream.

I consider that a success, of sorts.  Sure, they didn't wake up MUCH, but they at least understood that something was going on that didn't fit into the sleep/work/drink/TV/sleep model.

But they immediately closed their minds and resorted to the same behavior.

Did your attempts at mass awakening involve public nudity? Because that might explain some of the reactions.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Print several, put them up on other peoples office walls.

Actually, I am begining to wonder if there is a possible way to combine all the dread aspects of leading Horror mongers on PD into one gargantuan visage of Terror^tm.

Squiddys smile, your eyes. Cainads nose etc.

If nothing else, it would make interesting cubicle art, and could inspire some truly insane jabbering content.

...also, yes, I'm pretty sure this is possible. Some psychological studies that focus on people's reaction to faces make use of "fake" faces that are basically synthesized from many different faces to produce a face with certain qualities.

What you're describing would be pretty Mad Science-ish. Possibly toxic.

[Richter]

Dok, the more I ponder this situation, the more I understand and support how you're handling it.  For all the posturing and pretending at "Order" or "Civilization", things are everywhere taking an odd slide into the mess.  Every yammerer is findign an ear, every concern a placation.  People are driving themselves mad with tiny self reversing reasonabiltites and middle ground solutions that cannot add up to a workable whole.  

One little pig wanted to build his house out of stone.  Another little pig wanted to build his house of of shit.  The exploratory senate comitee on porcine building decided that a shit centric building rubric would be most sensitive to all parties, and subisized the contruction of horrible slouchign hovels.  No one thought to suggest brick, except for a bright eyed intern who was strung up for cultural insensitivity.

The approach you described to me is the only sensible one really.  Being a good spirited reasonable person with most of these impersonal jackholes will do nothing except discourage you.  They won't reciprocate, and only wear you down for the people who are worth it.  May as well be a nut at them.  You know the Japanese concept of "tatami" right, it remidns me of that.  The "Public face" for people you meet day to day and only interact with superficially?  Makes sense.  Maybe cyncial, but practical.  (IIRC Tatami also refers to a basic woven floor mat.  Again, makes some cynical sense.)  Sort of reminds me of that.  You've also got the tact and wherewithall know when to apply this as well, and when to be more level.  I've seen this in your writing as well as what you do IRL.  

(If my own experience is anything to go by, just be careful that the vibe doesn't get stuck "On", which it can.)

[Doktor Howl]

Dok, the more I ponder this situation, the more I understand and support how you're handling it.  For all the posturing and pretending at "Order" or "Civilization", things are everywhere taking an odd slide into the mess.  Every yammerer is findign an ear, every concern a placation.  People are driving themselves mad with tiny self reversing reasonabiltites and middle ground solutions that cannot add up to a workable whole.  

One little pig wanted to build his house out of stone.  Another little pig wanted to build his house of of shit.  The exploratory senate comitee on porcine building decided that a shit centric building rubric would be most sensitive to all parties, and subisized the contruction of horrible slouchign hovels.  No one thought to suggest brick, except for a bright eyed intern who was strung up for cultural insensitivity.

The approach you described to me is the only sensible one really.  Being a good spirited reasonable person with most of these impersonal jackholes will do nothing except discourage you.  They won't reciprocate, and only wear you down for the people who are worth it.  May as well be a nut at them.  You know the Japanese concept of "tatami" right, it remidns me of that.  The "Public face" for people you meet day to day and only interact with superficially?  Makes sense.  Maybe cyncial, but practical.  (IIRC Tatami also refers to a basic woven floor mat.  Again, makes some cynical sense.)  Sort of reminds me of that.  You've also got the tact and wherewithall know when to apply this as well, and when to be more level.  I've seen this in your writing as well as what you do IRL.  

(If my own experience is anything to go by, just be careful that the vibe doesn't get stuck "On", which it can.)

I plan to act without thinking at all, for the next two weeks.

For SCIENCE.

[Richter]

Thinking, in most person to person situations, is USELESS.  It is a process vulnerable to likes, dislikes, idiosyncracies, doubts, preferences, and magnifies personality or meat based faults.  Working off-the-cuff can avoid this for anything you're deft / practiced at (or at least able to fake well)

[Iron Sulfide]

Yes, the whole thread.

What gets me is that if i try to talk about something actually important, like fuckers putting poison in our water, or the "banana hoarders", or, you know, information that's actually pertinent to existing responsibly, the standard response is terror glazed over by complacency.

If I ask about the latest in the Mel Gibson scandal, or Perez Hilton, or The Hills or the Kardashians, it's like flipping a fucking "ON" switch and I can't get the person to shut the fuck up.

Also, I've been having these dreams for the last month, now. The general apocalypse theme has popped up in my dreams for the last year or so (that I remember), but specifically, I've had dreams of the Zombie Apocalypse. In fact, I dreamed of it last night. Where no place is safe, only safer. People sometimes turn into these zombies without having been, apparently, bitten. A few survivors and I were in our last bastion of safety, which was a house in a field. We were fending them off, battening every point of access, when suddenly, one by one, they ceased what they were doing and sat calmly on the couch. As the zombies began tearing the door off it's hinges, all I could find was an oversized door stop with which off to fend them. As they flooded the room, I started awake.

Then it occurred to me: The only difference between my dream and the "real" world was that the zombies haven't started eating people, en masse. Yet.

