Sparkling, Professional Resume aka Help Dan FINALLY Write His Own Resume (AGAIN)

I edited my resume and emailed it to Dan so he can write himself another resume to replace the one I had to write for him 2 years ago. Note: This resume contains racial humor, male chauvinism, and the word "retard". If you find this offensive, go away.

dan cleanyour squalidroom

YOUR ADDRESS* Brockvegas, MA 02301 * Phone: (877) 241-LUNA * Email: Danny@excite.com.

SKILLS:

·Extensive knowledge of Windows 7,Vista (sigh), XP and 2000 and HTML (sigh)

·Complete Non-Stupid-User Microsoft Office 2003/2007 proficiency and condescension

·Client server social networking using TCP/IP/Confusing Facebook Lists

·More than 8 years customer service hold button experience

·Ability to process requests and answer questions without sounding like a retard

·Graduate of Massachusetts Safe Driver Middle Finger Program

·OS installation: Microsoft Windows 98, XP, 7(prove you’re installing Vista & I’ll work 4 free)

·Printer installation, maintenance, and destruction in field via baseball bat

·Windows troubleshooting/making sure stupid users have their tower plugged in

·Premier professional and improvisational phone skills aka lies

·Comprehensive knowledge of Massachusetts highways, Asian/Quincy drivers, and potholes

·TIPS Certification aka “Don’t Serve Drunk Alcoholics, You Dumbass”

EXPERIENCE:

Confusing Series of Letters, Inc., Rockland Dood, MA                                 12/2009 to 3/2010

Collections Shark

Perfected call center, debtor fuckery, and rude telephone-slave skills in large, profit-driven Capitalist call shithole. Integral part of purchased debt sharktank. Gained further experience with automated call clients and clerical tasks including filing and faxing forms and affadavits to debtors and their shitty attorneys. Setup payment arrangements on balances owed via phone with checks and credit card fraud.

Borg Cube 56498, Delta Quadrant, MA                                                    11/2008 to 12/2008

Borg Collections Drone, Designation: 16 of 21

Call center drone for Delta Quadrant, MA based Borg law firm and collections collective. Duties included professional hailing of debtors on starships, at home, or at planet of business, outlining assimilation procedures and legal irrelevancies regarding cases, setup of payment arrangements, answering of debtor questions and concerns regarding legal ass-spelunking, and clerical tasks including ordering, printing, and filing of documents and reports. Gained experience assimilating biological and technological resources, using VOIP telephony implants, Borg skin bleaching techniques, and automated Borg-queen paradoxes.

Your Mom’s Vagina, Boxboro, MA                                                         8/2006 to 10/2008

Box Tech

Responsible for the setup of new vaginas, setup and troubleshooting of stupid users’ wired and wireless porn networks, STD virus and spyware removal, set up and management of cable and DSL internet connections and wireless networks, backup and recovery of pornography using Symantec Ghost and similar utilities, and assisting stupid users with Windows loadshooting in person, via telephone, chatroulette, manhunt, Bear411, Rest Stop Bathroom, and remote desktop.

Friend’s Failed LLC, Braintree, MA                                                       5/2006 to 5/2008          Driver/Customer Service Viking

Responsible for pick-up and delivery of owner, as well as audio, video, and lighting equipment by hastily-rented truck. Involved in the load-in, set-up, operation of, and load-out of aforementioned crap. Also, gained much experience in cooperating with effete clients, vendors, and prima donna musicians, preparing tacky aesthetic elements of productions, fighting idiot drivers in RI, and insuring the safety of our clients, their constituents, and other hastily-rented crap.

          

Woody’s Skank Emporium, Rockland, MA                                                  3/2005 to 6/2006 
Framer, Roofer, and Skank Maintenance

Worker for Private Escort company. Assisted Mr. Woody with destruction of homes in Effingham and Ossipee, NH. Other duties included: clean-up of cheap hotel rooms at end of shift, hauling shit up ladders and onto roofs, disposal/burning of aging or murdered skanks, transportation of dildos and materials to and from Econo Lodge, and listening to Mr. Woody yell at his son all day.

