arrrgh

[egypturnash]

The fuckbag won, too, because it's 1AM and I can't sleep because my mind's replaying it in endless circles of 'what if I did/said this?' and he's probably collapsed in some kind of stupor somewhere. People like that are a good argument for the abolition of all men.

And this happened on a day when I was maintaining that I really need regular breaks of as few random stimuli as possible*, because going out in "normal" society is so damned much of an overload if your senses aren't completely dulled. I'd cited this as why I won't be showing up at the taping of the live-action bits for the next R&S; I'd like to see it, but the 4th is the last time I had any measure of solitude, as I spent the weekend visiting home on a tight schedule of seeing friends and relatives, then had to work this Saturday under a deadline. So I was already stressed even before I had to wait forever for my bus connection, then meet this bug-eyed belligerent.

Pacing, grousing, rehashing... none of my snide little arguments would work, of course, because he was too doped up to listen to anything I might actually have said. The idea of saying 'yeah, I'll take it outside!' and getting him off the bus, then waving as it takes off, leaving him to wait another hour, has merit, but I'd have probably gotten dragged off and ass-kicked, or his rage would've gotten vented on the next poor passer-by. Screaming "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!? YOU DON'T SPIT IN THE EYE OF SOMEONE YOU JUST MET ON THE FUCKING BUS!" at the top of my lungs has the problem of possibly scaring him into violence. Yeah, just listening to that voice that says 'warning, lunatic, get away' is probably the best... but mass transit is so crowded that it's hard to get away, and you don't want to relinquish your seat for every false alarm caused by the constant proximity.

I just wanted to quietly go home and go to sleep. But now I'm tense and angry and scared and I'm not gonna get to sleep any time soon. Shit.

* even to the point of theorizing that my detail-dropping style is a reaction to this: I have to deal with too much visual, aural, and psychic noise during the course of a week, and drawing these very simplified, evocative images is a way of fighting against it...

Comments

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Another vile minion of Porlock -- I can't help but feel that, on some magical realist level, the bastard manifested purely to fuck up your day and rattle your composure, then disappeared into the ether of utter irrelevance. Even if it's not literally true, he might as well have, since this is the biggest effect he'll probably ever have on the world unless next time he's up and outright killing the Person With Better Things To Do.

See, this bit about the "fuckbag winning" is exactly what I've been trying to drum on people's heads on my journal. We blame ourselves for whether our reactions are "stupid" or "smart," as if the smart parts of us were particularly well wired to the stupid parts... But the stupid parts exist in everybody, by design, and they have a tendency not to listen to reason. Otherwise, how could you be sitting there thinking "OK, I have to not dwell on this," while your hindbrain is still raging "stupid motherfucker" all evening?

Sure, the asshole pull-your-bootstraps-and-deal-with-it crowd is right, you can finagle yourself out of that mindstate, but it's not like flicking a switch -- it's labor, and it's labor that could have been much better devoted to better things. And worse, as you implied with what you said about seeking less sensory distractions, the mere fact of having to be vigilant and get your emotions under control is a distraction -- once it's happened, it's already too late. That's fine and dandy if all you're trying to do is calm yourself down, but it's all damned corrosive to creative states of mind, as you've clearly discovered for yourself...

My point in short, you're not freakin' stupid, you're just being hijacked by million-year-old thinking equipment that's not really suited for your high-primate creative ambitions -- and IMHO you're right to still want to efface scumbags like him from the Earth...

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Oh, here, as a token of my sympathy, here's my own bus psycho story.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

My brain is still going over this twit this morning, too.

I did wonder, essentially, if this guy was some kind of counterbalance to things going so well in the past month or two. I wasn't planning on doing anything creative last night or today; my plans pretty much are laundry, hair dye, and videogames - a nice quiet low-volume thoroughly controlled sort of day. Even that, though, is now going to have this twitchiness lying underneath it. sigh My tired and frazzled brain, vaguely practiced now in manipulating casuality for my own benefit, accidentally brings up some nastiness to balabne the better-and-better? Maybe. I'm reluctant to ascribe meaning to random events and coincidence; I always have been ever since the exceedingly malign coincidence of my 12th birthday.