[Jenne]

The OP resonates though I no longer work in the rabbit warren of cubicles I used to.  I have to say the inanity of the chatter you find at the book club meetings and PTA functions I attend, in an effort to get out and not be so closeted with my own mental meanderings, leaves me open to a whole new aspect of drone-life.  The women at these meetings are just going through the  motions.  There's no fire there, no ability to see beyond the end of their noses.

But I'm extremely unpopular amongst them, because I constantly give way to my habit of pointing out those things that are found 5 feet in front of them, in full view, but ignored.  So there I am, constantly pointing them out (the failure of our social construct, the fact that the current Tea Party rhetoric is really anti-children, if you listen carefully, and more like these truthy-isms they really don't like to hear (some of them are shockingly anti-bigoted, like Mexicans aren't here to steal your jobs and Islam is NOT a cult of war))...  That makes me the mom who's not invited to the beach, up to the park to have margaritas while the kids play on the playground, or out for happy hour.

After filching invites to these things, I realized I was better off without them.  Because the insipid cows that bloviate constantly about "My Kid Did THIS!" and "My Husband Does THAT!" on Facebook have little else to say in private.  My constant response, of course, is to say, "yes, but what about YOU?"

They really don't like that.

[Ruby]

^ ^ This is me right now, as well. ^ ^

However, there has been some things I've come across, that, though I'm notta fighter *lola* I highly want to smack a few...

The fact that I have been a stay at home mom for a lot of years more than not does make me the authority on my children and their behavior. To have it ever suggested otherwise really makes me pissy. Especially by some that have no children of their own! Urgh...

[Doktor Howl]

^ ^ This is me right now, as well. ^ ^

However, there has been some things I've come across, that, though I'm notta fighter *lola* I highly want to smack a few...

The fact that I have been a stay at home mom for a lot of years more than not does make me the authority on my children and their behavior. To have it ever suggested otherwise really makes me pissy. Especially by some that have no children of their own! Urgh...

That thing you gobble cocks with?

Shut it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The OP resonates though I no longer work in the rabbit warren of cubicles I used to.  I have to say the inanity of the chatter you find at the book club meetings and PTA functions I attend, in an effort to get out and not be so closeted with my own mental meanderings, leaves me open to a whole new aspect of drone-life.  The women at these meetings are just going through the  motions.  There's no fire there, no ability to see beyond the end of their noses.

But I'm extremely unpopular amongst them, because I constantly give way to my habit of pointing out those things that are found 5 feet in front of them, in full view, but ignored.  So there I am, constantly pointing them out (the failure of our social construct, the fact that the current Tea Party rhetoric is really anti-children, if you listen carefully, and more like these truthy-isms they really don't like to hear (some of them are shockingly anti-bigoted, like Mexicans aren't here to steal your jobs and Islam is NOT a cult of war))...  That makes me the mom who's not invited to the beach, up to the park to have margaritas while the kids play on the playground, or out for happy hour.

After filching invites to these things, I realized I was better off without them.  Because the insipid cows that bloviate constantly about "My Kid Did THIS!" and "My Husband Does THAT!" on Facebook have little else to say in private.  My constant response, of course, is to say, "yes, but what about YOU?"

They really don't like that.

I hate 90% of other moms. I especially hate "homemakers". I don't necessarily mean mothers who don't have outside jobs... I mean, mothers who do fuck-all besides have kids and a place to live, and act like that somehow takes up SO MUCH TIME. It CAN, if you give up your life and your personality and focus on Making Everything Perfect for Little Tyler, but normally what that really means is that they have gotten so used to having to do next to nothing that the relatively minimal effort it takes to scoot the brats off to school and vacuum the living room seems hard.

The great risk of being a "stay at home mom" (Fuck, I hate that nondescriptively vapid term) is that you can actually gradually lose your personality and connection with reality. I've seen it. It's scary as fuck. Ways to avoid that take many forms, ALL OF WHICH (and this is crucial) involve having interests OTHER THAN YOUR HUSBAND AND CHILDREN. There's Homestead Mom. There's Small Business Mom. There's Politics Mom. There's Social Justice Mom. There's Subversive Mom. There's Writer Mom. There's Bar Mom. There's Jock Mom. There's Outdoorsy Mom. There's Music Scene Mom. There's Crafty Mom. There's Combo Mom, who does three or more of the aforementioned and maybe mixes it up with a few other varieties.

The key is really just finding shit to think about and ways to interact that aren't all about Little Tyler, who is going to think women are total losers if he grows up seeing Mom not having any interests or personality of her own. Even if your personal interests are fucking crazy, like my stepsister-in-law who does AMAZING CRAZY SHIT in the middle of nowheresville WA where she is stuck with my stepbrother and their kids and as a consequence has taken up raising 300 banty chickens and making fucked up art that she posts on Facebook, and swearing a lot, it's better than becoming Boring Waste-Of-Air Lives For Her Kids Mom.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

^ ^ This is me right now, as well. ^ ^

However, there has been some things I've come across, that, though I'm notta fighter *lola* I highly want to smack a few...

The fact that I have been a stay at home mom for a lot of years more than not does make me the authority on my children and their behavior. To have it ever suggested otherwise really makes me pissy. Especially by some that have no children of their own! Urgh...

That thing you gobble cocks with?

Shut it.