Steve Mahanahan’s Child-Clown Outlet, South Attleboro, MA                    1/2004 to 3/2005

Driver and Lead Child-Clown Cage Cleaner

Accountable for pick-up of donations of unwanted, retarded and/or female children at private residences by truck, planning of different child-clown pick-up routes daily, answering questions at the homes of our benefactors, and road checking/cleaning of box trucks/child-clown cages. Gained extensive knowledge of the entire eastern Massachusetts pothole! Graduated from the Massachusetts Safe-Driver Program after completion of video training and testing/sawed-off shotgun tutorial. 

Chang Wang Long Hung Dong House of Engrish, Bridgewater, MA            1/2000 to 1/2004

Dwivah and Custoomah Serwice Wepwesentateeve

Responsibilities included delivery of hot Chang food to private residences with shitty private vehicle, evasion of the hated Bridgewater PoPo, communication with customers over the phone while writing orders in confusing symbols, handling dickhead customer demands while waiter was occupied with his girlfriend, cleaning and organizing the counter area/phone center of the dump, assembling extra bags of weed for inclusion in our product, and engendering a friendly and non-threatening Asian encounter for our Caucasian guests. Over 4 years of ass-kissing, became a fwiend of the family.

EDUCATION:

            Bridgewater-Raynham Regional Young Person’s Prison/Totalitarian Jockaucracy of Doom

Class of 1999. Was a member of Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School’s Currently Nonexistant Marching and Concert Bands. Member of  Bridgewater-Raynham’s  Regional Champion F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Team, Lions Club Allstate clarinetist and skin flautist.

Massasoit AKA Brockton High School Graduate Fifth Year Daycare

Graduate of incredibly easy GED Testing Program, February 2008. Was angry I scored perfect in multiple choice math and not the essay section. The female instructor was biased against my Star Trek essay, and wore a ridiculous wig.

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Clearly, 90% > 10%

Clearly, 90% > 10%

by John Buckley on Saturday, October 23, 2010 at 6:46am

10/23/10


To Dan Lozzi and Contributing Writers of The Outlook,


Greetings! I was referred to your website via Facebook invite by several of my friends. These are people I've known for a long time; persons of quality with whom I've had the pleasure of associating for many years. I greatly enjoyed reading your articles, and 90% of what you are encouraging I support. I agree with your views regarding the current "society of sickness" paradigm forced upon the populace through rampant consumerism and the subjugation and manipulation of the natural world, achieved conscience free in the eyes of many for it is cloaked in the noble veil of globalization and conscientious capitalism. Anti-consumerism, environmentalism, feminism, conservation, animal rights, cessation of domestic violence, recycling, and respect for fellow occupants of this planet are all ideals I support and aspire to champion, and it is refreshing to see them so plainly and furtively enunciated. There is, however, one glaringly offensive statement that your group has made, and I wanted to take the time to make you aware of it because, for the most part, I appreciate what you and your contributors are advocating.


In your article "Progression Through Quantum Calculus Motions" there is a short paragraph dedicated to the recently conspicuous fight over the recognition of the human rights of gay persons, specifically gay marriage, by the LGBT community and their supporters in Congress. In this article, and forgive me if I have somehow misinterpreted, you imply that the current battle over legislation to legalize gay marriage is part of "an extension of loose attitudes we have in general when dealing with relationships" and then presume to speciously correlate it with "junior high girls kiss[ing] each other to get attention from boys" and "people [who] decide that they are going to try being homo or bi-sexual for a little while just to see how it feels" and then assert that the battle over the inalienable human rights of gay persons to marry "does absolutely nothing to help gain acceptance for the very tiny segment of the population who are actually born gay."  The contrived logic of this statement is obviously flawed, marring the righteous message of so many other admirable remarks in your essays.


The struggle for equal recognition under the law by the gay community should not be capriciously associated with such non sequitur, anecdotal, and obviously pejorative social commentary. It could be inferred that the author's obvious disdain for the subjects of reference seeks to, implicitly rather than explicitly, diminish and discredit the true and just cause for which many people, including myself, continue to fight for daily. It is also curious that the author would choose to preface the paragraph by stating, "I not only have nothing against those who are gay, but I am also offended by mean spirited attitudes towards them," for any other purpose than to obfuscate a congruently mean spirited anti-gay-marriage message and to coat the author's socially conservative stance on this "controversial issue" in a medium palatable enough to be overlooked by gay readers. Of course, if I have somehow misinterpreted the position of The Outlook and its contributors, I entreat you to enlighten me with a less confusing and more thoroughly reasoned interpretation of your views regarding this crucial and highly visible human rights issue.


