(Yes, that is also the title of a Batman Animated episode, but trust me, it's especially fitting for this particular post.)

Sleaze-tastic day at The Job today, entirely due to one particularly annoying and somewhat creepy guy who comes in with the trucks and unloads them in the back of the store (termed a "swamper" apparently, I have no idea why.)

I originally met this guy a couple of weeks ago when I working out on the floor; he looks about forty or so and he just randomly walked up to me and began chatting me up.  It started out as simply a little weird and very soon became irritating as he continued to repeatedly and purposefully track me down in the store through out the day.  A co-worker in one of the departments I was working in that day had been keeping her eye on him and reported to me later in the day that he'd approached her and asked her to say "hi" to me for him.  o_O  Ick.  Just... no.

But whatever.  The day ended, he left the store, all was good.  I made sure to mention the stalker-ish actions of said Creeper to one of my managers (we shall refer to him as Manager #1, as we have an absurd amount of managers in the store at once at any given time) that day so he was aware of it, but figured that was the end of it.

Except today I was asked to help out back in the warehouse to scan in stock, and low and behold an hour or two into the morning I hear this voice and turn around and there he is.  The Creeper.  As he exclaims a surprised and happy hello as he recognizes me, I in turn walk out of the warehouse and track down Manager #1 where he's out on the store floor and poke him:

"Manager #1!  That guy that just came into the warehouse, THAT'S THE GUY."  D:

Manager #1 grimaces in sympathy, advises me to ignore him, and gives me the green light to tell Creeper to fuck off if necessary and I'm all damn straight. \o/  As we're talking though, Manager #2 comes up and is all "?" so I explain how the sleazy truck guy has a crush on me and won't leave me alone, and upon hearing this, Manager #2 squares his great big fatherly shoulders, turns on his heel and stomps off towards the warehouse purposefully. But I'm all "Nooooooooooo... *flail flail*" because while this guy is totally annoying he's yet to say or do anything actually inappropriate, and I don't necessarily want to get him in shit and feel even more uncomfortable around him for the rest of the day than I already did, so I chase him down and ask him to leave it be.  (In hindsight, I completely should have let Manager #2 rail on him.)

So I proceed to carry on with my scanning work, and all the while through out the day Creeper is working with the warehouse guys unloading the truck a dozen feet away and consistently popping his head around the makeshift wall of boxes erected between our areas to keep up a steady stream of chatter to me.

"So what are you're hobbies, Brenna?"

"What shows do you watch, Brenna?"

"What do you think of this music, Brenna?"

"They must have given you Employee of the Year award, eh Brenna?"

"Here, let me help clean up those boxes, Brenna."

I'm reaching a point where I'd very much like to tell him to shut the hell up, but because I am far too polite for my own good at times, I ignore him for the most part and try to appease him with my taciturn contributions to this one-sided conversation he's carrying on.  He actually goes as far as to ask me if I'd like to go to McDonalds with him when he leaves for lunch.  (Needless to say I favored the sandwich waiting for me upstairs in our dingy work breakroom to his invitation.  I also purposely timed my half-hour lunch to directly coincide when he returned from his lunch to make an entire blissful hour of No Creeper Time.)

During the afternoon though he apparently decided to raise his creepy flirtation bar though.

"So are you a student, Brenna?  Are you going to school?"

"Yes."

"What are you taking?"

"Library Technology."

"Ooh, librarian, eh?  I don't really see you as a librarian --" (Wait for it... the line crossing officially... starts...) "You're face, maybe, with the glasses; but your body is too smoking hot to be a librarian."  (... NOW.)

I can't tell you why I didn't speak up at that point, I know I should have.  A part of it, I think, was that I was a little nervous what would happen if I did tell him to shut his mouth.  Let's face it, I don't know this guy from Joe Bob Dandy and I didn't want to have to feel like I had to ask for an escort out to my car at the end of the day.  To be honest I think I was mostly too embarrassed and angry to even speak.  There was a definite skin crawling sensation and I remember very clearly thinking at that moment that I wish I'd taken Mason up on his offer of getting a bunch of his tradesmen buddies together to kick this asshole's teeth in.  But in any event, I did nothing, just turned away very pointedly and continued on with my work as he stood there grinning moronically at me overtop the (not high enough!) wall of boxes, mostly likely waiting for a reaction I wasn't giving him.

