I believe that getting your bitch on is part of the human condition. That’s why I just couldn’t pass up this Girl Talk Thursday topic – Pet Peeves.

Here’s a short (ahem) list of mine:

Breathing Very Loudly: If you didn’t just participate in a foot race, I should not be able to hear you breathing from across the room. Stop it. Stop it now. I would rather see you passed out from lack of oxygen than hear you breathe like that even one. more. time.

Related: Breathing Very Loudly WHILE Eating: This is even worse than just Breathing Very Loudly. Unless you just hunted and killed your meal after nearly starving to death (without stopping to cook it, because that would have given you a chance to catch your damn breath), you need to stop.  So unless you are Breathing Very Loudly While Eating With Blood Dripping Down Your Chin, it’s unacceptable.

Almost Putting Things Away: If you got up off your fat, lazy ass long enough to pick up your glass and walk it over to the kitchen, don’t you dare put that next to the sink on the counter. You either put it in the dishwasher, or IN the sink. If the sink is so full of dirty dishes that you cannot fit it into the sink, then guess what? IT’S TIME TO DO SOME FUCKING DISHES ASSWIPE.

Related: Almost Putting Away: groceries, toys, toiletries, laundry, papers to be filed, etc etc. {yes, I am totally guilty of most of this. And it pisses me off when I do it, I don’t need you doing it too, ok buddy?}

Yawning Without Covering Your Mouth: This is not your annual physical. I am not your doctor, nor your dentist, nor your prey. Cover your damn mouth when you yawn, I can see all the way to your tonsils and it’s just indecent!

Arguing About “Over” or “Under” re: Toilet Paper: Who the FUCK cares? Seriously? Is your life SO MUNDANE?! {not YOU, of course. I can understand why YOU care.}

Nicknames When You Don’t Know Me: Don’t nickname me. You don’t know me. And if you continue to call me whatever stupid nickname you’ve chose, you never will. Possibly because you’ll spend the rest of your days in a coma.

Wiggling Your Toes Within My Line of Vision While I Watch TV: Yes I know this one is a little insane. But if you are sitting on the couch next to me, and your legs are crossed such that your foot is next to me, please do not wiggle your toes. It’s all I can see and it’s driving me fucking batty.

Breathing On Me: When you breathe on me it makes my soul shrivel up into a tiny, wrinkly, crushed version of it’s former self, and that allows me to do horrible things to you. Don’t breathe on me.

Related: Breathing On Me While I Am Trying To Sleep: I cannot sleep if you are facing me and if I can feel your breath on my face. It will keep me awake. Please turn the other way, I like to lay facing this side.

Exemptions: Breathing On Me While I Am Trying To Sleep If I Gave Birth To You: You are adorable. Breathe where ever you want. But stop kicking me, you little fucker, or I’ll shove you off the bed.

Not Calling When You Said You Would: I understand, life gets in the way. But if I expect you to call and then you don’t, my mind goes bad places and I start to panic and consider calling hospitals and patrolling the dark alleys to find your rotting corpse. So call me when you say you will, OKAY?! ::crazy eyes::

Catty Behavior: Everyone hates high school for a reason. It sucked, everyone acted immature and petty, and you weren’t as cool as you wanted to be. Yes, I understand that the blogosphere brings up all those emotions that you repressed after you got to college because you wanted to be more adult. I don’t care. Repress them again, go to therapy, whatever.  Just stop sniping at each other, ok? We’re all human, we all fuck up, we all have our own issues. We get attitudes, we make rude comments… Do Unto Others, y’all. Just be nice.

Touching My Eyebrows: Don’t touch my eyebrows. It’s a thing with me. And don’t touch YOUR eyebrows while I’m looking. That’s a thing with me, too.

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Runners up: judging my list of pet peeves, reading over my shoulder, not saying please and thank you, leaving your shopping cart in the middle of the grocery store which makes me wonder whether I can take it or whether you’ve left it there for a reason, leaving your shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot so I hit it when it’s dark and scratch my car, leaving your shopping cart in the parking lot in an open space which means that a) I can’t park there or b) I can’t pull through YOU WHORE, obvious twitter ads filling up my twitter stream all the time don’t you ever tweet ANYTHING else?, following me on twitter and then not accepting my follow back request because you are protected, MySpace just as a general rule, people who want to purchase something from me on Craigslist as a general rule, overuse of hashtags, using IM/Twitter speak in a real conversation (i.e. SAYING “lol”)

I’ve spent a lot of time this past year feeling bitter. I’m tired of the feeling. The aching, gnawing, acidic feeling in my stomach is not welcome in 2010. I’ve spent too much time consumed by bitter, angry thoughts; writing magnificently angry and righteous emails and letters to “friends” and family who have burned me, hurt me.

Just a few weeks ago, I was in the bathroom in the morning, getting ready for work. I was using a round brush to pull my hair back into a ponytail, my typical hairstyle of choice (though with a new haircut, we hope that will change).  The bottom layer of my hair is shorter than the rest, from a previous haircut, and it’s hard to get into the ponytail. That day I brushed it down and let it be a little messy. I thought about my friend Sarah K.