Recently, I came across a back-and-forth between Dan Savage, a prominent author, journalist, and gay rights activist and "L.R.", a politely bigoted Christian person commenting on Savage's comments regarding the bullying of gay youths and how it is perpetuated by intolerance in the home. I'll let you read the short conversation yourself as opposed to trying to distill it for you:


Gay Kids Are Dying, Fuck Your Feelings


October 14, 2010


Dear Dan:  I was listening to the radio yesterday morning, and I heard an interview with you about your It Gets Better campaign. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bullying. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage, I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man who took his own life.

If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preference, how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man, and I know for a fact that is true of many other people who disagree with your viewpoint.

To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are all imperfect, fallible, and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people.

Please consider your viewpoint, and please be more careful with your words in the future.

—L.R.


Savage:

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.

No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective: Fuck your feelings.

A question: Do you "support" atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All are legal, all go against Christian and/or traditional ideas about marriage, and yet there's no "Christian" movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or people divorcing and remarrying.

Why the hell not?

Sorry, L.R., but so long as you support the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, it's clear that you do believe that some people—straight people—are "better or more worthy" than others.

And—sorry—but you are partly responsible for the bullying and physical violence being visited on vulnerable LGBT children. The kids of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or in your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. And while you can only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, your children have the option of attacking actual gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.

Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners." Gay and lesbian children.

Try to keep up: The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of "faithful Christians," and the lies about us that vomit out from the pulpits of churches that "faithful Christians" drag their kids to on Sundays, give your children license to verbally abuse, humiliate, and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your children—having listened to Mom and Dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry—feel justified in physically abusing the LGBT children they encounter in their schools. You don't have to explicitly "encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate" queer kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It's here, it's clear, and we're seeing the fruits of it: dead children.

Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words?

Did that hurt to hear? Good. But it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as what was said and done to Asher Brown and Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas and Cody Barker and Seth Walsh—day-in, day-out for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the image of the hateful and false "followers of Christ" they call Mom and Dad.



Clearly, Savage is angry, but rightfully so in this case. The LGBT community is sick and tired of listening to straight people try to justify their homophobia with statements about how their children will be negatively affected by exposure to openly queer relationships. There is no way that legislation allowing gays to marry could possibly warp the minds of children more than religious intolerance, television, commercialism, or chemicals will, and to suggest that teenage girls kissing each other in hallways and people experimenting with homosexuality is somehow associated with the moral rot of society is ignorant and pathetic. Everyone has the power to choose their own actions, and considering the sheer volume of mockery and hatred heaped upon openly gay people, why would anyone "choose" such a difficult path if it was not somehow ingrained in their very being? What really screws with kids' minds is the implication that if they have feelings of a homosexual, bisexual, or gender-queer nature, they are somehow sinful, damaged, disordered, and/or unworthy of love. When they are forced to deny their innermost selves because they know exposing it will lead to ridicule, rejection, violence, and bigotry, these strong natural feelings are suppressed, often leading to self-hatred, substance abuse, and even suicide. I guarantee you that LGBT people constitute much more than a "very tiny segment of the population."  Many reputable studies have shown that approximately 10% of the population is LGBT, but the real question is: What percent of the population is still afraid to admit their true sexual identities to themselves, let alone someone else?


But I digress, I do agree with and enjoy 90% of what The Outlook has to say. I've decided to send Outlook Massachusetts a friend request on Facebook. Aside from what I've read, I like what most of my old friends are saying about your group, and I especially like the fact that the notorious gentleman and scholar, R. Gregory Frazier, is now one of your contributors... or at least that's what I've been told. As I mentioned in the beginning, the people who referred me to your group are people of quality. Running the numbers on what I've liked versus what I've disagreed with on your website, I approximate a ratio of 90% to 10%, and I'm guessing I can tolerate that 10%, given that it's such a "very tiny segment" of your work, and clearly, 90% > 10%.


