Now, usually I'm a very pragmatic and practical sort of skeptical person... down-to-earth to the point of being dull, even. I prefer hard facts and practical experience to theories, and I don't believe in anything I can't feel with my own senses.

And yet... I look at all the stuff that happens to me and have to conclude that there is something cosmically weird going on here. My working career, for instance. Companies hire me because things are looking good, then suddenly the market takes a weird turn for the worst and I get laid off. This has happened three times to me, all in different sectors, including my most recent job. Other places I've worked for eventually had their own odd problems - even one place that was one of the top performers in the region while I worked there is now closed down and converted into a different store!

Then there's the several personal projects I'm a part of. Too many details to list, but let's just say I feel sorry for many of the people who've helped me out, because many of them had something wacky/unfortunate happen to them at some point while they were doing so.

Then there's getting stuff done. I think the only time I can go into a store, buy stuff quickly, and go home is when I'm grocery shopping. Any time I buy something more complicated, it's always a pain for one reason or another. Buying clothes in particular... I'm probably the only woman on the planet who hates buying clothes.

My computer deserves its own special mention. After being stuck with the same old computer for 8 years because every time I saved up enough money to buy a new one something would happen and I'd have to spend it all, an online friend of mine took pity on me and sent me one of his spare computers that was old, but still way better than mine, for the cost of shipping.

And it worked great... until the hard drive died. My friend grumbled that it tested fine before he sent it out, and sent me another spare drive he had. That one died too. So he took a third spare drive (he's a techie for a living, so he's got a ton of gadgets laying around), tested the heck out of it, packaged it in a special protective case, and shipped it extra-special delivery. Well, that one still died. So I said, "Screw it," and bought a drive from the store.

That one worked great. Until the rest of the computer had issues. One RAM slot went out. And the system board started fritzing out of the blue. And finally died.

But no problem, by then I'd managed to trade my old SNES and games for my best friend to buy me a second-hand Dell computer. Which came with Windows XP but no driver disc. You can see where this is going, right? It finally works fine now, but it took me three days to track down all the right stuff and get it installed, not to mention swapping out half the existing hardware for whatever in my old computer still functioned because I couldn't identify the existing hardware enough to find drivers for it.

Not all of it's bad luck, mind you. I got stopped by a news reporter while walking to an interview. I got a comic a week before everyone else because the subscription I got to work around my comic store not buying new comics came in, but store shipments were delayed. It was blisteringly hot for two weeks, but the very day I had my best friend come over and install the A/C for me, it cooled off, and the weather's been pretty decent since.

I had a giant swarm of bees camping out over my apartment door for a week recently - but none of them stung me, so I guess that's just weird instead of bad. I once narrowly avoided getting on a bus that got shot at because I was accidentally late getting to the stop and had to catch the one after it. (I guess that's weird for me, bad for them? :/ )

Of course, sometimes it is partly my fault. Like the most recent interview I had where it decided to rain for the first time in a couple weeks, then I misread the bus schedule and got dropped off in the middle of nowhere, then managed to walk back through the rain to the right place with twenty minutes to spare, then almost was late anyway because the interview was on a college campus, and it took me the rest of the time to figure out where the right building was. And then I had to walk through a group of evangelists passing out bibles to get to the interview. And then after the interview I almost left my purse behind. Sigh.

Now, the rational part of me knows that most of this stuff is just sheer coincidence, and probably would have happened even if I wasn't involved, and nothing in life ever goes 100% smoothly. And yet... I can't ignore that this sort of stuff happens to me ALL THE TIME, to the point where I almost don't want to do anything because I know it'll just go wrong somehow, or end up being way more work than it should be.

Even my friends have to shrug and admit that my life is just... weird. And since I'm someone who thrives on being efficient and is most comfortable with routine and order, the fact that my life is so unrelentingly chaotic and odd is doubly frustrating. Meh.