A bit later Creeper is back to try again and returns to a line of topic conversation he'd pried out of me earlier in the day when he'd asked if I lived in the city and I'd replied yes and with a very emphasized "WE" thrown in with my answer to hopefully imply to him that I was not single and not looking and he was welcome to bugger the hell off any time now -- he puts on that stupid, obnoxious smirk and is all:

"So that 'we' that you mentioned earlier, you're with someone?"

"Yes. I'm married."

"Oh and does he know about me? Did you tell him all about me?"

"Yes, I told him there was some guy at work who keeps --"

"Oggling you?"  *Eyebrow waggle now accompanies motherfucking stupid grin WANT TO PUNCH HIM IN HIS STUPID SMIRKING FACE*

That is the point something snapped in my so far previously impassive front and I basically dropped the box of merchandise I was holding and looked him right in the face and wanted to scream at him "FUCK THE FUCK OFF, YOU MOTHERFUCKING FUCKER" -- but really I could never say that because unfortunately I'm a giant wimp -- but I did instead say "Can you GO AWAY?" which admittedly lacks the extra oomph that the string of expletives would have delivered, but still, bully for me I think and in any event it seemed to do the trick.  He looked startled and sort of backed away and that was the last I heard from him for the remainder of the afternoon.

I passed Manager #1 as I was heading upstairs to clock out at the end of my shift and told him how I'd had to finally tell the guy to screw off and Manager in question promised that he'd be making a phone call to Creeper McCreepinstein's employer tomorrow morning.

This is the first time I've experienced any sort of male harassment like this.  In my time I've gotten the odd catcall aimed towards me a couple of times as I walk down the street, but if I have to be perfectly honest those have never bothered me at all.  This was different.  This guy made me uncomfortable, and more over he made me angry.  I hate that he was so thick he couldn't take a hint from my stony reception towards him that he should back off.  I hate that he for some reason felt it was acceptable to say those sorts of inappropriate -- and frankly douchebaggery -- remarks to me, especially while present in front of other co-workers.  I hate that the two warehouse guys in question who were there knew that I didn't like the guy, because I had told them I didn't like him, and yet they never bothered to step in and quietly pull him aside to tell him to lay off.  I hate that this guy made me wish that a manager was present hovering over my shoulder all the time to chaperone for me.  I hate how, even despite how he finally backed off after I'd yelled at him, I still kept looking over my shoulder as I walked across the parking lot to go home.

Mostly I hate that I didn't stand up for myself and tell him to stop sooner.

And mostly I hate that I didn't kick him right in the balls, because he deserved it.  Talk about empowering.

Hahaha, oh dear.  I was looking back at the sadness which was me in my high school yearbook the other day and it was a sad, sad state of affairs.  Sullen-faced tomboy, meet bitter angsty teen!

It got me thinking of who I am now compared to who I was then, and who I could have been if I'd done things differently.  I think to myself, what would have happened if I'd changed what I wore, or taken the initiative to approach someone in the hall, or stood up and told any one of the half dozen individuals who carried out a fairly constant string of belittlement upon me from grade to grade to go fuck themselves?  Where would I be now?

But then I realize that if I had done any of those things I probably wouldn't be the same person I am today -- the notion of which is admittedly intriguing, but also alarming.  I've always been a strong believer that the experiences in your past, good and bad, have direct influence in shaping who you become.  I don't know where I'd be in my life or who I would have developed into if junior high and high school had gone differently, but what is clear is that I am a mentally and emotionally healthier person now than I was several years ago, or even prior to then.

