I've always been sort of fascinated by the prospect of random conversation, and the appropriate times in which it one should strike up some banter with a total and complete stranger. It seems like it's sort of a lost art among the people in my generation--especially the men--and I've always wondered why. I guess it's because, as a rule, men are more private and quiet beings. I don't think it's too far of a stretch to say that the typical male is not as talkative as your run-of-the-mill female. We just basically mind our own business and do our own thing, and if we don't like somebody, we don't put on a false air that leads them to believe we do. We just put our heads down and go about our way (or some of us beat the shit out of people, but more on that later). Even females, I've noticed, don't just strike up conversation with other broads right off the bat as much as they used to. (I actually don't know if this is true at all, but I always like to include women in this whole thing, because maybe they can somehow emphasize with what I'm about to talk about.)
I've found, though, the one place in the world where men seem to be absolutely ready to speak to whoever the fuck may be standing next to them: at a urinal stall in a public restroom. I do not know what the reason for this is, and I can't even begin to guess at it, but it's true. Ask any male who isn't agoraphobic, and they'll tell you.
Recently, I have found that the random conversation between strangers seems to be elevated to a whole new level in the restrooms of a bar. I don't even need to explain the reasons for this, because they're rather obvious.
I'm pretty much a rookie as far as bars are concerned, since I've only been 21 for half of a year and rarely go to them when I'm at school. But, last week when I went to the bar for the first time since arriving home for a few weeks of the summer, I finally discovered that people really love to jabber in the pisser at a bar.
I walked into the restroom at a local bar I was at with a few of my friends, and immediately saw one man talking to another while they had their cocks out and were hanging a wire into the urinal.
"Yeah, man, if those mother fuckers don't shut up I'll show 'em what a real hockey fight is all about," the one dude said to the other, and I immediately started to chuckle a little bit. Firstly, because I was drunk. Secondly, because we were in a bar and you can't really have a fight on ice in most bars, which would've made it pretty difficult for this man to have shown anyone in the bar what a real hockey fight was like. And thirdly, because I'd seen this man the last time I'd been at this particular bar. He was drunk, and kept thinking that my friends and I had stolen a pitcher of beer he had set down on the table we were sitting at (probably because we had).
The second guy obviously didn't know the man, and wasn't nearly as drunk as he was, because he just said, "Yeah..." then zipped up and walked away. I'm pretty sure he pinched off mid-stream, but I'm not exactly an expert. But, since I'm always looking for a good laugh, and since I was pretty intoxicated by that point (it was my first night of drinking since I'd had surgery a couple of weeks prior, so I was what they like to call "three sheets to the wind"), I decided right then and there that for the rest of the evening I would attempt to strike up a conversation with every person that lined up at the urinal next to me. (I feel it should be stated right now that I have the world's smallest bladder. It is a source of constant frustration to me, and one of the crosses I bare. When I get drunk, I piss literally every 15 minutes sometimes).
I was under the impression that I'd just had the greatest idea of my young life--which, in hindsight, was untrue, because one time I was a kissing booth for Halloween, and that was the best idea I've ever had--and I decided to test it out that moment when I got my shot at the urinal. My brother was standing next to me, and I like to fuck with him a lot.
So it was a nice start.
"Hey man," I said. "How's _________ (insert name of woman that equals next socially crippling mistake) doing these days? Did my 'save your date' get lost in the mail, or are you guys on the rocks?"
"Shut up, dude."
"No, really, I'm interested. What's it like doing charity work? Does banging her count as a tax writeoff?"
My brother started laughing then, and I was satisfied that my first go at urinal talk had gone well. I didn't think about how my brother has known me my entire life, and doesn't really take offense to me saying shit like that to him. My brother is not everyone else, that's for damn sure, and I was about to find out.
Less than half an hour later, I went back into the bathroom, and ended up with another kid that had graduated from my high school. I didn't know then, and still do not know now, what his name is, or exactly how old he is, or basically anything at all about him, but he does know a hell of a lot of fake information about my friend Jordan.
Jordan has been one of my best friends for years, and I remember when we were younger children people used to say that we looked alike. His older sister even used to call us twins, but I never really saw the resemblance. But, as I sauntered up to the urinal and tried to sift through the drunken cobwebs of my ideas to find the perfect random icebreaker, this kid started the conversation.
"Jordan!" he yelled, with a great deal of excitement. I turned and glanced behind me, to see if my friend had magically appeared, but then realized that he was actually in Virginia at the time. "How's it going, man? I saw your game on ESPN a while back!"
I guess now is the time for me to tell you that my friend Jordan plays football for a university, and that he won a national championship with them in a game that was televised on ESPN in late 2008.
I thought that maybe I should correct this guy, and let him know that I wasn't my friend Jordan, but if he was going to make urinal talk this easy and ridiculous for me, I couldn't just let that happen.
"Oh thanks, man," I said. "I appreciate you watching, that's really cool."
(I feel as though I need to point out how often the words "man" and "dude" are incorporated in the random talk between men who are strangers. When you don't know a person's name, these two words are what you immediately fall back onto, and they are about as indispensable as your favorite Affliction t-shirt, if you're on the way to a Nickelback concert.)
"Hey, no man, really, that's fucking awesome. What have you been up to?"
So this was when I took some creative license and just talked about what I thought it might be like to be a college football player. I told him about all of the different workouts I'd been doing and stuff, and how time consuming football was. He just stood there at the urinal, looking at me and shaking his head in the affirmative, just going with whatever it was I was saying. I don't even think he was urinating anymore.
Later on in the night, this guy bought me a drink. Awesome.
Following this episode, I walked outside of the bar with one of my friends to consume a water bottle of fruit-flavored vodka that he'd brought as a reinforcement for the night. Then, we ventured back into the bar, and I continued my continuous flow of frequent urination.
The next man I pissed beside was visibly a hick--a visibly large one, at that--and had I been sober, I'd immediately have been struck with trepidation at the prospect of saying something he'd find offensive.
But, I wasn't, and decided to be antagonistic. The only thing I had to do then was decide between saying something about either the potential legalization of gay marriage or Nascar. Or gay people getting married at a Nascar race.
"Dale Jr. fucking sucks," I said, and spit into the urinal.
"Yeah, I know, I like Tony Stewart," he said, and zipped up and walked away.
That plan obviously backfired, but it's probably for the best, because I could've ended up with my ass kicked in the least damaging scenario. In the most damaging scenario, I could've woken up at a secretive KKK death camp in the backwoods of western Pennsylvania, where I would be held hostage for years until I was brain-washed. And all they would have to eat was raw venison and Bush's baked beans.
(Speaking of baked beans, remember those commercials when the talking dog had the recipe? That shit was funny. Sometimes commercials with speaking animals just really tickle my fancy. Like that one with the penguin that walked around with beer and said "doo-bee-doo-bee-doo." That was a classic.)
My last attempt at urinal talk was probably my best, but it was planned. All of my friends wanted to leave, and I told them I wanted to have one last drink. So, they all had one, too. The real reason I wanted to stay was to wait for the man who wanted to hockey fight to go to the restroom one last time, so I could follow him and try to piss him off.
He went, and I followed. I got to the urinal and proceeded to drop my trousers the entire way down, Michael Buesink style. My belt hit the ground with a clank, and I heaved out a sigh of relief. I then took the quarter I'd been holding in my hand, and dropped it into the urinal.
It landed with a splash and I said, "Whew, that is cold! I really have to remember to hang onto it."
The dude laughed, kind of drunkenly, and then slurred out, "Ha, shut the fuck up. I bet mine is bigger."
I laughed and said, "Well, maybe it is, but I don't think we'll ever know. Like, what the fuck do you want to do, compare or something? Because I'm not into that, man. My locker room days are behind me."
"No way, man, you callin' me a fag?"
"No, not at all."
"I'll fuck you up."
"That's what your mother said last night, minus the 'up.'"
He took his hand off of his cock and tried to take a halphhazard swing at me, and I ducked below the piece of plastic separating the urinals. I quickly pulled my pants up while he started yelling about how he was pissing all over himself. I slapped him on his ass and then ran out of the door, yelling, "Ahhhhh that dude in there just tried to look at my dick! Let's get out of here!"
So, we left, and I don't think I'll be going back to that bar in the near future.
The moral of the story? Communication between strangers can be fun. And mom jokes to people you don't know have a very powerful effect.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
To be a Lefty
A few weeks ago, my friend Haley asked me if it's difficult to drive with my right foot pushing the pedals since I'm left-handed.
"Not really," I said. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I was trying to do it today, just to see what it'd be like, and it's really hard"
Two things went through my mind at that point: my friend is really weird for doing such a thing, and that I'd never really thought about whether or not it'd be easier for me to drive using my left foot. It makes sense that it would, since I kick with my left foot, and do most things with my left appendages, but it wasn't something that had ever really crossed my mind.
"It doesn't really make a difference to me," I said, "because I guess I've just been conditioned to drive with my right foot, and I've never known any different. Kind of like Amish people, or those really religious folk who refuse to have sex before they get married."
This weird conversation got me to thinking about what it means to be a lefty, if anything at all. It's an odd thing, because I've always taken pride in being a left-handed person, but I don't know why. I did nothing to influence whether or not I would be one, and I assume I was just born that way. There's no conceivable reason that this makes me better--or worse--than anyone who is right-handed, because it's just the hand that I do things with.
It does, however, make me a little bit different, and I think I take pride in being left-handed because I'm sort of bitter about it. To be frank, being a lefty can suck dick, because like anybody who is different or is a minority, we are discriminated against. Not in any hardcore way, like apartheid or anything like that, just in ways that are more annoying and inconvenient than anything.
