Spork’s pet peeves – 337.5

I have had a really chaotic past two weeks, and have not really been following my plan. I kept going up and down one pound from 338, and it was irritating, but I was mainly grateful that I was not going all the way back up. The main stressors have been resolved now, so it is time to really capitalize on that and get past this plateau. I challenged my sisters to a contest, so whoever posts the most weight loss this week gets to impose her methods on the other two. I think I have it in the bag.

(Of course for weight loss to be healthy and lasting, aiming for fast results is kind of bad, and can be dangerous, and making it a contest is certainly immature, so don’t try this at home. My methods are essentially healthy though, it is just being consistent with them. I will write about that some time, but I just feel like I need to have actually made some progress before I take the contract for the diet book. Losing the same five pounds eight times does not a nutrition expert make.)

Anyway, one thing that I have noticed is that when I am not taking good care of myself, regardless of the reason, I get much more easily irritated, and so it seemed like a good time to make a record of the things I find most annoying, despite them being fairly trivial. Nothing angers me more than racism or animal cruelty, for example, but these are things that are actually important, therefore they are not pet peeves. I am kind of on the fence about stupidity, because my level of annoyance with stupid people may be unreasonable, but stupidity certainly isn’t doing society any favors. I have come up with three things that I would abolish if I could, and maybe doing would make the world a better place, but probably non-profit organizations and picketing are not called for.

Soft, fluffy towels:
I hate these things. I feel like instead of drying me they are leaving the water on me while depositing lint. Obviously they are picking up some water, because I can tell the towel is becoming colder and wetter, but I remain unsatisfied with the level of dryness. The worst thing is that is how everyone is making them these days. We had to buy new ones, and could not find anything good and coarse. Maybe we need to try Wal-Mart or Dollar Tree or something, but then there will probably be lead in the dye. I’m primarily using beach towels now. They are still a little soft, but not as bad as modern bathroom towels.

The Family Circus:
I don’t suppose I really hate this—it is too innocuous to hate. It’s just that it isn’t funny and it is way too self-satisfied with how cute it thinks it is. It shouldn’t even matter. I should just be able to ignore it. The problem is that I really like comics, and I read as many as I can. One thing I love about the Oregonian is that when they merged with the Oregon Journal they took both sections, so we have two full pages of comics. So every day there I am, reading away, and I get to one that is stupid and irritating before I even think of avoiding it, and it is too late. I suppose I could train myself to skip that spot, but it hasn’t happened yet. There are others that tend to be unfunny, but none that smug about it, and none as long-lasting with the mediocrity.

The F-bomb:
I do hate the word itself, along with all profanity, but that in itself is something that is kind of important, because the proliferation of crude speech makes us less civil, less eloquent and specific (thus, poorer communicators), and it probably does kill brain cells. No, the pet peeve part is that expression for the one word. Bomb? Ha! Maybe it was explosive one hundred years ago, but now it is as overused as it is crass. It is a word. It is a stupid, ugly, dirty word about something that should be beautiful, but we have done far more degrading things with the act than with the word, so no, it is not a bomb, and calling it that sounds idiotic.

Rant over! At least, this particular rant is over. I am feeling a need to comment on the presidential race, and perhaps politics in general, so it is not impossible that a rant would emerge somewhere there. I mean, it is me.