Do I still hope that certain people who mercilessly picked on me back during school are these days now miserable, penniless, and lying hungry and alone in the gutter?  Of course I do.  I'm still shallow and bitter in that way and if I put my mind to it I can hold one hell of a grudge.  However, I consider myself much more optimistic now too and I think most people who knew me both then and now could attest to that.  Not everything is black and white anymore -- I've developed some variable shades of grey in regards to many things I used to be particularly opinionated about; on politics, on people, on relationships, on life. I'm more upbeat.  In general I value myself more, both emotionally and body-wise, and I'm no longer convinced the world is toting some personal vendetta to screw me over.  (An encouraging concept.)  The point is, who knows if I would have ever gotten to this point if I hadn't gone through the whole sullen, angsty, bitter teenage phase?

With this in mind, I finally got around to taking part in a (very long overdue) DeviantArt "time warp" meme that's been floating around for ages and I've been too lazy to complete until now.  :P  (Ignore the craptacular inking and coloring, like I said, I was lazy and it was a quick job.)  Commemorating all the lame, the embarrassing, the goofy, the bitter, (and the horrible fashion choices) that have made you who you are.

(Click to embiggen)

No sir, you couldn't pay me to go back to my junior high and high school days.  But you also couldn't pay me to make them disappear, because who's to say I wouldn't presently disappear along with them?

Change.  Personal evolution.  It makes me excited to think about where I'll be in another ten years from now.  :D

As much as I loved the ol' Boston Legal design, the beige-on-brown text and background color scheme has always been rough on my eyes for some reason and routinely gave me headaches if I was reading for any extent of time.  :P  So what better excuse to spruce up the site and usher in a new pretty blog theme?  And what better theme to center this one around than my obsession of reading!  \o/

(Excuse me while I go all web developer geek on you all now.)

This layout was an interesting lesson in incorporating all sorts of fun new behind-the-scenes tricks that made it a bit of a horror to code.  For example, it was my first time dabbling in both CSS rounded corners and drop shadows!  How could I have never used these two things before?!  Very cool.  No transparent PNG's to mess with for layout this time around, folks.  What made it a small nightmare at times during the build though was all of the layering and positioning of everything that I overlooked during the designing process.  What looked so straightforward in Photoshop made for lots of frustrated flailing and teeth gnashing when it came to putting it all together.  Usually my templates are very block-centric and this layout broke all of my usual rules with content and sidebars and headers and footers all running into each other and mashing together.  :x

Yes, I'm aware that I've utilized some CSS3 and HTML5 elements that aren't fully supported on all browsers yet -- and who knows to God what this poor blog looks like in Internet Explorer -- but one of the neat perks about working on web design for yourself is that HEY, YOU DON'T HAVE TO CARE.  Yes, there are a few padding issues in various browsers that I'll try to eventually look at, but as far as IE goes I actually hope the entire blog is a hideous, unreadable mess of toxic proportions -- because maybe if everyone actually stopped bothering to coddle that horrible browser and its shit web standard practices, maybe it would finally WITHER and DIE and NEVER BE USED AGAIN!  :)

No, seriously.  If you're using Internet Explorer right now as you're reading this, please go download a new and better browser.  Like Google Chrome.  Everything looks good on Chrome.

(End geek-out.)

So anyway, always a yay for new layouts~  This makes six now, so I've almost managed to have a new for one each year.  Sometimes I don't really realize that I've been writing in this blog for over seven years -- jeeze, since high school.  That's a lot of years worth of memories and thoughts and events and emotions all preserved in one little online journal.  Every now and then I go and re-read entries from the very beginning; it's kind of like flipping through a photo album (only with many more lame internet memes and obnoxious teenage ramblings) and I realize how important this blog actually is to me.  It's like a constantly ongoing and ever expanding time capsual keepsake~  :3  Some people scrapbook their lives.  I blog.

Mood: You know I have too much time on my hands when...