The one that seems to haunt me more than any other one is the whole system of writing. In the English language, we obviously write from left to right, and if you're a left-handed person, you just get straight-up shit on in this category. I haven't used a pencil (except on Scantron tests) since 9th grade, because everytime I do I end up with a gigantic graphite stain all over the outside of my hand from it rubbing over my own previously-written words. The words on the paper would also usually be smeared beyond recognition, as well, leaving my already extremely messy penmanship altogether unreadable. (I also blame my terribly messy writing on my left-handedness. Watch a lefty write sometime, and you'll see that it doesn't seem like a very natural action at all. Most of us bend our wrist in a very uncomfortable way in an attempt to crane our hand above the smearing area, which just results in smearing the words of the lines higher up. The whole process of writing is is totally unnatural for a left-handed person, and since all I ever do is write, I'm constantly reminded of it. I would've graduated from elementary school with a perfect A grade point average, but I always got C's on handwriting. Why the fuck do kids get graded on handwriting? That's like grading someone on how high you can jump or whether or not you have a nice singing voice. You either have it or you don't. You can't exactly study to become a great handwriter, and if you did, people would just beat the fuck out of you and steal your lunch money anyway.) Sometimes, this even happens with pens. A couple of months ago, I bought a friend of mine a pretty ridiculous birthday card at our student bookstore, and when I went to write a message for her on it, I smeared the black ink from my gel pen all over the glossy surface of the card. So, I had to go back in and buy the exact same card all over again, and I'm pretty sure the asian chick working at the counter thought that I was fucking insane, because it's rare for a kid to buy a card with a bunch of bikini-clad senior citizens on it. It's just plain weird for him to buy it twice within 10 minutes of each other.
In retrospect, I should've just went with whiteout.
It's obvious that when the written form of the English language was invented, it was invented by a right-handed person who paid no heed to the 10 percent of people in the world who are left-handed. He fucked over a lot of people, but he's probably hailed in history as some sort of genius. But then again, I'm trying to think of a way that I could solve this problem, and can't think of anything. I guess it's better to screw 10 percent of the people instead of 90 percent.
To further the whole writing problem, it's very difficult to find a desk that is made for lefties in college classrooms. It seems like they're all for right-handed people, and I can't ever get one that works for me unless I show up to class 20 minutes early, and that is definitely not an option.
Another discrimination against left-handed people comes from scissors. They can only be conveniently used by right-handed folk, and this has been pissing me off since day one. Or, more accurately, the first grade. We were making cookbooks shaped like the face of Santa for our mothers, and we had to cut his face out of every single normal sheet of paper. As the only lefty in my class at the time, I was the only one whose paper book came out with a bearded man that looked more like a homeless man than Santa, who has always been very well-trimmed for a dude who spends most of his life away from society at the north pole. My mom pretended that she liked the gift anyway, even though she doesn't cook and had to have realized that it looked terrible. I guess she just felt bad for giving birth to one of those dreaded southpaws. (I should note that I'm the only lefty in my family, and that it's the first exhibit I always point out when making my case for being adopted. I'm very different from everyone in my family, and I constantly talk to my mom about how I may be the mailman's child, because I'm left-handed. And cool.)
When I was little, I wanted to be a writer and an illustrator, until I figured out that I couldn't even adequately operate a pair of scissors, let alone oil pastels. Those motherfuckers smear like nothing else, let me tell you.
I know you're probably saying that left-handed scissors are, in fact, manufactured. But I don't own any, because I'd have to go into Michael's or some other crafts store to get them, and those places smell awful, like a mix of potpurri, death, and vomit.
***SIDENOTE: I just walked into my kitchen to get a drink, and on the way I passed my dad, who is sitting on the couch in the living room. He's watching a Tyler Perry movie on TBS. I just want to say that this proves he is not cool enough to be left-handed, and would also like to include this as further evidence that I am, in fact, adopted.
A lot of my friends are into golf, but I haven't ever gotten that excited about it. I mean, it's a cool sport that doesn't require a great deal of physical exertion, and you can do it fairly well while drunk, but it's a lot more difficult to find lefty clubs. I mean, I can find them if I look hard enough, but I don't as a matter of principle. I get pissed that they're difficult to find, and as a result, the world of golf will be forced to live without the likes of me.
I also really have a hard time getting excited about it, because there aren't many lefties to idolize on the pro circuit. In every other sport, there's at least a few left-handed athletes to pick from, and I tend to like them because I can empathize with them. In golf, the only famous left-handed pro is Phil Mickelson, and he's not the most likeable golfer ever. He has bigger man-breasts than I do!
Some people (right-handed) try to make lefties feel better about all of this by saying that they actually have an advantage in baseball, but I'm not buying that shit. Sure, left-handed pitchers are in demand, but I was never a pitcher. I wanted to be a shortstop, and they wouldn't let me because I was left-handed. If you're left-handed and want to play in the infield, you get to play only first base, which is a cool position, but there's really no variety. It's frustrating. I spent most of my baseball career standing in the outfield, and that wasn't very appealing because I quit before the age when kids could actually consistently smack it that far. As a result of this, I picked a lot of dandelions and did a lot of thinking about the meaning of life while my team was on defense as a child, and I don't think it had very positive effects on me.
All of these things seem pretty trivial, though, compared to this next statistic: apparently, left-handed people die an average of 10 years earlier than your normal right-handed person. This is something my friend Evan told me, and never hesitates to bring up. That asshole will probably outlive us all.
This is a scary statistic, and I have no idea why it is at all, so I'm going to choose not to believe it. Sadly, with the way things are these days, it's increasingly more difficult to simply die of old age or natural causes. I'll put a positive spin on it, though, and say that lefties just up and die because they experience a lot more and have just a hell of a lot more fun than your average righty. We're kind of like blondes, or something.
All of these things have put a pretty negative spin on being left-handed, and I guess a lot of people that are part of this hallowed group wish that they weren't. In my research, I actually came across a website that had advice for the parents of a lefty. Apparently, some people treat it as though it were a disease, and I don't think it is at all. I'm glad I'm a lefty, and now I'm going to tell you a few reasons why.
Firstly, since there only 10 percent of the world's population is left-handed, it helps to make me an individual. I'm basically an average, white, middle-class male, and it's kind of cool to actually be part of a minority and be able to break away from the status quo. I realize that being left-handed doesn't make me a different person, per se, but it's still domething different, and I enjoy that.
Being left-handed helped me with basketball. For some reason, southpaws seem to have a natural knack for shooting from distance, and since I am--as previously mentioned--an average white male who happens to be really slow, this helped me get decent at my favorite sport.
Lefties are traditionally more creative than righties, and that's something I'm proud of. I consider myself to be a creative dude (though this may not be true), and we're also among good creative company. There are many famous actors and writers who are left-handed, because lefties traditionally think with the right side of their brain, which is the creative side. I can't solve math problems without using my fingers and toes, but fuck it. I can write a sonnet if I have to.
Polar bears are left-handed.
And my favorite reason for being left-handed actually coincides with a discrimination against lefties. Computer mouses (mice?) are made for right-handed people. You can purchase left-handed ones, but if you're anywhere using a computer that isn't yours (a friends, a lab, etc.), you have to use your right hand to operate the mouse. This was how I was conditioned to operate a computer, and now I'm thankful that I was.
You know why? Because I can operate a computer mouse while simultaneously writing, eating with a fork, or--most importantly--catching a beat.
"Not really," I said. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I was trying to do it today, just to see what it'd be like, and it's really hard"
Two things went through my mind at that point: my friend is really weird for doing such a thing, and that I'd never really thought about whether or not it'd be easier for me to drive using my left foot. It makes sense that it would, since I kick with my left foot, and do most things with my left appendages, but it wasn't something that had ever really crossed my mind.
"It doesn't really make a difference to me," I said, "because I guess I've just been conditioned to drive with my right foot, and I've never known any different. Kind of like Amish people, or those really religious folk who refuse to have sex before they get married."
This weird conversation got me to thinking about what it means to be a lefty, if anything at all. It's an odd thing, because I've always taken pride in being a left-handed person, but I don't know why. I did nothing to influence whether or not I would be one, and I assume I was just born that way. There's no conceivable reason that this makes me better--or worse--than anyone who is right-handed, because it's just the hand that I do things with.
It does, however, make me a little bit different, and I think I take pride in being left-handed because I'm sort of bitter about it. To be frank, being a lefty can suck dick, because like anybody who is different or is a minority, we are discriminated against. Not in any hardcore way, like apartheid or anything like that, just in ways that are more annoying and inconvenient than anything.
The one that seems to haunt me more than any other one is the whole system of writing. In the English language, we obviously write from left to right, and if you're a left-handed person, you just get straight-up shit on in this category. I haven't used a pencil (except on Scantron tests) since 9th grade, because everytime I do I end up with a gigantic graphite stain all over the outside of my hand from it rubbing over my own previously-written words. The words on the paper would also usually be smeared beyond recognition, as well, leaving my already extremely messy penmanship altogether unreadable. (I also blame my terribly messy writing on my left-handedness. Watch a lefty write sometime, and you'll see that it doesn't seem like a very natural action at all. Most of us bend our wrist in a very uncomfortable way in an attempt to crane our hand above the smearing area, which just results in smearing the words of the lines higher up. The whole process of writing is is totally unnatural for a left-handed person, and since all I ever do is write, I'm constantly reminded of it. I would've graduated from elementary school with a perfect A grade point average, but I always got C's on handwriting. Why the fuck do kids get graded on handwriting? That's like grading someone on how high you can jump or whether or not you have a nice singing voice. You either have it or you don't. You can't exactly study to become a great handwriter, and if you did, people would just beat the fuck out of you and steal your lunch money anyway.) Sometimes, this even happens with pens. A couple of months ago, I bought a friend of mine a pretty ridiculous birthday card at our student bookstore, and when I went to write a message for her on it, I smeared the black ink from my gel pen all over the glossy surface of the card. So, I had to go back in and buy the exact same card all over again, and I'm pretty sure the asian chick working at the counter thought that I was fucking insane, because it's rare for a kid to buy a card with a bunch of bikini-clad senior citizens on it. It's just plain weird for him to buy it twice within 10 minutes of each other.