Sarah wore ponytails a lot. Except her hair was so short that half of it would fall out the bottom, like mine. I’ve always called her my best friend. Looking back I don’t know why. She wasn’t my best friend. She wasn’t even a good friend. I just wanted her to be my best friend. We’d been best friends a long time ago. Grammar school. Middle school. We were inseparable. We had so much fun … they called us Gasoline & Matches, we were always getting into trouble. We loved every minute of it.

We once stopped riding our bikes near the front of my house and started a fist fight with each other to see who would win.

She once ate so many brownies and popcorn that she couldn’t even remember how much she’d eaten. Then she puked it up everywhere.

We used to sit on the sloping roof overhang outside her bedroom window and wait for the cops to see us and call her parents.

Her room was painted blue. Her middle name is Elaine. I always thought she was so cool. She’s great with children. I always thought she’d be great with my children. And the two times she saw them? She was. She was great with them. {oh god I’m going to cry. This is ridiculous}

I loved her very much, but she spent her entire life forgetting about me.

As I stood there in front of the mirror, tears springing suddenly to my eyes, I felt angry. I felt so angry that I had tried for years, reaching out to her, emailing her, calling her, finding her, reminding her that I was here, I wanted to be her friend. Catching one lunch, one dinner, one coffee every 10-12mos. I believed her when she said she wanted to hang out more. She wanted to see me more. She wanted to talk more. Email more. Share more. Be there for me more.I fell for it last year again, after she came home from a trip to Israel. She blogged about it, and I read every entry. {I am so pathetic}

She started blowing me off between Middle School and High School. She stopped being a tomboy and figured out how to be a girl. She hung out with a faster crowd and she did things I wouldn’t do. She would come back to me every so often and ask for my help. Boyfriend trouble, family trouble, job trouble, house trouble. She wanted my help fixing it. I fixed it and she went off, waving goodbye gaily, already forgetting what I’d done for her. Every time.

Senior year, at prom, she was drunk. She found me in the bathroom. She told me I was the best friend she’d ever had. She told me that she never appreciated how I always put her back together. She told me she wished she had spent more time with me, and listened to me when I told her that doing E at 14 was a bad idea. That dating drug dealers was a bad idea. That smoking pot was a bad idea. That coming to the senior prom drunk was a Bad Idea.

I knew she was drunk but I felt vilified. I felt recognized. I felt important.

We graduated and I saw her about once a year. Once each time I was pregnant. Once after Cupcake was born. Once after Geeklet was born, which was the last time I saw her.  I called her and left her a voicemail a few months later. Nothing. A few weeks after that I called and caught her – but she was busy. She said she’d call me in a few days. Nothing. I sent her an email. Nothing.

I sent another email and told her I wouldn’t be calling anymore. That I hoped she was having a good time, but that I couldn’t put any more energy into a relationship she wasn’t willing to put effort into as well. I needed some closure.

She responded and said she couldn’t deal with a “friend break up” right now because her boyfriend had dumped her. She’d call me in a few days.

Say it with me, people! Nothing.

I emailed her again, against the wisdom that is Twitter. I had too much history with her. I needed to get some closure. I told her I wasn’t surprised she hadn’t called – that was exactly why I couldn’t play this pretend friendship game anymore. I wished her happy holidays, a good new year, and signed off. She responded and said she was sorry that I didn’t think she was a good friend, then made a bunch of excuses.

I told her I was sorry too. That was the end. I cried for a long time. I mourned the death of a friendship that wasn’t even a good friendship. I was bitter about how long I’d pursued this friendship to end it like this. I’ve felt angry and bitter many times since then. The moment in the mirror, hair halfway to a ponytail, was just one. It hits me randomly in the car, or at work, and I wonder why she was so dismissive of me. Why I wasn’t important to her when she was so important to me. She was right, it was a friend-break-up.

I’m still sad and angry and bitter about it, but I don’t want to be this way. It’s a waste of energy.  A waste of tears, which are rolling down my face right now to beat the band and I can’t stop them. It’s a waste, such a waste.

Here comes my 2010 resolution: I don’t want to waste time on this, or any other useless, bitter, ridiculous situation this year. I want to try and accept things for what they are and if I don’t like it, I don’t like it. Bitterness won’t help me. I need to pick up and move on and stop being so angry, so bitter, particularly about lost friendships. I’ve gained so many new friends in 2009. Sure, only one lives within driving distance. Most I’ll probably never meet face to face. I’m of the iGeneration, I should thrive on this, these computer-screen/social-media/internet community friendships and I DO. Sometimes it’s not enough for me, but I can’t be angry about it. I can’t be bitter. If I want more friends I need to find a way to go out and get them.

So. 2010. Less bitterness. More friends.

Let’s go.

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* Title inspired by the book I just finished reading, Bitter is the New Black, by Jen Lancaster. It’s a light, funny read that is autobiographical, which makes it even funnier, and I really enjoyed it. Laughed out loud quite a bit, which is relatively unusual for me (I read books and watch movies with hardly any emotion on my face, causing people to think I am a) bored b)angry or c)asleep with my eyes open).  If it were summer I’d say it’s a good beach read, but since it’s winter I’ll say it’s a good read for when you need something relatively mindless and uncomplicated after a very long and complicated day. I have a lot of those, which is why I love Sophie Kinsella so much.