I've been watching a little bit of Discovery Channel's Shark Week and it got me thinking. In all of the survivor accounts from shark attacks, someone always remarks that the shark always "mistakenly" attacked the person. You've heard it, all this crazy talk about "Oh, the shark thought the surfer was a seal."

The HELL? When a grizzly bear eats an innocent camper, no one ever says "Oh, well the bear mistook her for a giant salmon," or "Oh, the bear confused him for a gangly-looking, walking, talking raspberry bush." When a cougar stalks and kills a hiker, no one defends the cat by insisting that the hiker resembled a deer. So why are sharks let off the hook so easily? I'm not saying that the unfortunate victim need go all Captain Ahab vengeancy on said shark, I'm just out for a little equal accountability for all creatures big and small here.

I just don't buy into this "sharks don't eat people and if they do then the shark was just very confused" explanation. Yes, a lot of the reports insist that the shark was just curious by the fact that after taking a chomp out of the dude's leg, they all of a sudden abandon the idea and swim off. I personally think we could safely chalk that up to a more plausible theory -- that the shark in question who decides it's up for some Sunday Surfer Supper often realize that while we human prey are vastly stupid and easy to catch, we're also a royal pain in the ass once we're caught. After all, I doubt many seals they grab start to sucker punch them in the eye and kick them in their soft, fleshy gills. BAM! POW! BIFF! Maybe a Great White is just lazy when it comes to messing around with food that fights back and is quick to abandon us for some sweet smelling school of fish where all that is involved on Jaws' part is to swim straight and fast with his mouth wide open like a giant toothy fish net.

I have respect for sharks. I mean, obviously more so unbridled fear and overwhelming terror, but also respect. You think a shark can't tell the difference between a seal and a person? That they mistake the glint of light off an underwater wrist watch to be tasty fish? If I were a shark I'd be offended. I'd be all, "Fuck you, marine biologist, and guess what, you've just been added to my next weeks lunch menu. What's that, fancy pants shark researcher? You wanna say something about me too?"

So let's give the shark community a little credit here and say that more likely they were super hungry, there weren't currently any seals hanging around, "but hey, here's a convenient nibblet that was dumb enough to swim into my watery domain!" Luckily for humans, we have long agile limbs adapt at punching predators in the eyes with, which if I were a shark would be the last thing I'd want to put up with at the end of a long, grueling day. After all, I'd rather be labeled lazy than stupid. I have my shark pride to think of.

Mood: You can run but you can't hide!

Being an avid, long time lover of hugs myself and one who is of the strong opinion that there can never be too many hugs in the world, I've compiled my own Hug Bucket. A Hug Bucket, I have been enlightened to learn from one of the recent Vlogbrother videos, is similar to a "bucket list" (ie. things you'd like to do before you kick the proverbial bucket) only in this case equate "things"="people" and "do"="hug the bejeezus out of."

And so I decided it would nice to create a list of individuals I would like to hug before I die in a little Hug Buckety sand pail of my own. I think it would be pink. With perhaps, bunnies and rainbows printed on the side of it. Yes. And these are the people who would be in it:

• The Old Spice body wash guy
• Simon Cowell
• Colin Firth (as Mr. Darcy)
• Natalie Tran
• J.K. Rowling (in leu of Severus Snape not actually existing)
• Robert Downey Jr.
• Felicia Day
• John Green (sorry Hank, there wasn't room enough in the bucket for both of you)
• Alyson Hannigan
• The Doctor
• Toby Ziegler and Ainsley Hayes from West Wing
• Gregory House
• A lion
• An armful of bunnies
• Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon
• This robot
• This guy
• This girl
• Oh and this guy too
• Colin Mochrie
• A velociraptor

My Hug Bucket also obviously already has Mason and Sister and my wonderful family and friends and Iroh and Toby and Velcro-Cat already, all who thankfully I can hug any time and as hard and for as long as I want until they eventually untangle themselves from my clutches (or in the case of Iroh, bite me.) Does this mean I have to take them all out of the bucket now? I'm confused on that part still. I prefer to think of them all as extra special and infinity doomed to reside in my Hug Bucket.