In retrospect, I should've just went with whiteout.
It's obvious that when the written form of the English language was invented, it was invented by a right-handed person who paid no heed to the 10 percent of people in the world who are left-handed. He fucked over a lot of people, but he's probably hailed in history as some sort of genius. But then again, I'm trying to think of a way that I could solve this problem, and can't think of anything. I guess it's better to screw 10 percent of the people instead of 90 percent.
To further the whole writing problem, it's very difficult to find a desk that is made for lefties in college classrooms. It seems like they're all for right-handed people, and I can't ever get one that works for me unless I show up to class 20 minutes early, and that is definitely not an option.
Another discrimination against left-handed people comes from scissors. They can only be conveniently used by right-handed folk, and this has been pissing me off since day one. Or, more accurately, the first grade. We were making cookbooks shaped like the face of Santa for our mothers, and we had to cut his face out of every single normal sheet of paper. As the only lefty in my class at the time, I was the only one whose paper book came out with a bearded man that looked more like a homeless man than Santa, who has always been very well-trimmed for a dude who spends most of his life away from society at the north pole. My mom pretended that she liked the gift anyway, even though she doesn't cook and had to have realized that it looked terrible. I guess she just felt bad for giving birth to one of those dreaded southpaws. (I should note that I'm the only lefty in my family, and that it's the first exhibit I always point out when making my case for being adopted. I'm very different from everyone in my family, and I constantly talk to my mom about how I may be the mailman's child, because I'm left-handed. And cool.)
When I was little, I wanted to be a writer and an illustrator, until I figured out that I couldn't even adequately operate a pair of scissors, let alone oil pastels. Those motherfuckers smear like nothing else, let me tell you.
I know you're probably saying that left-handed scissors are, in fact, manufactured. But I don't own any, because I'd have to go into Michael's or some other crafts store to get them, and those places smell awful, like a mix of potpurri, death, and vomit.
***SIDENOTE: I just walked into my kitchen to get a drink, and on the way I passed my dad, who is sitting on the couch in the living room. He's watching a Tyler Perry movie on TBS. I just want to say that this proves he is not cool enough to be left-handed, and would also like to include this as further evidence that I am, in fact, adopted.
A lot of my friends are into golf, but I haven't ever gotten that excited about it. I mean, it's a cool sport that doesn't require a great deal of physical exertion, and you can do it fairly well while drunk, but it's a lot more difficult to find lefty clubs. I mean, I can find them if I look hard enough, but I don't as a matter of principle. I get pissed that they're difficult to find, and as a result, the world of golf will be forced to live without the likes of me.
I also really have a hard time getting excited about it, because there aren't many lefties to idolize on the pro circuit. In every other sport, there's at least a few left-handed athletes to pick from, and I tend to like them because I can empathize with them. In golf, the only famous left-handed pro is Phil Mickelson, and he's not the most likeable golfer ever. He has bigger man-breasts than I do!
Some people (right-handed) try to make lefties feel better about all of this by saying that they actually have an advantage in baseball, but I'm not buying that shit. Sure, left-handed pitchers are in demand, but I was never a pitcher. I wanted to be a shortstop, and they wouldn't let me because I was left-handed. If you're left-handed and want to play in the infield, you get to play only first base, which is a cool position, but there's really no variety. It's frustrating. I spent most of my baseball career standing in the outfield, and that wasn't very appealing because I quit before the age when kids could actually consistently smack it that far. As a result of this, I picked a lot of dandelions and did a lot of thinking about the meaning of life while my team was on defense as a child, and I don't think it had very positive effects on me.
All of these things seem pretty trivial, though, compared to this next statistic: apparently, left-handed people die an average of 10 years earlier than your normal right-handed person. This is something my friend Evan told me, and never hesitates to bring up. That asshole will probably outlive us all.
This is a scary statistic, and I have no idea why it is at all, so I'm going to choose not to believe it. Sadly, with the way things are these days, it's increasingly more difficult to simply die of old age or natural causes. I'll put a positive spin on it, though, and say that lefties just up and die because they experience a lot more and have just a hell of a lot more fun than your average righty. We're kind of like blondes, or something.
All of these things have put a pretty negative spin on being left-handed, and I guess a lot of people that are part of this hallowed group wish that they weren't. In my research, I actually came across a website that had advice for the parents of a lefty. Apparently, some people treat it as though it were a disease, and I don't think it is at all. I'm glad I'm a lefty, and now I'm going to tell you a few reasons why.
Firstly, since there only 10 percent of the world's population is left-handed, it helps to make me an individual. I'm basically an average, white, middle-class male, and it's kind of cool to actually be part of a minority and be able to break away from the status quo. I realize that being left-handed doesn't make me a different person, per se, but it's still domething different, and I enjoy that.
Being left-handed helped me with basketball. For some reason, southpaws seem to have a natural knack for shooting from distance, and since I am--as previously mentioned--an average white male who happens to be really slow, this helped me get decent at my favorite sport.
Lefties are traditionally more creative than righties, and that's something I'm proud of. I consider myself to be a creative dude (though this may not be true), and we're also among good creative company. There are many famous actors and writers who are left-handed, because lefties traditionally think with the right side of their brain, which is the creative side. I can't solve math problems without using my fingers and toes, but fuck it. I can write a sonnet if I have to.
Polar bears are left-handed.
And my favorite reason for being left-handed actually coincides with a discrimination against lefties. Computer mouses (mice?) are made for right-handed people. You can purchase left-handed ones, but if you're anywhere using a computer that isn't yours (a friends, a lab, etc.), you have to use your right hand to operate the mouse. This was how I was conditioned to operate a computer, and now I'm thankful that I was.
You know why? Because I can operate a computer mouse while simultaneously writing, eating with a fork, or--most importantly--catching a beat.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Just Some Ranting.
I'm sitting here, void of my damaged tonsils and high as a kite on Percoset. I figured that for the first few days after my surgery, I would be the most agitated and inconvenienced by the excruciating pain that would accompany such a procedure, but I was wrong (probably because the medicine helps so much with this aspect of the process). What's really bothering me is my inability to speak. I can barely talk, and when I do make an attempt, I don't have much resonance behind it.
This is particularly difficult for me, because I'm constantly filling the silence, and very often have a great deal of difficulty keeping my mouth shut. Especially when I am in some form intoxicated. So, since I'm incapacitated and unable to do anything else, I figured I'd just let my mind wander, and ramble on some of the random things that I think of in the next hour or so (or until I exhaust myself and pass out). I don't know why this would be of an interest to anyone other than myself, but I'm going to do it anyway. It's important to talk about the...issues.
--I really, severely dislike Asher Roth. I'm watchin MTV Hits right now, and he's presenting his "Hit List." This is about an hour's worth of videos that an artist enjoys and chooses to present. I've been watching it for about 15 minutes, and in that time have not seen any videos that I even remotely enjoyed. I didn't even know it was his Hit List until he came on to introduce the video I'm currently watching--which is one of his own videos. That's how you can always tell if the person doing a Hit List is a douche bag. They play one of their own fucking videos. If that's not conceited, I don't really know what is. Fuck this shit, I'm turning it off. Maybe I can find an episode of Murder, She Wrote or True Life: I Have Man Tits.
I think where my real problem with Asher Roth stems from is probably jealousy. It's a different brand of envy than I'm really familiar with, though. I'd usually be jealous of a celebrity because they're so much cooler than I am, and though I can't say that Roth isn't exponentially more hip than I am, I can't help but feel that what he's doing isn't hard, and that it's not something I could feasibly do myself. I mean, this dude writes songs about how he loves college, and he pretty much loves it for all of the same reasons that I do, except I'm apparently not as adept as he is at getting women naked. I also do not really like Banker's Club, and can honestly say that I have never sipped it. I've taken shots of it and thought about how it might be capable of taking paint off of walls (maybe this somehow contributed to the deterioration of my tonsils...), but I've never sipped it.
--Since we're talking about rap music, I'd like to address the term "swagger," or "swagga," as it were. Just what the fuck is it? Do I have it? I mean, I hear a lot of stuff in songs about "turnin' the swag on" and what not, but nobody ever really defines it. Is it just some type of extreme confidence? Can you see it in somebody's walk or distinctive gait? How do I get it? I feel like if I gain some swagger, I'll be a lot more successful in just about every aspect of my life. I'm going to start experimenting and trying out different approaches to acquire an adequate swagger. I'll start by wearing obscure flat-brimmed hats, smoking White Owls, laughing slyly about nothing in particular, and washing myself with that Old Spice bodywash that is, in fact, called Swagger.
--Yesterday evening, I was reading my local newspaper, and saw that a student had been thrown--or coaxed--out of Grove City College because he was a gay porn star. GCC is kind of against porn, or anything else cool, because they're one of those really christian schools. You know what I'm talking about, one of those places where boys and girls aren't allowed to be in the same room with one another with the door closed, which could possibly be why the dude in question decided to go with the whole gay approach.