Regards,


John Buckley
crushercub81@gmail.com
http://indigentsia.blogspot.com
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A Note to The Outlook, 10/23/10

10/23/10


To Dan Lozzi and Contributing Writers of The Outlook,


Greetings! I was referred to your website via Facebook invite by several of my friends. These are people I've known for a long time; persons of quality with whom I've had the pleasure of associating for many years. I greatly enjoyed reading your articles, and 90% of what you are advocating I support. I agree with your views regarding the current "society of sickness" paradigm forced upon the populace through rampant consumerism and the subjugation and manipulation of the natural world, achieved conscience free in the eyes of many for it is cloaked in the noble veil of globalization and conscientious capitalism. Anti-consumerism, environmentalism, feminism, conservation, animal rights, cessation of domestic violence, recycling, and respect for fellow occupants of this planet are all ideals I support and aspire to champion, and it is refreshing to see them so plainly and furtively enunciated. There is, however, one glaringly offensive statement that your group has made, and I wanted to take the time to make you aware of it because, for the most part, I appreciate what you and your contributors are advocating.


In your article "Progression Through Quantum Calculus Motions" there is a short paragraph dedicated to the recently conspicuous fight over the recognition of the human rights of gay persons, specifically gay marriage, by the LGBT community and their supporters in Congress. In this article, and forgive me if I have somehow misinterpreted, you imply that the current battle over legislation to legalize gay marriage is part of "an extension of loose attitudes we have in general when dealing with relationships" and then presume to speciously correlate it with "junior high girls kiss[ing] each other to get attention from boys" and "people [who] decide that they are going to try being homo or bi-sexual for a little while just to see how it feels" and then assert that the battle over the inalienable human rights of gay persons to marry "does absolutely nothing to help gain acceptance for the very tiny segment of the population who are actually born gay." The contrived logic of this statement is obviously flawed, marring the righteous message of so many other admirable remarks in your essays.


The struggle for equal recognition under the law by gay community should not be capriciously associated with such non sequitur, anecdotal, and obviously pejorative social commentary. It could be inferred that the author's obvious disdain for the subjects of reference seeks to, implicitly rather than explicitly, diminish and discredit the true and just cause for which many people, including myself, continue to fight for daily. It is also curious that the author would choose to preface the paragraph by stating, "I not only have nothing against those who are gay, but I am also offended by mean spirited attitudes towards them," for any other purpose than to obfuscate a congruently mean spirited anti-gay marriage message and to coat the author's socially conservative stance on this "controversial issue" in a medium palatable enough to be overlooked by gay readers. Of course, if I have somehow misinterpreted the position of The Outlook and its contributors, I entreat you to enlighten me with a less confusing and more thoroughly reasoned interpretation of your views regarding this crucial and highly visible human rights issue.


Recently, I came across a back-and-forth between Dan Savage, a prominent author, journalist, and gay rights activist and "L.R.", a politely bigoted Christian person commenting on Savage's comments regarding the bullying of gay youths and how it is perpetuated by intolerance in the home. I'll let you read the short conversation yourself as opposed to trying to distill it for you:


Gay Kids Are Dying, Fuck Your Feelings



October 14, 2010



Dear Dan: I was listening to the radio yesterday morning, and I heard an interview with you about your It Gets Better campaign. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bullying. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage, I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man who took his own life.

If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preference, how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man, and I know for a fact that is true of many other people who disagree with your viewpoint.

To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are all imperfect, fallible, and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people.

Please consider your viewpoint, and please be more careful with your words in the future.

—L.R.



Savage:

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.

No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective: Fuck your feelings.

A question: Do you "support" atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All are legal, all go against Christian and/or traditional ideas about marriage, and yet there's no "Christian" movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or people divorcing and remarrying.

Why the hell not?

Sorry, L.R., but so long as you support the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, it's clear that you do believe that some people—straight people—are "better or more worthy" than others.

And—sorry—but you are partly responsible for the bullying and physical violence being visited on vulnerable LGBT children. The kids of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or in your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. And while you can only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, your children have the option of attacking actual gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.

Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners." Gay and lesbian children.

Try to keep up: The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of "faithful Christians," and the lies about us that vomit out from the pulpits of churches that "faithful Christians" drag their kids to on Sundays, give your children license to verbally abuse, humiliate, and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your children—having listened to Mom and Dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry—feel justified in physically abusing the LGBT children they encounter in their schools. You don't have to explicitly "encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate" queer kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It's here, it's clear, and we're seeing the fruits of it: dead children.

Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words?

Did that hurt to hear? Good. But it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as what was said and done to Asher Brown and Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas and Cody Barker and Seth Walsh—day-in, day-out for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the image of the hateful and false "followers of Christ" they call Mom and Dad.



Clearly, Savage is angry, but rightfully so in this case. The LGBT community is sick and tired of listening to straight people try to justify their homophobia with statements about how their children will be negatively affected by exposure to openly queer relationships. There is no way that legislation allowing gays to marry could possibly warp the minds of children more than religious intolerance, television, commercialism, or chemicals will, and to suggest that teenage girls kissing each other in hallways and people experimenting with homosexuality is somehow associated with the moral rot of society is ignorant and pathetic. Everyone has the power to choose their own actions, and considering the sheer volume of mockery and hatred heaped upon openly gay people, why would anyone "choose" such a difficult path if it was not somehow ingrained in their very being? What really screws with kids' minds is the implication that if they have feelings of a homosexual, bisexual, or gender-queer nature, they are somehow sinful, damaged, disordered, and/or unworthy of love. When they are forced to deny their innermost selves because they know exposing it will lead to ridicule, rejection, violence, and bigotry, these strong natural feelings are suppressed, often leading to self-hatred, substance abuse, and even suicide. I guarantee you that LGBT people constitute much more than a "very tiny segment of the population." Many reputable studies have shown that approximately 10% of the population is LGBT, but the real question is: What percent of the population is still afraid to admit their true sexual identities to themselves, let alone someone else?


But I digress, I do agree with and enjoy 90% of what The Outlook has to say. I've decided to send Outlook Massachusetts a friend request on Facebook. Aside from what I've read, I like what most of my old friends are saying about your group, and I especially like the fact that the notorious gentleman and scholar, R. Gregory Frazier, is now one of your contributors... or at least that's what I've been told. As I mentioned in the beginning, the people who referred me to your group are people of quality. Running the numbers on what I've liked versus what I've disagreed with on your website, I approximate a ratio of 90% to 10%, and I'm guessing I can tolerate that 10%, given that it's such a "very tiny segment" of your work, and clearly, 90% > 10%.


Regards,


John Buckley

crushercub81@gmail.com

http://indigentsia.blogspot.com/

The Outlook's article, "Progression Through Quantum Calculus Motions" can be found at the following URL: http://www.outlook-site.org/calculus.html
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A Letter To Taco Bell About Homophobia

Dear Sirs,

My partner and I visited STORE #004456 in Seekonk, MA tonight and from a far corner of the dining room we heard a male employee talking to two of his friends (non-employees) at the front counter. They were discussing how much a "quarter" of marijuana would cost the employee. We also heard the employee use the Spanish word "maricon" which translates to "faggot" in English. We were extremely offended by this homophobic statement and believe reparations should be made/disciplinary action should be taken. We were as far from the counter as we could have been in the dining room and still heard this outwardly homophobic employee discussing his illegal drug purchases. I am sending this email in order to bring this egregious ignorance to your company's attention.

Sincerely,
John Buckley

Yeah... weedspeak is ok but homophobia results in letters.
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A Cloud Over Me (Something old but worthy. From 2007.)

I've been up all night and dawn is breaking over Fort Hill in Roxbury. It's cold in here. My hands are freezing. The windows in Richard's study are open. I'm not going to shut them. The Pru has this odd stratocumulus cloud over it. Pink. It appears as a frozen line drawn through the sky. Clouds are made of ice crystals, you know.

After going to bed around midnight, Richard woke up at 4:30 am to piss. After climbing back up the stairs, he walked into the study and asked what I was doing online. I told him that I was trying to download some Java because his computer wouldn't properly open a chat applet I was using. He proceeded to sit down on a stool next to me and watch.....and talk.

