well, you're in the wrong place.

…of my emotional sky. And it’s a sad shade of blue.

Feel free to insert any Donovan jokes here.

It’s almost been a whopping 2 months since I was laid off, but man, no one told me about the depression. How do you year-long people manage/survive?! The boredom I was expecting and was well versed in by friends, but the depression… If it weren’t for the car payments and the Cymbalta, I’d have a very faint grasp of…well, whatever it is that is the opposite of my current state of doom.

I find it’s not the rejection or the lack of response from postings after emailing them back a few times. It’s the lack of interaction with society as a whole. Sure, I hated the public as much as the next person. But when you don’t even have an asshole yelling at you over the phone because they didn’t get a suite for their Hotwire booking, you kind of miss it.

Hell, I even miss the annoying co-workers in separate offices who have absolutely no idea that they’re sending print requests of porn to the color printer right next to my desk.

Normally I’d take this opportunity to visit museums and state parks, but because I do not have any income at the moment, I have to put that idea on hold. Libraries are my friend, but lack the level of interaction that I’m looking for.

I don’t mean to beg, but if you’ve got a spare moment during the day and could say hello, please do. (Wow, I feel like an old lady stuck at the retirement home asking for this.) Sometimes I feel like I was tucked away with the silver to be presented on special occasions, but I can still entertain you during regular ol’ pizza night.

And thanks for listening if you made it this far.

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My next door neighbors are not the darlings of Candy Cane Lane. (And yes, my street has been nicknamed that due to its shape.) Pretty much every single neighborly annoyance you can think of can be attributed to this family, from being too noisy to possibly selling drugs (please see all items for the term “sugar”). I took one for the team and have reported them once to the police and once to City Council – that’s how much they irritate me.

For the past two years, my annoyance has grown tenfold. And it’s not because of the noise levels, the late night pool parties, or the decision to shoot fireworks towards the trees on the Fourth of July.

These people are guilty of dog negligence.

Almost two years ago, my neighbors got a puppy. I didn’t notice anything until my 14 year old dog attempted to lunge out of the front door to investigate the blonde blur that was running freely through the neighborhood. A new puppy is the equivalent to a new baby, and we were all excited about this new arrival.

Then the puppy stopped being a puppy and started to grow into a full-sized adult.

It’s almost like the kids stopped playing with him the second he started going through the awkward stage – the one where the puppy is all legs and elbows and not much else.

This literally broke my heart. Especially because the dog was a golden (who I mistook for a lab).

And who in this country does not want a golden? It’s always within the top fucking five of the top ten most popular dog breeds!

The lack of attention was just the start. The wife completely ignores the dog, the kids maybe pat him on the head, and the husband takes him out for a morning walk maybe four times a week.

That’s the face I used to get through the old fence. Any time he heard me or my dog walk out to the backyard, he’d come running over and put his nose through.

I have seen him left in the rain, seen him ignored by his family, and am truly tired of seeing him stare longingly through the kitchen window of the house (and occasionally crying), trying to get someone’s attention. The dog isn’t even two yet!

I absolutely cannot even tell you guys how angry this makes me. No dog should ever want for attention, and I wish it were bad enough for me to be able to report my neighbors. Unfortunately the dog is healthy and I do hear food being poured into a dish every day, so unless I get some hardcore evidence, I really can’t do anything.

Except make angry rants on my blog.


If he just pushed a little bit harder, he could make it to freedom.

I am near tempted to cut a bigger hole in the fence so he might be able to escape jump through for visits. And if you happen to see me in the local news being charged with dog napping, I will state now that I have absolutely no regrets.

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I almost had a cat once. The funny thing is, I did not choose this cat. The cat chose me.

(Beware of stray kitties who love attention. It’s just as bad as giving them food.)

There was a stray black cat who wandered around our neighborhood. No collar was found on him, and he didn’t look like a regular. He would nap on the porches of other homes, but for whatever reason, he really liked out house.

Most of the time you could find him napping on the windowsill near the living room. In the beginning he would stare me down, almost like a dare: “Bet you’re too scared to kick me off of here ’cause I’m a cat and may slice you with my claws.” I called his bluff a few days later and tentatively put my hand up against the screen. He sniffed it, found the scent acceptable, and proceeded to rub up against the part of the screen my hand touched.

That was my first mistake. He soon figured out that I spent a good deal of my afternoons in the living room and would wait patiently for hours until I acknowledged his presence. Gradually he became comfortable and would meow angrily if I did not show up at my normal time.

Eventually he figured out that there were other ways of reaching me. He would settle down underneath the bench on the front porch and wait for me to walk in or out of the house. I would pet him, he would attempt to squeeze past me when the door was open and try to invite himself in. When I started taking the back porch route, he learned to climb over the fence and would either sit atop the barbecue lid or scale the fence to reach the patio roof.

I had an official stalker for a good three months. My dog took absolutely no notice of the cat and let him meow to his heart’s content. Exasperated at the turn of events, I took to calling the cat “Creepy Kitty.” The cat was delighted with his name and would actually come to me if I called him by that name.

I have to admit, this cat was cute. Sleek, black, with green eyes, he made the perfect Halloween/Friday the 13th kitty. If he wasn’t so needy, I probably would have put a collar on him and bought kitty dishes.

One rainy Friday the 13th, I actually wandered around the neighborhood sans umbrella looking for Creepy Kitty. There were some middle school boys close by, and although I’d never heard of them being punks, I didn’t want to risk the chance of them grabbing a hold of Creepy Kitty and doing something crazy. Fifteen damp minutes later, I was carrying him back to the house to keep in the garage until the next morning.

Obviously I never took Creepy Kitty in (otherwise everyone would be subjected to my cat pictures). Thanks to the ever growing hearts of my neighbors directly across from me, they took him in and made him a brother to another stray cat rescued 3 years before. Sadly, Creepy Kitty was renamed Inky.

I am not much of a cat person, but I will admit, I do miss his howling for attention directly underneath my bedroom window.

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One of the best (and possibly worst) ideas I had while running a fever during high school:

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