Now, I don't agree with someone being forced out of the school they pay to go to because of something legal that they do with their personal life, but that's not really something I'd like to get into right now. Basically, the Jesus freaks are the way they are, and I don't think I'd be able to change that. They are about as rational as Kanye West at times, and probably just as stubborn.
What I would like to talk about, though, is how the administration found out. Allegedly, another student at the school recognized the aforementioned student when he was viewing pornography on a video website. That strikes me as funny, and I wonder why that kid isn't in trouble. Isn't watching it and punching your clown to it (because I doubt he was just watching it for the acting) nearly as bad as actually being in it? Why was this kid watching gay porn, and why would he e-mail it to a bunch of his friends? Is he not being made fun of at all?! Because he should be.
I also found out yesterday that the first case of Swine Flue found in my hometown area came from a student at GCC. I don't know if that's related, but maybe god's trying to strike them down for their hedonistic ways. Also, isn't a case of the Swine Flu something that would probably garner most of your attention, and not some guy cornoholing people on video? I'm just not sure if they have their priorities straight or not.
--Sometimes I see people with mustaches, and wonder if anyone has every honestly thought that their appearance is more appealing if they are rocking a full-grown mustache. Has anyone? I know peopel say that Tom Selick and Burt Reynolds and people like that look better, but this is probably only because they've never, ever seen them without one. Mustaches are, for all intents and purposes, a joke. The only people in my generation that grow them are people who want attention and think it's funny, or are truly dissilussioned. With that being said, I think I'm going to grow a post-surgery 'stache.
--Have you ever seen a hardcore sex scene on television that involves a severely tatted-up vampire throwing it at a woman in the doggy style position while she's tied up? Sounds pretty ridiculous, right? Well, I saw it just the other night when I was watching the pilot of a series about vampires called True Blood. This is something that I can handle, because I'm a 21-year-old kid, and I appreciate that tv shows only get ahead now if they severely push the envelope.
Watching it while you're mom is in the room sitting on the couch next to you, though, is another story altogether, and I hope none of you have to ever experience a moment of such profound and discomforting awkwardness.
--I saw a segment on CNN today (I'm already running out of shit to watch on television) about a number of new websites that are offereing teenagers sexual advice via text message.
Seriously, what the fuck?
Technology is overtaking everything. Pretty soon people aren't going to know how to have a conversation face to face with their parents or anybody else, because they aren't required to. This is going to take a lot of the fun out of life. I feel like every kid should get to have some kind of "birds and bees" conversation with their parents, if only for the humorous story it will produce years later when they recollect about it. There's nothing memorable about learning how to put a condom on via text message. It's a lot like losing your virginity to a flesh light.
--How about that Manny Ramirez guy? What a fucking idiot. He was one of the only superstars who hadn't been busted in the huge steroid craze that has dominated professional baseball in the past few years. So, what does he do? He decides to take something and get busted this year. Baseball is now an absolute joke, and I mean it. I'm not only saying that because my fantasy team is in last place, either.
One thing I don't understand, though, is why the government gets involved in the entire steroid scandal. Don't they have more important things to worry about, too?
--It has surfaced recently that the guy from Jon and Kate Plus 8 has been messing around on his wife. I'd spend a few paragraphs talking about how appalled I am that he's doing that when he has a wife and eight kids, but I'm rarely surprised by acts of infidelity anymore. It has become pretty commonplace in today's society, and sadly so.
What really surprised me about this, though, is just how awful these parents actually seem when they aren't filming their show. The first article I read about this scandal said that Jon was seen leaving a bar with a broad at like 2 in the morning. Apparently, his wife wasn't around to figure it out because she was in Seattle on a tour promoting her new book about how fucking hard it is to raise so damn many kids.
But, doesn't this bring up the question of who the fuck is taking care of their kids? He's at a bar all night, and she is out of town. Think about it.
--I read an article on CNN's website that maintains that praying may help to improve your sex life. I am literally speechless. I guess I could make some joke about "pulling and praying," but even I have enough tact not to go there.
--I often complain that people don't read anymore. Apparently, I'm wrong. I read an article about a 54-year-old woman who has posted nearly 13,000 book reviews on Amazon's website. This equals out to one book a day, every day, for 35 years. She says she makes her way through four or five books a day, and posts reviews for all of them. I think it's awesome that this woman reads, but when does she get laid? Or even eat? She says that her ultimate goal in life is to read every single vampire book ever published. I say good luck, because people are taking the whole vampire craze a little bit too far. Twilight was a phenomenon that will probably not be repeated, and the more people write about vampires, the worse it seems to get. I bet Bram Stoker would be ten kinds of pissed if he was still around.
--Percoset is a hell of a drug.
This is particularly difficult for me, because I'm constantly filling the silence, and very often have a great deal of difficulty keeping my mouth shut. Especially when I am in some form intoxicated. So, since I'm incapacitated and unable to do anything else, I figured I'd just let my mind wander, and ramble on some of the random things that I think of in the next hour or so (or until I exhaust myself and pass out). I don't know why this would be of an interest to anyone other than myself, but I'm going to do it anyway. It's important to talk about the...issues.
--I really, severely dislike Asher Roth. I'm watchin MTV Hits right now, and he's presenting his "Hit List." This is about an hour's worth of videos that an artist enjoys and chooses to present. I've been watching it for about 15 minutes, and in that time have not seen any videos that I even remotely enjoyed. I didn't even know it was his Hit List until he came on to introduce the video I'm currently watching--which is one of his own videos. That's how you can always tell if the person doing a Hit List is a douche bag. They play one of their own fucking videos. If that's not conceited, I don't really know what is. Fuck this shit, I'm turning it off. Maybe I can find an episode of Murder, She Wrote or True Life: I Have Man Tits.
I think where my real problem with Asher Roth stems from is probably jealousy. It's a different brand of envy than I'm really familiar with, though. I'd usually be jealous of a celebrity because they're so much cooler than I am, and though I can't say that Roth isn't exponentially more hip than I am, I can't help but feel that what he's doing isn't hard, and that it's not something I could feasibly do myself. I mean, this dude writes songs about how he loves college, and he pretty much loves it for all of the same reasons that I do, except I'm apparently not as adept as he is at getting women naked. I also do not really like Banker's Club, and can honestly say that I have never sipped it. I've taken shots of it and thought about how it might be capable of taking paint off of walls (maybe this somehow contributed to the deterioration of my tonsils...), but I've never sipped it.
--Since we're talking about rap music, I'd like to address the term "swagger," or "swagga," as it were. Just what the fuck is it? Do I have it? I mean, I hear a lot of stuff in songs about "turnin' the swag on" and what not, but nobody ever really defines it. Is it just some type of extreme confidence? Can you see it in somebody's walk or distinctive gait? How do I get it? I feel like if I gain some swagger, I'll be a lot more successful in just about every aspect of my life. I'm going to start experimenting and trying out different approaches to acquire an adequate swagger. I'll start by wearing obscure flat-brimmed hats, smoking White Owls, laughing slyly about nothing in particular, and washing myself with that Old Spice bodywash that is, in fact, called Swagger.
--Yesterday evening, I was reading my local newspaper, and saw that a student had been thrown--or coaxed--out of Grove City College because he was a gay porn star. GCC is kind of against porn, or anything else cool, because they're one of those really christian schools. You know what I'm talking about, one of those places where boys and girls aren't allowed to be in the same room with one another with the door closed, which could possibly be why the dude in question decided to go with the whole gay approach.
Now, I don't agree with someone being forced out of the school they pay to go to because of something legal that they do with their personal life, but that's not really something I'd like to get into right now. Basically, the Jesus freaks are the way they are, and I don't think I'd be able to change that. They are about as rational as Kanye West at times, and probably just as stubborn.
What I would like to talk about, though, is how the administration found out. Allegedly, another student at the school recognized the aforementioned student when he was viewing pornography on a video website. That strikes me as funny, and I wonder why that kid isn't in trouble. Isn't watching it and punching your clown to it (because I doubt he was just watching it for the acting) nearly as bad as actually being in it? Why was this kid watching gay porn, and why would he e-mail it to a bunch of his friends? Is he not being made fun of at all?! Because he should be.
I also found out yesterday that the first case of Swine Flue found in my hometown area came from a student at GCC. I don't know if that's related, but maybe god's trying to strike them down for their hedonistic ways. Also, isn't a case of the Swine Flu something that would probably garner most of your attention, and not some guy cornoholing people on video? I'm just not sure if they have their priorities straight or not.
--Sometimes I see people with mustaches, and wonder if anyone has every honestly thought that their appearance is more appealing if they are rocking a full-grown mustache. Has anyone? I know peopel say that Tom Selick and Burt Reynolds and people like that look better, but this is probably only because they've never, ever seen them without one. Mustaches are, for all intents and purposes, a joke. The only people in my generation that grow them are people who want attention and think it's funny, or are truly dissilussioned. With that being said, I think I'm going to grow a post-surgery 'stache.
--Have you ever seen a hardcore sex scene on television that involves a severely tatted-up vampire throwing it at a woman in the doggy style position while she's tied up? Sounds pretty ridiculous, right? Well, I saw it just the other night when I was watching the pilot of a series about vampires called True Blood. This is something that I can handle, because I'm a 21-year-old kid, and I appreciate that tv shows only get ahead now if they severely push the envelope.
Watching it while you're mom is in the room sitting on the couch next to you, though, is another story altogether, and I hope none of you have to ever experience a moment of such profound and discomforting awkwardness.
--I saw a segment on CNN today (I'm already running out of shit to watch on television) about a number of new websites that are offereing teenagers sexual advice via text message.
Seriously, what the fuck?
