This list has been attributed to various people, including Bill Gates, Ann Landers, Paul Harvey, and even Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. But it was actually written by author Charles J. Sykes. Enjoy!

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teenager uses the phrase “It’s not fair” 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

Rule No. 2: The real world won’t care about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it’s not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won’t make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait ‘til you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he’s not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule No. 6: It’s not your parents’ fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of “It’s my life,” and “You’re not the boss of me,” and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it’s on your dime. Don’t whine about it, or you’ll sound like a baby boomer.

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn’t. In some schools, they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone’s feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don’t get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we’re at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

I had my annual check-up today (which is more of a “whenever I have health insurance” checkup), with the additional girly exam stuff and a full STD screen, as well. My blood pressure was a little high, but that’s likely due to the fact that I was on orders to eat nothing for 12 hours prior to the exam – so they could take a fasting blood workup, including cholesterol testing. I never go 12 hours without eating, because I start getting dizzy & shaky from low blood sugar after about 8 hours. Since I couldn’t really eat while I was at work last night, it turned out to be over 18 hours without eating!

My doctor, a really cool woman about my own age with the heart-warming name of Callaghan, said everything checked out fine during the exam. I’ll have a 1-2 week wait for all my tests to come back, but that’s tolerable. And I finally found out that the heart-skipping-beats thing that I’ve had for the last 2 or 3 years actually has a name: premature ventricular contractions. My doctor reassured me that, since in my case they don’t happen constantly (just a few minutes here & there), I don’t have additional symptoms, and there’s no heart disease on either side of my family, I have nothing to worry about. She assured me that, while I may notice them more often when I am stressed (due to adrenaline & other stress chemicals in the bloodstream), unless I also develop pain or shortness of breath, it’s annoying but harmless.

Considering that I think I’ve only experienced it a couple times in the last couple of months, whereas I was having them nearly every day when I worked at Slaver Ready, I’m not the least worried. Just another fun aspect of getting a little older, I guess.

So this is what I have to look forward to in about 15 years, give or take a few…

Signs of Menopause

• Hot Flashes: You sell your home heating system at a yard sale.
• Night Sweats: The person you sleep with complains about snow piling up on the bed.
• Mood Swings: Your husband jokes that instead of buying a wood stove, he is using you to heat the family room this winter. Rather than just saying you are not amused, you shoot him.
• Memory Loss: You write post-it notes with your kid’s names on them.
• Irritability: Your husband chirps, “Hi honey, I’m home,” and your reply is, “Well, if it isn’t Ozzie Nelson.”
• Sleeplessness: The Phenobarbital dose that wiped out the Heaven’s Gate Cult gives you four hours of decent rest.
• Fatigue: You find guacamole in your hair after a Mexican dinner.
• Mild Incontinence: You change your underwear after every sneeze.
• Sudden Weight Gain: You need the ‘Jaws Of Life’ to help you out of your car after returning home from an Italian restaurant.
• Dryness: You ask Jiffy Lube to put you up on a hoist.
• Female Hormone Deficiency: You take a sudden interest in “Wrestlemania.”

Apparently I need to work on my self-censorship just a wee bit more, now that I’ve gotten comfortable with my job. My boss had me listen to a recorded call that I completely BLEW on quality assurance review, because I made the mistake of not hitting the mute button before I let loose with a snarky remark. I’m actually pretty sure that I did hit the mute button, so I highly suspect that it does NOT prevent what we say on mute from being recorded when a customer is on the line – even though they tell us it does. So I don’t say anything nasty out loud anymore, even on mute; I just mouth the words vociferously.

Today there was a slew of flat-out stupid questions from what I’m pretty sure are new hires in the service department. Questions such as “Why is this line suspended after the customer made payment?” (the line is not suspended, ya idjit, which you’d see if you looked, so how about you do your job and troubleshoot the equipment!) and “Can you explain to the customer what their charges on each line are?” (no, that’s your job…oh, you don’t know how? call your supervisor and tell them you’re a dumbass!). Those replies in parentheses aren’t how I answered, but I sure wish I could have!

