keep out

i wish that i could put a sign on my personal space bubble instructing people to leave me the hell alone sometimes. i don't want to hear about how my cubiclemate is having the best sex ever with young mister longacre. i can't even begin to express how ill-equipped i am to listen to how amazing your relationship is and how you're planning on taking him to the smithsonian for your one-year anniversary of fucking bliss when i'm rocking the xenophobe. i don't want to hear about today's ticker story or the website request forms or hey the newsletter's supposed to go out today or anything. that you're on a plane to china. that your carburetor was making a funny noise. maybe later. i will be interested in a few minutes. but not while i'm still pouring myself into the mold that people are used to seeing of me. let me dry while the armor sets.

i don't want to be harassed for not acknowledging attention that i neither want nor solicit. i don't want to have my ass commented on and then yelled at for not giving a smile, a response, my phone number as a prize. you have to do better tricks than that to get those from me. not many, judging from my track record, but something.

i don't want people to try and sell me jesus on the subway. i don't want people to stare at me on the subway. i don't want panhandlers to make me feel like an asshole for not giving them money when they shill me on the subway, shaking their paper cups in my face. some days...some days i just want that invisibility cloak.

when i am in a liminal state--waking up, traveling, checking my duty roster at the office--when i am in a liminal state, all i want out of life is not to be fucked with or otherwise disturbed. it's not that i don't care, but there's a time and a place. and that time and place is not when i'm out of phaze.

so take this as a rule of thumb: when i am scowling and ensconced in the noise world that is my headphones, just don't even bother. because i'm either concentrating really hard on something or just not in a mood for human consumption. either way, i do not want to be disturbed. at all.

save yourself the pain of getting snapped at by me. save me the pain of guilt for snapping. come back in half an hour, whatever. just...please. i would love to pay attention to you, but i can't always. and if you demand my attention when i can't--or won't--give it to you, then we are going to have a problem.

i am now going to go drink the biggest motherfucking hot chocolate in these here united states and maybe, just maybe, chill the fuck out.

this has been a public service rant brought to you by the "shivery doesn't really mean to be a bitch" foundation.