Technology is overtaking everything. Pretty soon people aren't going to know how to have a conversation face to face with their parents or anybody else, because they aren't required to. This is going to take a lot of the fun out of life. I feel like every kid should get to have some kind of "birds and bees" conversation with their parents, if only for the humorous story it will produce years later when they recollect about it. There's nothing memorable about learning how to put a condom on via text message. It's a lot like losing your virginity to a flesh light.
--How about that Manny Ramirez guy? What a fucking idiot. He was one of the only superstars who hadn't been busted in the huge steroid craze that has dominated professional baseball in the past few years. So, what does he do? He decides to take something and get busted this year. Baseball is now an absolute joke, and I mean it. I'm not only saying that because my fantasy team is in last place, either.
One thing I don't understand, though, is why the government gets involved in the entire steroid scandal. Don't they have more important things to worry about, too?
--It has surfaced recently that the guy from Jon and Kate Plus 8 has been messing around on his wife. I'd spend a few paragraphs talking about how appalled I am that he's doing that when he has a wife and eight kids, but I'm rarely surprised by acts of infidelity anymore. It has become pretty commonplace in today's society, and sadly so.
What really surprised me about this, though, is just how awful these parents actually seem when they aren't filming their show. The first article I read about this scandal said that Jon was seen leaving a bar with a broad at like 2 in the morning. Apparently, his wife wasn't around to figure it out because she was in Seattle on a tour promoting her new book about how fucking hard it is to raise so damn many kids.
But, doesn't this bring up the question of who the fuck is taking care of their kids? He's at a bar all night, and she is out of town. Think about it.
--I read an article on CNN's website that maintains that praying may help to improve your sex life. I am literally speechless. I guess I could make some joke about "pulling and praying," but even I have enough tact not to go there.
--I often complain that people don't read anymore. Apparently, I'm wrong. I read an article about a 54-year-old woman who has posted nearly 13,000 book reviews on Amazon's website. This equals out to one book a day, every day, for 35 years. She says she makes her way through four or five books a day, and posts reviews for all of them. I think it's awesome that this woman reads, but when does she get laid? Or even eat? She says that her ultimate goal in life is to read every single vampire book ever published. I say good luck, because people are taking the whole vampire craze a little bit too far. Twilight was a phenomenon that will probably not be repeated, and the more people write about vampires, the worse it seems to get. I bet Bram Stoker would be ten kinds of pissed if he was still around.
--Percoset is a hell of a drug.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Man or Boy?
For a while now, I’ve been walking a line of sever confusion over whether I am now a man or still merely a boy. I’ve put a lot of thought into what I consider myself, and what I think others should consider me. It’s difficult to discern where the vague line between the two is, and what exactly would propel me over into the realm of manhood. Firstly, I’m not even very sure if there is one surefire thing or method to determine what makes you a man. Do you become a man the first time you wear a pair of Wranglers, or punch somebody in the face? Do you become a man when you lose your virginity, or when you become married? Is it when you get your first job, or buy your own car? Is it when you simply reach a certain age? Who is to say what it is to truly be a male, and is there anyone qualified to make such a rule? If they are, where, why, and how did they choose their criteria? Does a man have to watch sports on the weekends and pretend that his cock is much larger than it actually is? Does he have to drink beer and know how to tie a tie?
What classifies a man, and am I a man?
I don’t know really, but at 21 I’d like to think so. But why? Isn’t it better to be merely a boy? It’s not too far-fetched to say that your typical child doesn’t have nearly as many responsibilities and stressful problems that men do. One could argue that the best case scenario would be if you were stuck—for lack of a better word—somewhere in the middle, and you’re walking the line where you’re both a boy and a man. Like a cross between Peter Pan and George Clooney, or Kevin Arnold and Brett Favre. Can that happen?
I say absolutely, and I’m going to go so far as to say that I am living proof.
Now, I feel like I should say that I’ve never been all that concerned with labels. People could call me either a boy or a man, and I wouldn’t even think twice about it, because it never made a difference to me. But at my age, it’s hard not to think about every once in a while, because people start to expect certain things from you, and there are certain irresponsibilities that you just cannot get away with anymore, and you find yourself worrying about stuff you’d never even considered before, like where you’ll work after college and how to make enough money to afford the largest flat screen you can possibly find. People expect you to be a man, and I think I’ve rose to that challenge, but people also don’t really want you to become a lame tightass. I believe it’s important to keep some of those endearing characteristics you had as a boy with you for, well, maybe your entire life.
So, I guess I’ll separate the man from the boy as best as I can right now.
I’ve driven a car at over 100 miles per hour, until the governor on my car shut the engine down. I’ve been pulled over by law enforcement officials (pigs) for a number of road violations, with one of them resulting in a pretty fucking big ticket. When the officer approached my window, I didn’t start crying or feed him some bullshit about how I was going so fast because I had to urinate. I didn’t say my grandmother was sick, or make any other excuse. I took the ticket, because I was going 81 in a 65, which is blatantly illegal, and justly so. I owned up, because men own up.
I’ve never shot a gun, which I admit does not make me seem all that manly, but I have cooked many stakes and other forms of meat. I’ve eaten them, as well, and enjoyed it thoroughly. I didn’t feel a need to shoot them, because I could go to the local grocery store and purchase them pre-cut. I figured that if I did that instead of sitting outside in the freezing cold for hours I’d save a shitload of time and effort. So, even though I don’t really know much about guns, I am efficient, and that shit is manly.
Speaking of efficiency, I can type over 100 words per minute, with very few mistakes. Some say that would make me a good secretary, but I’m a man, so I tell those people to fuck off. I actually use this skill to write things every once in a while. My ultimate goal in life is to be a writer. Men have ultimate goals, I think. Sometimes, I get paid to write things, so I’ve been paid to do something that I love. I do what I want to, and occasionally get paid for it.
I love food. All kinds of food. I actually recently spent about an hour writing something about fortune cookies. Because of this, I’ve become adept enough at cooking to not be afraid to make a woman dinner. Every man should be able to make a respectable meal for a woman. I’ve done it before, for my mother on Valentine’s day. I did this because I appreciate my mother and all that she has done for my family and myself throughout the years (and I didn’t have a Valentine). I’m not afraid to admit that I need this woman in my life, and I’ll undoubtedly need some of the qualities that she has instilled in me forever.
With that being said, I’ve fought verbally with my mother, and not stood down in any way. A man should know that just because someone is special to them, they aren’t always right, and that respect doesn’t always mean the willingness to be silent when you feel slighted.
I have voted for a president, and known exactly why I was doing so. It wasn’t to be trendy, and it wasn’t because he was half black, or half white, or had larger than average ears that tend to stick out and remind me of that freckled dude on the cover of Mad Magazine. It was because I dug his opinions on certain things that I hold in pretty high accord.
I’m not really a fan of organized religion (but I do believe in God). Again, this is not to be trendy (I’m really not very trendy). It is because I was raised as a Roman Catholic, but never narrowed my sights to one exclusive school of thought. I researched and questioned things, which allowed me to come to my own conclusions. I don’t expect others to think this way, and they can believe what they choose. I’m not King George. I just believe that religions have ulterior motives, and I can’t get down with that. I mean, sure, I have ulterior motives for most things, too. My real motive for writing this is that women will fall in love with my eloquent prose and want to do sexual things to me, but I don’t go around bringing a higher being into that. Know what I’m saying? If you’re a man, think about it. You’ll get it, and if not, you can always ask me. I’ll drop some knowledge.
I fucking hate losing. Anybody who say that it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game is either a boy or some kind of idiot, and they are lying to themselves. You don’t get involved in things that you might lose without at least wanting to win. (Unless it’s youth soccer and you get Little Debbies and Capri Suns after the game. Then it’s a totally different story.) When you do participate in these—be it sports, a game of Dungeons & Dragons or a fucking danceoff—and feel the pain of losing, you try your best to get better at them. I hated losing so badly that I mastered the art of putting a spherical orange ball into a metal hoop with consistency from as far as 50 feet away. I did this through stubborn and countless repetitions, through a lot of sweat and hours alone in a gym or on an asphalt driveway. I got good enough at it that I was recruited to play in college, and so I did. For about two months. When I realized I wasn’t having any fun, I shrugged and walked away from the game forever. Then I got drunk. I think a man realizes when he doesn’t like something that he’s able to quit (not things like raising a child or paying taxes), he does just that. A man realizes that even though his entire life isn’t going to be a lot of joyous jubilation, he doesn’t have to waste his time doing something that he doesn’t enjoy. If we spent all of our time doing things we hated when we weren’t at work, when would we masturbate, drink beer, and watch football? We wouldn’t. And then we just pretty much wouldn’t be men anymore.
I have amazing friends; the kind of friends that will be your friends for the rest of your life. We don’t spite each other, lie to each other, or refuse to help one another out, no matter what the task. We’ve done a lot of laughing and even some crying together. I can say that, even though I feel like I’m a very solitary person, I need these friends. Every man should have at least one friend like this (and I’m very blessed to have more), and he should be able to admit to himself and everyone else that he needs them. Because we need certain people. Every man does.
One time, on my 21st birthday, I drank 28 drinks between the hours of 12 and 2 a.m. I then proceeded to fall over behind the bar, where they serve the drinks. I was subsequently ejected from said bar, and was carried home by my friends as I imitated Dave Chappelle the entire way. I woke up the next day, and went to class. I can handle my booze and still fulfill all of my responsibilities, and a true man is capable of such a balancing act.
