Happens all the time.

King County has a program and website with tips at:
http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/ehs/rats/sewerbaiting.aspx

I like the term "sewer baiting".

I think everyone who has ever gone to a Naturopath has been told to cut out wheat.

First of all: Relax. As much of a fuck up as you think you are there are millions of people out there who are far more fucked up.

I, too, am a serious fuck up. The thought of suicide has gotten me through many difficult nights. It’s comforting. Is that fucked up? Yes. Is it dangerous? No, not really. Thankfully I’ve always been way too lazy to even go through with suicide. It would take me months just to write the note. And then there’s the how. Guns seem too violent and messy. And I don’t have one. Pills are too precious to blow on such a thing and are one the few things I actually enjoy. I’m afraid of heights. I have an electric stove. Hanging seems way too uncomfortable. Self immolation is beyond my ken. My mother is still alive. Etc.

All in all suicide seems to be just the sort of pain in the ass I’ve always steered away from. I’d like to say that I’d probably fuck it up anyway but with my luck it would be the one thing I manage to get right. Ultimately, at least in my case, suicide is just an expression of my own self obsession and selfishness as much as it is about my self-loathing. And the self loathing itself is pre-emptive. There is nothing that anyone can say or think about me that I haven’t said or thought about myself. So their mockery and disgust can’t touch me.

I did have one advantage over you and that is parents who didn’t have shit and were raising three other boys anyway. I didn’t have anyone I could ride. No one was going to take care of me or let me live in their basement. That is a bit of a kick in the ass so I managed to accomplish a few things. Like graduate from college. And then I got busted for weed. And I went to jail. For weed. For six months. In a jail in Hackensack New Jersey that was built for 350 inmates but housed over 1100. It was one of those turning points in life that I was lucky enough to get. But not because of the usual narrative, I don’t think.

Going to jail didn’t necessarily just make me look at how fucked up I was or how I disappointed so many. It did, but there was more. I was really pissed that I was going to jail for a couple of ounces of weed. This was New Jersey in the late eighties. Brutal. I had ignored the risks for years and now it was time deal.

What really impacted me more than anything were the other inmates at the jail. I met people I never would have met. And I lived with them in over-crowded dormitories where you had just enough room to lie down with a crappy mat, a pillow and a blanket. Some of them were good fellows. Many were very bad. I mean stone cold bad mother fuckers. Before I got locked up I had stopped believing in evil and saw the idea as being juvenile and simplistic. I was wrong. Some of these men were evil. Fuck the “Dead Men Walking” type bullshit. There was no redemption in many of them. And many of my fellow inmates were crazy. All were poor. Nearly all were ignorant to extremes I would have found laughable just a few months earlier. The living conditions were sub-human. The food was garbage. The stench was foul. And I couldn’t fucking leave.

Luckily, I’m over 6 feet tall and weighed around 240 pounds at the time. And I am the oldest of 4 boys all close in age in a rough and tumble New York Irish Catholic family. I was no easy mark. So my physical well being was only rarely at issue. But I was outraged, shocked and humbled.

I was outraged for a lot reasons. Being in jail to begin with. The conditions. The heat. The boredom. The terror of watching other inmates get beaten down (by inmates and guards). The terror of realizing how Kafkaesque anyone’s life can get. I was shocked at the poverty of thought, scruples, and empathy as well as the general economic doom that seemed just around the corner for so many of the inmates. I was humbled because so many of them would have had completely different lives if they had half of what I was given. I no longer loathed myself as a passive, lazy piece of shit but I was now outraged that I had let myself both be the mindless and thankless recipient of all the benefits of being in a white middle class well educated social strata while also letting myself become one of its “victims” (there’s probably a better word, but it fails me).

So I took honest stock of myself. And by honest I mean I tried very hard to recognize what I considered to be good qualities about myself as well as the usual bad ones I was already intimately familiar with. This let me recognize what it was I needed to do to make my life a life worth living. I began to realize what I wanted my life to look like given the assets and liabilities I have.

