Duck and Cover

There's just all this stuff going on that I don't completely understand, and that makes me imbue every little thing with a feeling of cringing doom. 


Some of it is paltry, insignificant or even humorous, some stuff just makes me angry or sad. It's a giant sensory and emotional overload that is making it hard to tell the big from the small. Here's just one example, which I'm sure will turn into a whole list.


When you pull out of Shayla's street to turn onto the main Boulevard there is a baby carriage just sitting there; parked on the sidewalk, and I didn't stop to see if there was a baby in it. I suspect that there is not. That's a long stretch of sidewalk, who was pushing it? Why did they decide that they would just pick up their baby and carry it the rest of the way? Did someone steal it? Why didn't they put a baby or some salvaged aluminum cans in it as they strolled away with it? Somehow the image of this abandoned stroller just creeps me out and fills me with dread.


Then there's dancing. When we went out for Blair's birthday I followed some of the party to a local bar where the DJ is convinced that everyone is deaf and therefore the music needs to be set at 500. Ok, I'm old, music just gets loud and bad when you're old so I can pretty much cover that with a smile. It's the dancing part I just don't get though. When I was younger, and still willing to dance it used to go like this:
"Hey, do you want to dance?"
"Um, sure."
Then you would dance for the duration of the song that was playing and maybe keep dancing, or say "Thanks" and go tell your friends whatever funny/sexy/retarded thing the guy did while you were dancing with him. Not so any more. Now the invitation to dance seems to be to back up to someone until your ass touches them and then kind of just hump it up and down. How you're supposed to know if the other person appreciates this I don't know, it's done with the back turned. From observation I have deduced that if the other person does not want to dance, they just kind of dance away and ignore it. If they accept the invitation this kind of humping thing starts to happen, and sometimes one or more people will join in till it's just this humpy little group of people, then everyone stops and laughs. Sometimes one person will start demonstrating a particularly funny joke dance-move, and everyone will watch and laugh, and then drink some more. This is mostly all girls dancing with each other. Don't get me wrong, guys will attach themselves to the humping thing if they think they can get away with it, but I didn't see any of them initiate dances that way. Maybe I didn't get it because I don't drink alcohol, or I'm almost one hundred years old. It did fill me with a sense of impending doom however.


Then there is facebook. I'm not a friend-counter, so if someone unfriends me I don't know immediately just by looking at my number of friends. I do have twelve people who always show on my page though, and when one of those drops me it freaks me out. That happened yesterday, and this was a good friend who won't answer my question as to why I'm just suddenly dropped. I shouldn't care about this because I'm not 16, but when my friends have issues with me and won't tell me I start thinking I'm a terrible person and everyone is going to leave me. This, plus the baby carriage and the dancing makes me want to hide under my bed.


Michael's going to start taking some medication that might make him feel sick, I never do my homework and I'm afraid that Michael will score higher on the last test than I did, we're trying to fit three tattoo artists and two body piercers into a space that will or will not feel comfortable, and Mac Johnson wants to eat all the seedlings out of the garden.


When I was little we were taught to get under our desks and cover the back of our necks with our clasped hands. I just really don't know how to respond in this particular perceived threat, if there is any threat at all.


All of this adds up to nothing really, but I just feel weird and anxious.