I frequently use the word “fuck,” and other swear words. I know when to exercise restraint, and I only use them to emphasize certain emotions. I don’t say “fuck” to amuse myself or others, but because I realize it’s the most effective word in the English language for expressing pretty much any emotion. I’ve found that it’s really good for expressing disdain, surprise, anger, profundity, and confusion. Fuck is basically a four letter exclamation point, and to use it properly is an art. A manly art.
Speaking of the word “fuck,” the Bronte sisters can all go fuck themselves.
Obviously, since I’ve given so much thought to the word “fuck,” I must spend a lot of time alone. I do, and that’s fine, because I’ve grown to enjoy solitude. I spent my entire last summer living by myself in an area where I didn’t know a single person. I loved it, because I could do as I pleased, and think about whatever I wanted to for pretty much any length of time. I know a lot of people who can’t stand to be alone, ever. Some people need to be in a relationship all the time, or desperately need the comradeship and approval of others. A man can spend extended amounts of time on his own, and not only entertain himself, but be happy for the solitude. A man can sit in a room and drink alone without crying. Too much, anyway.
Speaking of being alone, I possess a pretty extensive collection of porn. Boys don’t mess around with that shit. At least not on my level.
Speaking of porn, I firmly believe that chivalry is not, in fact, dead. I open the door for women without thinking about it, help them into the car, and may even send them flowers on their birthdays if they’re relatively special. I spend a lot of time yearning for a certain amount of romance, and I’m fairly certain that I could pen a pretty decent love letter if I was ever so inclined. I like holding hands so much that sometimes my friends slap me in the face for doing it. And you know what? I may not be a smart man, Jenny, but I know what love is. People believe that chivalry is going out the window, but me and my fellow men will keep fighting to keep it alive, no matter what happens. A man knows that romance is an important part of life, but that his affinity for it should never outweigh his good judgment. We usually learn this lesson the hard way.
I don’t get into fights often, but when I do I almost always win the verbal ones. And, one time I fist-fought my older brother when I was butt ass naked over who go to take the first shower in the morning. We also fought over possession of chicken wings once. Like a caveman, I needed to protect my food. I think it should be noted, for the record, that cavemen were extremely manly, and they had never shot guns either.
I’m still a boy because I spend most of my time daydreaming. My head’s always in the clouds, thinking about how things could be better for me, and more fortuitous. I’m not yet to the age where I can just sit back and look at the successes and happiness that I’ve found and accept it as enough. Anytime I feel as though I’m right where I should be, I remind myself not to settle. For some reason, I’m still unable to be content or satisfied, and this is something that may be hurting me. If it’s not now, it might in the long run. I think I might finally be satisfied when I have a pet unicorn or superhero abilities. I only want the abilities, though, because I’m not mature enough to take on the responsibilities of an actually superhero.
I’m still a bit hesitant to commit to most things, especially relationships with women. Mainly, because I’m very frightened of women. It’s just something that’s been instilled in me through the years, because I’m programmed to fear what I don’t understand, and I obviously do not understand girls. They’re either way too complicated, or so simple that I over think them. Boys are scared of things like that. And I guess the fact that they have vaginas doesn’t really help, either.
I still say “That’s what she said” at any possible time, and then I cackle like a fucking idiot after doing so. Usually for about five minutes, and then by the time I’m done laughing I’ve already found another spot to insert that overused saying into. The process repeats itself, and it’s like a never-ending cycle. I’m such a boy that I even get pissed at myself for how immature I am sometimes.
Sometimes in the mornings, I’ll eat a Snicker’s bar and drink a can of Mountain Dew instead of having a Nutri Grain and drinking coffee like a normal adult.
Sometimes I still do some stupid things when I’m drunk, like puke or tell people ill-advised and extremely emotional things. Just a few nights ago, my best friend and me puked off of our balcony. One night, I got so drunk in my dorm room that I sleepwalked three floors down to our dormitory’s basement. I woke up six hours later on a couch in the laundry room, wearing only boxer briefs and a dumbfounded expression. I also didn’t have my key to get back onto my floor and into my room. Last summer, I got drunk and sleepwalked into my kitchen, where I proceeded to flood my kitchen floor with water from the Culligan dispenser.
I still listen to “Mmmbop.” That just might make me a queer, I don’t know.
Whenever I have certain feelings about things that I don’t want to discuss, I use sarcasm and jokes to attempt to change the subject. This pisses a lot of people off, but I’ll probably keep doing this until I somehow can’t anymore. Or until my head gets forcefully pulled from my ass.
A few weeks ago, I was on a trip with my family. My brother and I went out to the bar while the rest of our tribe retired to our adjoining hotel rooms. We got pretty intoxicated, and proceeded to go to Wal*Mart, where we purchased ridiculous fishing hats and an air horn. We then took the air horn back to our hotel, and jumped up and down on our parents’ bed setting it off. It was an awesome time, but not something I feel a man would do.
I will jump at any chance to watch Peter Pan, Aladdin, or The Lion King. And I still believe that these Disney movies will teach you more about life than any documentary you watch, if you let them.
I’m reading the fucking Twilight series.
I still count Where the Wild Things Are and Harold and the Purple Crayon as two of my favorite books of all time.
I’m only ever really comfortable in tennis shoes, or no shoes at all, and I hate socks.
Recently, I got engaged (on Facebook). I gave the girl a mood ring.
I’m still very afraid of heights, and my hands get clammy when I see someone doing something from a treacherous height on TV.
I’m very impatient, and that’s why I’m going to end this right now. There are many, many more things I could write trying to discern whether I’m a man or a boy, and maybe someday I will. But for now, you can make your own judgment, if you’d like to. I don’t really care. I’m very apathetic (boy), but if you throw me a comment trying to belittle me, I’ll bang your mom (man).
What classifies a man, and am I a man?
I don’t know really, but at 21 I’d like to think so. But why? Isn’t it better to be merely a boy? It’s not too far-fetched to say that your typical child doesn’t have nearly as many responsibilities and stressful problems that men do. One could argue that the best case scenario would be if you were stuck—for lack of a better word—somewhere in the middle, and you’re walking the line where you’re both a boy and a man. Like a cross between Peter Pan and George Clooney, or Kevin Arnold and Brett Favre. Can that happen?
I say absolutely, and I’m going to go so far as to say that I am living proof.
Now, I feel like I should say that I’ve never been all that concerned with labels. People could call me either a boy or a man, and I wouldn’t even think twice about it, because it never made a difference to me. But at my age, it’s hard not to think about every once in a while, because people start to expect certain things from you, and there are certain irresponsibilities that you just cannot get away with anymore, and you find yourself worrying about stuff you’d never even considered before, like where you’ll work after college and how to make enough money to afford the largest flat screen you can possibly find. People expect you to be a man, and I think I’ve rose to that challenge, but people also don’t really want you to become a lame tightass. I believe it’s important to keep some of those endearing characteristics you had as a boy with you for, well, maybe your entire life.
So, I guess I’ll separate the man from the boy as best as I can right now.
I’ve driven a car at over 100 miles per hour, until the governor on my car shut the engine down. I’ve been pulled over by law enforcement officials (pigs) for a number of road violations, with one of them resulting in a pretty fucking big ticket. When the officer approached my window, I didn’t start crying or feed him some bullshit about how I was going so fast because I had to urinate. I didn’t say my grandmother was sick, or make any other excuse. I took the ticket, because I was going 81 in a 65, which is blatantly illegal, and justly so. I owned up, because men own up.
I’ve never shot a gun, which I admit does not make me seem all that manly, but I have cooked many stakes and other forms of meat. I’ve eaten them, as well, and enjoyed it thoroughly. I didn’t feel a need to shoot them, because I could go to the local grocery store and purchase them pre-cut. I figured that if I did that instead of sitting outside in the freezing cold for hours I’d save a shitload of time and effort. So, even though I don’t really know much about guns, I am efficient, and that shit is manly.
Speaking of efficiency, I can type over 100 words per minute, with very few mistakes. Some say that would make me a good secretary, but I’m a man, so I tell those people to fuck off. I actually use this skill to write things every once in a while. My ultimate goal in life is to be a writer. Men have ultimate goals, I think. Sometimes, I get paid to write things, so I’ve been paid to do something that I love. I do what I want to, and occasionally get paid for it.
I love food. All kinds of food. I actually recently spent about an hour writing something about fortune cookies. Because of this, I’ve become adept enough at cooking to not be afraid to make a woman dinner. Every man should be able to make a respectable meal for a woman. I’ve done it before, for my mother on Valentine’s day. I did this because I appreciate my mother and all that she has done for my family and myself throughout the years (and I didn’t have a Valentine). I’m not afraid to admit that I need this woman in my life, and I’ll undoubtedly need some of the qualities that she has instilled in me forever.
With that being said, I’ve fought verbally with my mother, and not stood down in any way. A man should know that just because someone is special to them, they aren’t always right, and that respect doesn’t always mean the willingness to be silent when you feel slighted.
I have voted for a president, and known exactly why I was doing so. It wasn’t to be trendy, and it wasn’t because he was half black, or half white, or had larger than average ears that tend to stick out and remind me of that freckled dude on the cover of Mad Magazine. It was because I dug his opinions on certain things that I hold in pretty high accord.
I’m not really a fan of organized religion (but I do believe in God). Again, this is not to be trendy (I’m really not very trendy). It is because I was raised as a Roman Catholic, but never narrowed my sights to one exclusive school of thought. I researched and questioned things, which allowed me to come to my own conclusions. I don’t expect others to think this way, and they can believe what they choose. I’m not King George. I just believe that religions have ulterior motives, and I can’t get down with that. I mean, sure, I have ulterior motives for most things, too. My real motive for writing this is that women will fall in love with my eloquent prose and want to do sexual things to me, but I don’t go around bringing a higher being into that. Know what I’m saying? If you’re a man, think about it. You’ll get it, and if not, you can always ask me. I’ll drop some knowledge.