I don't remember all the topics he touched on, but a few include: his dead pets, a deep-sea fishing trip, his mortgage, his sister's breast cancer, his neighbor, a cigarette lighter, and how he was sick of water. I pretended to care, making the obligatory eye contact now and again. His bull mastiff mix Zeus appeared, roused from his slumber on Richard's bed by our conversation or by the prospect of being let outside. He forced his way between our two seats and sat down, staring at Richard. Then he left the room; then returned. He left and returned again. He shook violently, sending up a decent cloud of dog hair, some of which is all over my right side. The conversation topic changed to Zeus. I continued my computing, now downloading iTunes.

The installation of iTunes included a re-installation of Quick Time. It took about 5 minutes, wherein the computer was essentially useless. More eye contact. A topic change. Another cloud of dog hair. Fully annoyed by then, I was really wishing Richard and Zeus would go back to sleep in the bedroom. After watching the download, Richard wondered out loud if Invader Zim was on. He said he was going to find out and sat down in the living room, directly behind the computer desk.

The plasma on the wall to my right booted up and Nicktoons was soon blaring its ridiculous sound effects throughout the two rooms. A Nicktoons bump. A Gogurt commercial. A commercial for dolls made in China. I asked Richard tentatively and very politely if he would mind watching TV in the bedroom because I didn't care to listen to it right then. After a minor guilt-trip, Richard and Zeus withdrew. I returned to one of the websites I had been on when I had been interrupted and resumed my conversation there. It lasted barely another ten minutes.

Richard reappeared, visibly angered, and said that we needed to talk... now. I knew what was coming. We have had a few of these kind of chats. Standing over me, Richard went on about how he shouldn't have to alter his regular habits to accommodate me. I asked if he regularly woke up at 4:30 in the morning to watch cartoons. (Previously, I had never seen him up before 7:30 am.) Apparently this wasn't the point. He said that he wanted to watch cartoons. I said that I had asked him nicely if he could watch them in the bedroom and he had agreed. Richard said that after he had returned to the bedroom, he had become so infuriated that I told him not to watch cartoons that he had to say something to me. At this time I experienced an adrenal rush and began to tremble with anger. I told Richard that I never said that he couldn't watch television at that moment and then included the fact that I had wondered why I hadn't heard the television turn on in the bedroom shortly thereafter. Richard said that I had told him not to watch cartoons.

Needless to say, 45 minutes and 2 cigarettes later, Richard retired to the bedroom again, but not before he had said that he thought we needed a break from each other and not before I said that that I wasn't sorry that I'd asked him NICELY to watch cartoons in the bedroom at 4:45 in the morning. Since then, I haven't heard anything. No cartoons. The cable works just fine in the bedroom. Perhaps he has fallen asleep again, finally. The silence is not complete, however. I can hear birds outside the window and the sounds of Boston waking up.

Yesterday, sans help, I personally cleaned Richard's filthy, mold-colony filled refrigerator and freezer because I couldn't stand the idea of having anything I might eat being housed in such a noisome and unhealthy atmosphere. This included taking out and scrubbing the drawers and racks, and getting down on my hands and knees to clean the very bottom of the inside of the refrigerator which was covered in water and disgusting mold-mess. After that, I helped Richard move several pieces of furniture into the basement, including a range that must have weighed 170 pounds. After that, I swept the kitchen and dining room as they were full of dog-hair dust-kittens from our rearrangement.

I am justified in placing myself on a cross here. Halfway through writing the above paragraph, I thought that perhaps it would best belong at the top of this piece, right after my melancholy introduction. I decided against placing it there because: 1. this is how it grew naturally 2. its placement there insures a certain level of moral indignation on behalf of the reader and 3. I would be cheating myself out of great martyr material. Pragmatism demands I make use of that opportunity.

The cloud is now far offshore and has turned white. It is also significantly lower on the horizon, appearing slightly below the level of the Pru's observation deck. It was prettier before it moved down behind the building, which bisects it with stark, angular insistence. I'll not see what the clouds over Boston look like tomorrow morning. I'm still cold. And I'm still not sorry.

No regrets.
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