For example, one of the things I recognized was that I was lazy. I already knew that. I was a classic under achiever and only did as well in school as I did because I was smart and knew how to just get by. Whatever it was I managed to get it done with a borderline level of competency. Thing was, it didn’t really matter how difficult the job was. If it was an easy task, I did an OK job. If it was a very hard task I did an OK job. Doing an OK job on a hard task is much more fulfilling than doing an OK job on an easy one. I began to challenge myself by taking advantage of everything I could. I was the first person to ever be let of that Hackensack jail every day on a work release type program so I could go to grad school. I cleaned the shit out of that dormitory after the last riot because that was job I was given. That particular riot was nasty and was the result of the inmates not getting the toast we were accustomed to on Sundays. Really. they ripped out all the toilets for that. The toilets! Our toilets!

I also made a list of my ideals. Of what I want. My values. I wrote essays to myself to clarify my thoughts. I applied for jobs I knew I didn’t qualify for because they seemed so cool. And I actually got a few of those jobs. Doing things like watching a nest of bald eagles in Arizona. Great job if you're lazy. Leading birding walks as a naturalist in the Berkshires and White Mountains. Awesome job if your lazy and most of the folks on the walk are senior citizens.

I can assure you I am still lazy. I can still make the Dude look like an ambitious, ruthless man of industry. I am still inclined to corpulence and prefer to read about life threatening adventures than actually do them. I still go through bouts of doubt and self loathing. But I had gotten to my bottom and I had nothing to lose. Like you. Mine was a bit deeper, maybe, or more intense; certainly more based on terrifying legal consequences than where you find yourself at. Nonetheless, my advice is the same. Take stock. Determine what it is that will make you happy. I think it is self respect that will make you happy. So take chances. Big chances. You say you are suicidal. That means you have little to lose. You are free to do what you want even if what you want to do is nothing. But doing nothing is rarely the path to self respect so pick the next thing.

Sorry to ramble a bit. I didn’t mean to be so verbose. But I recognize much of myself in your post so I hope you may be able to benefit in some small way from my story, as abbreviated as it is…

The high wasted pants/etc of american apparel.

Men's button up shirts with logos or coat of arms of whatever the fuck it is printed on them in seemingly random places.

Men's turtle necks.

nearly anything "retro 80s"

tights, leggings etc with shorts

actually, leggings as pants. including "jeggings". unless you are super in shape. Kinda like bicycle pants. just because they make them in your size does not mean you should wear them. I'm looking at you McGinn.

booties in high heels. or or they socks? I don't know but it looks horrible.

wearing your friggin pajamas to class. My wife goes to UW and it looks like a mental ward.

Ed Hardy

tie dyes seem to be making a come back. I'm agin it.

Corsette jeans. Are these even real?

men with no body hair.

pegged pants on aging rockers.

I'd say harem pants but I think they've been declared still born. thank god.

baggy pants. It's been 30 fucking years. pull up your god damn pants and I don't care what color your boxers are.

carhartts being worn by people who have never done a day's work in their lives. OK, this one doesn't bug me that much.

Crocs on anyone except little kids. and then they should be in the shape of a shark or something cool.

over size sunglasses.

the color "camel"

and more...

"Black Tie Attire", in modern usage almost always means tuxes for men. In more traditional times (or even particular places) it can mean just a black suit but really we are probably talking tux.

In Seattle it may very well just mean no jeans and t-shirts. I swear there is a different standard for dress here. Back in New York it would absolutely mean a tux or, perhaps, a very nice formal suit. No question.

White tie is much more specific and in all my advanced years of rubbing elbows I have only been to two white tie events.

Women can wear a fancy cocktail dress (VERY fancy and NOT AT ALL trashy!) or an elegant evening gown. Black tie for women does infer more of an emphasis on jewelry, however. Expensive jewelry. If you don't have it and/or can't afford it, borrow it or rent it. This is when you want to drip with diamonds. White tie for women would mean an evening gown only.

Unicorn headpieces are probably out but, again, this is Seattle so maybe if you go with a faberge-ish horn you may be OK.