I fucking hate losing. Anybody who say that it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game is either a boy or some kind of idiot, and they are lying to themselves. You don’t get involved in things that you might lose without at least wanting to win. (Unless it’s youth soccer and you get Little Debbies and Capri Suns after the game. Then it’s a totally different story.) When you do participate in these—be it sports, a game of Dungeons & Dragons or a fucking danceoff—and feel the pain of losing, you try your best to get better at them. I hated losing so badly that I mastered the art of putting a spherical orange ball into a metal hoop with consistency from as far as 50 feet away. I did this through stubborn and countless repetitions, through a lot of sweat and hours alone in a gym or on an asphalt driveway. I got good enough at it that I was recruited to play in college, and so I did. For about two months. When I realized I wasn’t having any fun, I shrugged and walked away from the game forever. Then I got drunk. I think a man realizes when he doesn’t like something that he’s able to quit (not things like raising a child or paying taxes), he does just that. A man realizes that even though his entire life isn’t going to be a lot of joyous jubilation, he doesn’t have to waste his time doing something that he doesn’t enjoy. If we spent all of our time doing things we hated when we weren’t at work, when would we masturbate, drink beer, and watch football? We wouldn’t. And then we just pretty much wouldn’t be men anymore.
I have amazing friends; the kind of friends that will be your friends for the rest of your life. We don’t spite each other, lie to each other, or refuse to help one another out, no matter what the task. We’ve done a lot of laughing and even some crying together. I can say that, even though I feel like I’m a very solitary person, I need these friends. Every man should have at least one friend like this (and I’m very blessed to have more), and he should be able to admit to himself and everyone else that he needs them. Because we need certain people. Every man does.
One time, on my 21st birthday, I drank 28 drinks between the hours of 12 and 2 a.m. I then proceeded to fall over behind the bar, where they serve the drinks. I was subsequently ejected from said bar, and was carried home by my friends as I imitated Dave Chappelle the entire way. I woke up the next day, and went to class. I can handle my booze and still fulfill all of my responsibilities, and a true man is capable of such a balancing act.
I frequently use the word “fuck,” and other swear words. I know when to exercise restraint, and I only use them to emphasize certain emotions. I don’t say “fuck” to amuse myself or others, but because I realize it’s the most effective word in the English language for expressing pretty much any emotion. I’ve found that it’s really good for expressing disdain, surprise, anger, profundity, and confusion. Fuck is basically a four letter exclamation point, and to use it properly is an art. A manly art.
Speaking of the word “fuck,” the Bronte sisters can all go fuck themselves.
Obviously, since I’ve given so much thought to the word “fuck,” I must spend a lot of time alone. I do, and that’s fine, because I’ve grown to enjoy solitude. I spent my entire last summer living by myself in an area where I didn’t know a single person. I loved it, because I could do as I pleased, and think about whatever I wanted to for pretty much any length of time. I know a lot of people who can’t stand to be alone, ever. Some people need to be in a relationship all the time, or desperately need the comradeship and approval of others. A man can spend extended amounts of time on his own, and not only entertain himself, but be happy for the solitude. A man can sit in a room and drink alone without crying. Too much, anyway.
Speaking of being alone, I possess a pretty extensive collection of porn. Boys don’t mess around with that shit. At least not on my level.
Speaking of porn, I firmly believe that chivalry is not, in fact, dead. I open the door for women without thinking about it, help them into the car, and may even send them flowers on their birthdays if they’re relatively special. I spend a lot of time yearning for a certain amount of romance, and I’m fairly certain that I could pen a pretty decent love letter if I was ever so inclined. I like holding hands so much that sometimes my friends slap me in the face for doing it. And you know what? I may not be a smart man, Jenny, but I know what love is. People believe that chivalry is going out the window, but me and my fellow men will keep fighting to keep it alive, no matter what happens. A man knows that romance is an important part of life, but that his affinity for it should never outweigh his good judgment. We usually learn this lesson the hard way.
I don’t get into fights often, but when I do I almost always win the verbal ones. And, one time I fist-fought my older brother when I was butt ass naked over who go to take the first shower in the morning. We also fought over possession of chicken wings once. Like a caveman, I needed to protect my food. I think it should be noted, for the record, that cavemen were extremely manly, and they had never shot guns either.
I’m still a boy because I spend most of my time daydreaming. My head’s always in the clouds, thinking about how things could be better for me, and more fortuitous. I’m not yet to the age where I can just sit back and look at the successes and happiness that I’ve found and accept it as enough. Anytime I feel as though I’m right where I should be, I remind myself not to settle. For some reason, I’m still unable to be content or satisfied, and this is something that may be hurting me. If it’s not now, it might in the long run. I think I might finally be satisfied when I have a pet unicorn or superhero abilities. I only want the abilities, though, because I’m not mature enough to take on the responsibilities of an actually superhero.
I’m still a bit hesitant to commit to most things, especially relationships with women. Mainly, because I’m very frightened of women. It’s just something that’s been instilled in me through the years, because I’m programmed to fear what I don’t understand, and I obviously do not understand girls. They’re either way too complicated, or so simple that I over think them. Boys are scared of things like that. And I guess the fact that they have vaginas doesn’t really help, either.
I still say “That’s what she said” at any possible time, and then I cackle like a fucking idiot after doing so. Usually for about five minutes, and then by the time I’m done laughing I’ve already found another spot to insert that overused saying into. The process repeats itself, and it’s like a never-ending cycle. I’m such a boy that I even get pissed at myself for how immature I am sometimes.
Sometimes in the mornings, I’ll eat a Snicker’s bar and drink a can of Mountain Dew instead of having a Nutri Grain and drinking coffee like a normal adult.
Sometimes I still do some stupid things when I’m drunk, like puke or tell people ill-advised and extremely emotional things. Just a few nights ago, my best friend and me puked off of our balcony. One night, I got so drunk in my dorm room that I sleepwalked three floors down to our dormitory’s basement. I woke up six hours later on a couch in the laundry room, wearing only boxer briefs and a dumbfounded expression. I also didn’t have my key to get back onto my floor and into my room. Last summer, I got drunk and sleepwalked into my kitchen, where I proceeded to flood my kitchen floor with water from the Culligan dispenser.
I still listen to “Mmmbop.” That just might make me a queer, I don’t know.
Whenever I have certain feelings about things that I don’t want to discuss, I use sarcasm and jokes to attempt to change the subject. This pisses a lot of people off, but I’ll probably keep doing this until I somehow can’t anymore. Or until my head gets forcefully pulled from my ass.
A few weeks ago, I was on a trip with my family. My brother and I went out to the bar while the rest of our tribe retired to our adjoining hotel rooms. We got pretty intoxicated, and proceeded to go to Wal*Mart, where we purchased ridiculous fishing hats and an air horn. We then took the air horn back to our hotel, and jumped up and down on our parents’ bed setting it off. It was an awesome time, but not something I feel a man would do.
I will jump at any chance to watch Peter Pan, Aladdin, or The Lion King. And I still believe that these Disney movies will teach you more about life than any documentary you watch, if you let them.
I’m reading the fucking Twilight series.
I still count Where the Wild Things Are and Harold and the Purple Crayon as two of my favorite books of all time.
I’m only ever really comfortable in tennis shoes, or no shoes at all, and I hate socks.
Recently, I got engaged (on Facebook). I gave the girl a mood ring.
I’m still very afraid of heights, and my hands get clammy when I see someone doing something from a treacherous height on TV.
I’m very impatient, and that’s why I’m going to end this right now. There are many, many more things I could write trying to discern whether I’m a man or a boy, and maybe someday I will. But for now, you can make your own judgment, if you’d like to. I don’t really care. I’m very apathetic (boy), but if you throw me a comment trying to belittle me, I’ll bang your mom (man).
Monday, April 6, 2009
Fortune Cookies
Allow me to preface this by stating that I absolutely love Chinese food, and I eat it a lot; probably more than is healthy, necessary, or even rational. I tend to believe that this stems from the affection for chicken that has been instilled in me my for as far back as I can remember. In my opinion, nobody gets more creative with chicken than the people who work for American-based Chinese food outlets.
(Here's the part where everyone's thinking or making some smart-assed remark about how Chinese restaurants really serve dogs and cats instead of chicken. Do me a favor, and stop it with that shit. Please. You and I both know that it's extremely played out, and not even remotely true. I think I know the difference between a chicken and a beagle, especially when one or the other is in my mouth, and I have never eaten Kung Pao Shiloh in my life. Wow. Do you see how passionate I am about Chinese food? I'm even going to bat for an ethnicity and culture I am not in any way affiliated with and don't even remotely understand...they seem to like strange cartoons over there a little too much. This is a sign that I either really stand up for what I believe in, or I really like food way too much. You can decide.)
Anyway, I order Chinese a lot, and they bring it right to my door. All I do is sign a slip of paper and they give me a brown paper bag filled with all sorts of delightful things. As far as eating a meal goes, the only way I think it could get any better would be if they included in that bag a little sugary thing shaped like a boomerang that has a little piece of paper in it that has a wise saying printed on it in red letters.