I suppose I’d be a better person if I patiently and calmly explained things with absolutely not a hint of condescension in my voice, not to mention more professional. Damn, sometimes it sure sucks being professional. *sigh*

Yesterday I felt like I was in some kind of crazy “Go” mode. The day began with zipping out to my ex Robert’s house to retrieve my demonspawn, who had spent the night there to babysit my goddaughter. Geoffrey and I spent our impromptu child-free evening watching a couple of DVDs and otherwise enjoying the solitude! “Dog Soldiers” was moderately entertaining, although I wouldn’t have thought that a British werewolf movie would have been. As “B” movies go, it was quite well-done.

Retrieving the demonspawn also included a bit of a moving job. Jen needed to find a new home for her pet, Fido, and so gave the critter to Angst. Fido’s cage is quite large (it’s a triangular cabinet meant to go in the corner, about 5 feet high) and weighs about as much as a medium bureau. While Geoffrey & I were hauling it into Angst’s bedroom, my hand got all ripped-up from the thick chicken-wire covering (for ventilation) on the top of the cage. Why is it that every time I bring new furniture into the house, it demands a blood sacrifice?!

So now the living creatures in our home include 5 humans, 2 felines, and a boa constrictor. Named Fido. I will uncharacteristically reserve my opinion on the name of the beastie. (But I’m sure you can guess.)

After leaving Robert’s house, we had to pick up Geoffrey & Kristina downtown. Fitting 5 humans into my minivan is normally no problem – because normally my minivan does not contain a 5-foot-tall snake cage! We managed, packed in like sardines.

Once getting the cage unloaded, we threw both the back seats into the minivan and raced out to Beaverton to pick up my Number One Internet Fanboy at Mari’s house. It was great getting Mari hugs, though cruddy that we couldn’t see more of her & Doug.

Then it was off to a BBQ at the home of one of Karel’s co-workers. My demonspawn played with their daughters (of almost the same ages) and their dog. I petted their cat. I barbequed steak (they don’t eat red meat so I brought some along…it’s not a BBQ without red meat!). We all ate a lot and had some nice conversation.

Then it was off to drop Karel & Kristina at their respective homes, and head home ourselves. Anxiety instantly emailed her new little friend, and informed me that they absolutely must hang out together over the summer. School still has a month to go (okay, 17 actual school days), and they’re already making summer plans!

As the bumper sticker says, if a woman’s place is in the home, why am I always in the car?!

Signs is a darned good movie. Signs is a darned scary movie. I don’t know why it didn’t do better at the box office, although I suspect it’s due to the several difficult, sad emotional sub-plots (including loss of faith in God, losing a spouse, and a recurring theme of abandonment). Mel Gibson is great, as are the kids who play his children.

I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who likes suspense movies. After seeing it, you’ll never look at a baby monitor the same way again. I haven’t been this jumpy during a movie since “The Ring.”

Karel should definitely not see this movie.

I don’t even know how I found this page, as the only websites that I actively seek out involving those themes belong to a couple of friends of mine who are darned perky about their particular involvement with D/s, and the ever-intruiging & entertaining Mistress Matisse. But it was an interesting read, though I do have a few opinions about it.

First of all, to the best of my knowledge, I don’t practice “power exchange based relationships” (which is, I guess, the long way to say “D/s relationships”). I have this thing about not being dominated, and I have this other thing about not being responsible for another adult’s choices. (I know that’s over-simplistic, but I’m trying to make another point entirely here.)

However, I don’t practice what the author of this page calls “vanilla relationships” – and I really don’t understand how anyone with half a brain does! But you don’t have to be into D/s to be into “safe, sane, & consentual,” or into just good ol’ responsible sensibility. Because relationships between adults where rules, responsibilities, and expectations of behavior aren’t discussed and agreed-upon, where there isn’t at least occasional evaluation of where the relationship is at, where it’s going, and which areas need improvement – well, that’s not a vanilla relationship, Ms Sandi. That’s a dysfunctional relationship.

I can’t decide whether I like my horoscope this week from Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology:

I’m falling in love with you all over again, Gemini. You’ve been turning frustration into fuel, and that has impressed me deeply. I’m fascinated by how you’ve been using your sense of desperation as a good excuse to go crazy in creative and constructive ways. Your inner child and your inner wiseass have been collaborating to pull off unpredictable departures from tradition, and I find that very entertaining. I especially admire the warrior energy you’ve been bringing to your dreams: how you punched a hole in the nightmare, how you told jokes to the monster, how you risked everything to wake up.

Yeah, baby. I’m all about using my frustration & desperation as warrior energy. Uh…hunh? I haven’t had any frustration & desperation in my life lately. It’s a Good Thing.