"Morale is better with a more casual dress-code."

Sometimes I'm extremely witty and I surprise myself. I promise that this meshes with the subject line, which is quoted from Peter's Evil Overlord List, which in itself is also witty and apropos.

I've just finished second breakfast (that potato method I mentioned earlier this week) and there's still coffee left. This makes me relatively cheerful. Hell. I'm actually warm, even in the feet.

So let me share the funny.

(There's a lot of setup for this, and for that I apologize.)

There is a popular yarn store near me. Pretty much all knitting social activities are populated by people who can trace their knitting "lineage" back there. (I learned on craft store yarn from library books, and in the knitting world that makes me the Masai tribesman living in Norway trying to make a living modeling Norwegian national swim team gear. Add in my unfeminine mannerisms--- especially social conventions-- and I really do not belong, even though I now eschew craft store yarns.) My experience shopping at this store is that it's somewhere where there is no parking on the street and even half a block off the main street is too dangerous to walk alone... it's certainly not safe to park there because the whole block is rimed with broken glass. It hardly matters whether I liked the store itself, it's impossible for something like that to be popular just because of logistics, right? Well, apparently not.

When I went into the store, I was looking for my first sweater's worth of real yarn. I'm a fat woman, I need at least L shirts if I don't want people to be able to read bra labels through the fabric. For a sweater, I'm not going to want it tight. I was going to be buying at least $80 of yarn, and a similar size friend spent $300 on her yarn. But even though I was standing at the counter with my yarn to be purchased, the clerk looked right through me, picked up the phone and placed a personal telephone call. Then a really skinny woman came in and shouted loudly that she wanted to make a baby bib. So the clerk jumped up and ran over. I said, "Pardon me, I am ready to check out and I have been waiting." The clerk said nothing and spent several minutes actively helping baby hat woman and trying to convince her to make a sweater for herself too. (The baby hat would probably take more yarn.) I blinked at the deliberate snub, set my yarn on the counter, and walked out without the clerk saying anything. (I've never been back.)

Recently I was talking to a friend about sweater patterns and how they get longer as they get wider, and how that makes no sense. I said, "The only thing added length means is that you'd buy extra yarn that the yarn store clerks would snub you for needing. That's the only explanation I can think of as for why a 24"-bust woman would get more attention than someone twice her size [in a yarn store]."

It was suggested that I am invisible. (This is not actually a new idea. It happens universally in JCPenney. I have to bring someone with me or the cashiers cannot see me at all. And it's been like that for 20 years. I've actually been tempted to stand on the counter and jump up and down with my Visa card so all the other customers point at me. My SO and I stood at the counter about 5 years ago; I had an armload of things he wanted to buy, the woman asked him, "Sir, did you have a question?" He said no, he was ready. And she said, "Where are your selections?" It was astounding.)

I replied (to the invisible comment), "But the Invisible Man put on clothes in order to be seen. The way the yarn store people act, they think I'm going to become the Emperor and need "new clothes". But they've got the wrong kind of Emperor, I'm thinking more like Palpatine."

3 disparate ideas mill about in my head like the three blind mice of musical fame

Is there a place one can go to retrieve memes when one has no friends who do such things?

Some of them look fun, I particularly like the discussion ones. Where, instead of it being telling all about one's self, it's something one thinks about a relatively innocuous subject and one's friends can jump in and share their opinions.

I am, however, extremely wary of things that ask seemingly innocuous questions and generate your "go-go dancer nickname" or whatever. Name of first pet, name of street where you grew up, name of first grade teacher... those are all things that are asked for security questions in various places like banks to verify online transactions.

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I'm tired of sex scenes where it's first base, second base, third base, oral sex, then Tab A into Slot A. (I try not to read too much of the Tab A into Slot B kind. And very very little of the "rub Tab A against Tab A from the second kit.") I've read sex scenes where they skip the kissing--- which is immediately followed with some discussion about whores (I didn't know that whores don't kiss clients, so it seemed like some myth fic writers created to generate imaginary conflict.) But I haven't read any erotic fiction where they skip the breast/nipple play. I'm sure there's some M/M stuff but I admit it does nothing for me and I don't read much of it; the little I do read seems to be written by middle-aged women with too many children and they are obsessed with talking and foreplay... I don't think all women like the same erogenous activities, but breasts aren't optional and I don't understand it. I've read erotic fiction where they never go below the waist but everyone gets off. But I have NEVER read erotic fiction where a female character's breasts don't matter. Most of the stuff written in the sex scenes would leave a woman's breasts covered in bruises and I just don't understand it. For a while, ~10 years ago, it seemed like all erotica was foot-obsessed. Just about every sex scene had toe-sucking in it. I remember my friends asking me if I thought it was erotic. Lately it seems like lots of writers are into spanking and light bondage. I see so much of these things that it's stopped seeming kinky.

I'd like to see a sex scene where a woman who has had a double mastectomy could still read it and be titillated but not feel inadequate.

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I felt less than inadequate today. I taught a bunch of people with whom I share no common language knitting skills. And I sucked less at it than last time.

I also went for Japanese food at a different place. I'd stopped eating there and now I remember why. They've got truly abysmal service and the menu prices do not match the prices charged. Food was good today, but I didn't get what I ordered. I ordered several kinds of sushi and received similar items. Not like I ordered veg and received fish, but like I got mushroom instead of cucumber. That's lame. But I might go back once more since it wasn't crowded.