But, yknow, I also feel sorry for him. Some of the stuff I half-caught through my headphones, when still in the Ignore It, Maybe It'll Go Away phase, suggests that he's been in jail*, and is pretty damn clearly looking to go right back; he's obviously got no idea how to deal with normal life, and probably never will. He's a stunted little ball of monkey hate. His life is likely to be nasty, brutish, and short.

And in the future, I must listen to the alarms in my head and get up and find another seat. If the confrontational looney follows, then maybe I'll be able to deal with it rationally, instead of bottling up my tension until it half explodes, and the rest bounces around my head for the next ten hours or so.

* also in the armed forces, I think. Another part of the stuff I caught in the Ignore It... phase, between jazz-zydeco-klezmer fusion tracks. Something about defending the country BUT NOT FOR PURPLE-HAIRED FAGOTZ. "Joined the Marines/to learn a skill/That he did/He learned how to kill." - Was Not Was, 11 MPH

Re:

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

I actually do get up a glimmer or more of sympathy for these totally dysfunctional types who end up dragging others down with 'em. Our notorious Roommates From Hell were somewhat less angry versions of him, who made up for it with more delusion and psychodrama -- and I got so many unwanted glimpses into their lives, I ended up really just wishing somebody could fix the poor things so they could be a net boon to humanity, not a net burden.

I dunno, I keep telling myself next time I'll do the smart thing and stay out of trouble. In my case I still have that frustrated revolutionary streak, but OTOH I also have postrodent as a strong motive to not get killed over something stupid. ("Only an asshole gets killed over a car!") I think you have the right idea, resolving to just get up and move next time, though -- making the decision to change environments is a hell of a lot easier than changing your gut reactions, and often the latter will follow from the former anyhow.

Huh. Another weird synchronicity. My dad died just before (though not on) my 12th birthday.

OMFG...

[(Anonymous)]

"...also in the armed forces, I think. Another part of the stuff I caught in the Ignore It... phase, between jazz-zydeco-klezmer fusion tracks. Something about defending the country BUT NOT FOR PURPLE-HAIRED FAGOTZ."

...YOU MET CLIFF YABLONSKI???!!!???

--PizzaFace

[mutleyjames.livejournal.com]

Last time I yelled at the latest junkie/prostitute /psycho issue occuring outside my apartment in the middle of the night - I got answered back, threateningly.
I was wearing only my underpants, so even the safety of the balcony didn't stop a sense of visible vulnerability that I took with me as I crept into bed and devised scenarios wishing I'd had water balloons and a louder, crankier voice.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah. All us scrawny freaks really need to learn The Alpha Primate Voice. The one with the undertone of 'do what I say or you will be fed to my children'.

[mutleyjames.livejournal.com]

Uh huh. It's so wierd, I have a fairly general voice that ramps up into a caterwauling screech when I am angry, one that can only be heard by dogs and cheerleaders.

*Thumps chest* Me need Alpha Primate, NOW.

[protocat.livejournal.com]

It might be a bit of a hassle and possibly too late.. But keep in mind, spitting on someone is *assault*. A crime. You can get the police invovled if you wish to.

I know that isn't going to take your mind off things any less.. but, well.. It's all I can suggest that's at all constructive other than my initial reply earlier.

*hugs tight*

[chrissawyer.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry that happened to you Peg.

I hope you feel better...

[rainwing.livejournal.com]

I'd probably only escalate things by telling you how much I'd like to beat him with something heavy and ragged and sharp. But there you go, and though I way overshot the sympathy phase, I still feel bad that you're a target for aimless rage amd stupidity.

[(Anonymous)]

if anything like this ever happens to you again, or if it becomes an ongoing problem on said bus route, please post said incident. i will see that it is taken care of.

[darkdingo.livejournal.com]

I should really take a bus ride with you sometime. Seriously. You know how hooligans leave people with mean looking dogs alone? I sort of have that effect on people. Creeps see me, they avoid the person i'm sitting next to as well.

I suppose this could be one good use for my abysmal charisma.

You'd have to feed me pizza or those little ritz crackers, though.

"woof"

Whats in a name...

[defenbaugh.livejournal.com]

And Mace is remarkable stuff. A mouth and eye-full of that and most people are harmless. Except for a few with a gene mutation that makes them immune to it.

What amazes me is that the bus driver didnt remove this person.