I hope you all like pink. ♥

Mood: Booktastic...? Is that a word? Well it is now!

I've finished three books recently, and for lack of something else to blog about right now and since some people may have similar book tastes as myself, I'll try to recap some of the ones I read from now on.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

An amazing book chronicling the rapid decay of the mind of a Harvard cognitive psychology professor diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's has always been one of those illnesses that terrifies me in a way other terminal diseases like cancer never could. Seriously, I'd take cancer any day over Alzheimer's. This story and the character of Alice Howland and the devastating way she's slowly forced to succumb to the inevitable degeneration of her mind and body (with her family unable to do anything but watch) was simply heart wrenching to read. It definitely left an impact.

To be honest, I can't decide what scares me more: ending up with Alzheimer's myself, or the thought of either of my parents getting it (or anyone I love, for that matter.) To forget who I am and the faces of the people I care about... or being the one forgotten? Reading Still Alice prompted me to consider what I'd do if I or any one I loved were ever confronted with the disease, my over active imagination working out hypothetical strategies in my mind. What essentials would we write down to carry everywhere? Much like the common question, "what would be the things you'd take with you if your house burned down?" What would be the essentials? Your name; your address and emergency phone numbers; the names and a picture of the people you love; probably a short and simple message for if you were to become disoriented: "Your name is Brenna! You have a disease that makes you forget things! Calm down, take a deep breath, and call your emergency number!" sort of thing. Just tiny, important fail-safes for your own mind. In the book, Alice creates her own fail-safe for when the time comes that she forgets the essential things in her life, for when her life would reach a point of being so forgotten to herself that it wouldn't be worth living anymore. I would probably consider the same option too, if it came down to that. :c

But yes, very good book and I highly recommend it even if you're anything like me and it will leave you a little shaken.

Lucky by Alice Sebold

Sebold is the author of The Lovely Bones and this was her first book, and is in fact a memoir of her brutal rape as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, her effort to recover from it and the prosecution of her attacker. I don't have a whole lot to say about this one, other than that I have enormously huge respect for anyone who goes through an assault like she did and manages to suffer through the aftermath and eventually emerge soundly -- if not permanently scathed -- on the other side. There are parts of this book that you feel just as frustrated reading as no doubt Sebold felt when she bore them face on: the court scenes with the defense attorney in particular, and some instances with her parents and friends. I believe it when people say that you can never really relate to someone who's gone through an experience like rape and understand their ordeal unless you've actually been there, no doubt.

Night by Elie Wiesel

A harrowing account from a Holocaust survivor. My intent going into the library was to pick up one of the various fantasy books on my to-read list; when none of those were in, and my backup non-fantasy books were also not available, I ended up leaving with this. Don't get me wrong, it was on my to-read list... but that day in particular I was sort of aiming for something... happier. Either way, Wiesel's memoir of the ghettos and his time in Auschwitz and Buchenwald until the camp's final liberation by the Americans was gripping. I can't really say I "enjoyed" it (I think it's hard to honestly enjoy a non-fiction account of the horrors and genocide of WWII, and reading about infants being tossed alive into burning ditches) but it was intensely interesting in a horrific sort of way. It's the kind of book I couldn't stop reading, but at the same time I found myself needing to take breaks from it just to fully ingest some of the content at times before continuing on. I don't think anyone can say they read books about the Holocaust because they're enjoyable, but I do believe reading them is necessary so as to never casually forget about these events or take them in stride.

My god, too many depressing books. Rape, terminal diseases, and genocide. (I can just see everyone running out the library to pick up all of these sad, gloomy books for yourself!) ^^; I have Mists of Avalon on hold at the library up next and I hope it to be a more much needed, uplifting read. If anyone else is a book nut, I encourage you to sign yourself up for a Goodreads account -- I have found soooo many interesting books to add to my to-read list on there! It's my new holy grail. *Glee* (Plus, then I can friend you~ :3 I like seeing what other people are reading!)