Actually, they do have that, and it's called a fortune cookie. So, it can't really get any better. The way I see it, these are supposed to give you a fortune that tells you about something that's going to happen to you eventually. This used to be how it was, back in the day, but it seems like now I get them and they just have stupid sayings that don't even mention anything about what will become of your life in the future. This angered me, because everytime I get Chinese food, I expect to be knocked out of my fucking seat by some extremely philosophical sentence about what my desiny ultimately holds (I have admittedly high expectations). Eventually, it got to the point where I just stopped opening them, because I would get all excited about what was inside, and I would always be disappointed. It was a feeling akin to when you would get a mini football helmet keychain out of those coin machines in front of grocery stores and end up with a team you hated.
So, I'd just get my food, throw the fortune cookies into a drawer in our kitchen, and forget about them. I have no idea why I didn't throw them away, but I didn't. Probably because I'm kind of a pack rat. Today i was looking for a bag of chips that I could crush up and put in Spencer's shoes or a can of sardines I could put into his bedroom's heating vent for no good reason, and I found the cookies. Since I have nothing better to do than fuck with my roommate, I decided to open and read all of the cookie, and attempt to analyze them and deduce whether or not they meant anything to my life. Some of them were just stupid sayings, but some did try their best to predict things, and I did my best to figure out if they had happened or not, and if so, in what respect and way they had happened.
I figured I'd type them out here, because again, I apparently have a lot of time on my hands. Believe it or not, there are twenty of them. I don't have a frying pan with a handle, but I do have an abundance of fortune cookies.
This is probably going to be a huge waste of your time, and you probably won't get anything out of it. If this is something that bothers you, just stop reading and do something productive, like watching Oprah or indulging in psychadelic drugs. Do both at the same time, even. I'm not one to judge. Anyway, you can't say I didn't warn you.
The happiest circumstances are close to home: This makes a certain amount of sense to a lot of people, because I guess most people dig being home. To be honest, my hometown is extremely dull and rural, so the only reason I really like to go home is to see my family and the small amount of people I still keep in touch with from the area.
That's not to say that home is without its happy circumstances though, because what I normally do when I'm at home is sit around drinking and watching television. Basically, I get to live the American dream of any man over the age of 40, except I don't wear wife beaters or have a child to run and get his old man another Budweiser from the fridge.
I guess I also get happy when I'm at home because my family is more fun to fuck with than anybody I go to school with. Believe me when I tell you it's a lot more fun to wake your mother up with an airhorn than it is to wake up a roommate.
The first blow does not fell the tree: I laughed at this one a little bit, because I'm still not mature enough to not say "that's what she said" when I read anything that has the word blow in it. On a serious note, though, this does seem like a little bit of a sexual innuendo, though I can't really figure out what it is. My best guess would be that it's trying to tell me that I'm not a premature ejaculator. Strike one against accurate fortunes written in fortune cookies. It's already beginning to occur to me that I'm not very good at analyzing these things.
Don't be afraid to smile, you never know who's falling in love with it!: I'm not sure if this one really applies to me, because I don't think I was frightened to smile even when I had braces. I think it's mostly just a natural reaction, and not something that most people consciously think about--which is why I sometimes look like a big douche bag when I'm told to smile for a picture.
But, I do admit that smiles are very nice to look at, and you can probably fall in love with them. As long as it's not the only thing you fall in love with. I've never heard anyone say they got married because of their spouse's uncanny ability to grin. That might not be the best foundation for a long-term relationship, but I think it's safe to say I'm not the msot qualified person for advice on such things.
But I do like smiling. It's my favorite.
Do you believe? Endurance and persistence will be awarded: This one's vague, and kind of weird. It's like a question, then there's a little bit of advice that is not in any way affiliated with the question that precedes it. I'm very confused by this. I don't know what I'm supposed to believe in, per se, but I think persistence is probably rewarded, at least sometimes. I believe that whoever is writing these things is probably wasted and just spewing out random thoughts. Reading these is like hearing Jim Rome talk.
:) Good news will come to you from far away :) : Those smiley faces were absolutely on there. I didn't add them for flavor.
This one is one of the few that actually gives someone a fortune and sticks to the roots of what fortune cookies are supposed to be about, which leads me to believe that I received a cookie that is at least five years old, because they don't make 'em like this anymore.
Stunningly, this one actually has come true for me. I've gotten a lot of good news from far away locations lately, and I feel pretty fortunate about it. Probably the funniest good news though has come in the form of a monetary check. Allow me to explain.
In the months leading up to my spring break I was approaching financial ruin, and was desperate to find a way to make some money that I could use to pay for my trip to Florida. Some of my friends and I were sitting around and watching some television one evening when we saw a commercial for Cash4Gold.com. I realized that somewhere around my house I had a ring that I had given my ex-girlfriend when we were together, and had no idea what I was going to do with it.
So, naturally, I sent it to Cash4Gold's headquarters and they mailed me a check for it. That check was good news from a far away location (they're located in California).
I sold the ring I bought my ex-girlfriend on Cash4Gold.com, and it paid my gas fees to get to and from Florida! Tell me I shouldn't be on one of those commercials.
Live in THIS moment: Back to advice instead of fortunes, but I don't really mind. This is a pretty solid little slip of paper, and I'm all about living in the moment. The only thing I don't particularly understand is how they expect people to live in the moment in which they typically open a fortune cookie, which would be after finishing their Chinese. I don't know about you, but that's one of the few times that I really look to the past and wish I was there; and by past I mean the 10 minutes prior when I was actually eating some lo mein. The only time I'm satisfied with living in the moment immediately after eating Chinese is when I have an abundance of left-overs in the refrigerator.
Now is a great time to broaden your scope of influence: Yeah, that should be really fucking easy, since I'm looking to work professionally as a journalist for a newspaper or magazine. In case you aren't really in the know, publications are folding all over the country, the economy is in its worst shape since the depression, and nobody reads anymore. God, if I want to influence anyone, I'm going to have to write a book about teenaged vampires or the intense companionship I have with my dog. I can't do the latter, because I eat so much Chinese, and we all know that the Chinese kill dogs and serve them, right? So I don't really care that much about dogs, apparently. (See, I told you. That shit is not even close to funny. Point made). Or I'll have to start a blog or something, and blogs are for little bitches.
Do your best to make it happen: For some reason this makes me think of me with my hand on Lenny's shoulder, gazing deeply into his eyes and giving him a pep talk that could ultimately result in him making the two-backed beast with a female. If this is a fortune, I really hope it comes true soon.
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination: Two things about this.
1) I must be the smartest kid in the world if the true sign of intelligence is based on imagination. I'm writing over a thousand words about fucking fortune cookies right now, and I'm not even under the influence of any kind of drug except enthusiasm. I've been blowing rails of happiness all day long.
2) Only poor people who wish they were artists and haven't succeeded in pretty much anything say things like this.
:) You have a natural grace and great consideration for others :) : Yeah, tell me something I don't know. Just kidding, I'm easily one of the most un-graceful people I've ever encountered. Ask anyone who has seen my two-step dance, and they will tell you all about it. I have scars on my body from just walking around and falling on my face. That is not grace.
Some say faith is nowhere. Others say faith is now here: Look at that wordplay. It's like Jason Mraz's understudy is writing fortune cookies. I don't really even know how to go about trying to figure this one out, because faith can be a pretty confusing thing. Like trying to figure out why boobs are good or why anybody likes Nickelback.
You are one of those people who goes places in life: This is so true. I went to Scranton last weekend, and I went to two classes today. I go mad places.
This is the year when ingenuity stands high on the list: It really is that year for me. But I think ingenuity always stands pretty high on the list. At least it always makes it higher than doing actual meaningful work or making something presentable of myself.
What's vice today may be virtue tomorrow: This one just doesn't make any sense at all. How can a vice become a virtue? What if your vice is a hard drug addiction? How can that ever become a virtue? If a heroin addict got this fortune cookie, they may be given a great deal of false hope, and nothing is worse than false hope.
You are born with the sixth sense and superb insight: First of all, this isn't a fortune, because it tells me about something I was born with, not something that's eventually going to happen. This particular fortune cookie was not anywhere near the delivery room on November 6, 1987, so it doesn't know what I was born with. It's a pretty sweet compliment though, if it does end up being true. I'd love to have superb insight. I just don't know if I want the ability to see dead people though.
One extends one's limits only by exceeding them: Obviously. Who writes these, John Madden? I think this particular cookie is telling me that I should go out and try to drink more than 28 drinks in one night. That's pretty much my most extreme limit, and I feel like I should try to extend it sometime.
Time is the wisest counselor: This can be true, but I think I lean more towards experience.
****
Well, that was fun. I guess I learned that fortune cookies aren't always accurate, but they can definitely make you think about things. I also learned that I'm a dumbass for ever thinking that a cookie could tell me where I'm going with my life, because I think fate extends much further than a sugary snack, if fate does indeed exist.
(Here's the part where everyone's thinking or making some smart-assed remark about how Chinese restaurants really serve dogs and cats instead of chicken. Do me a favor, and stop it with that shit. Please. You and I both know that it's extremely played out, and not even remotely true. I think I know the difference between a chicken and a beagle, especially when one or the other is in my mouth, and I have never eaten Kung Pao Shiloh in my life. Wow. Do you see how passionate I am about Chinese food? I'm even going to bat for an ethnicity and culture I am not in any way affiliated with and don't even remotely understand...they seem to like strange cartoons over there a little too much. This is a sign that I either really stand up for what I believe in, or I really like food way too much. You can decide.)
Anyway, I order Chinese a lot, and they bring it right to my door. All I do is sign a slip of paper and they give me a brown paper bag filled with all sorts of delightful things. As far as eating a meal goes, the only way I think it could get any better would be if they included in that bag a little sugary thing shaped like a boomerang that has a little piece of paper in it that has a wise saying printed on it in red letters.
Actually, they do have that, and it's called a fortune cookie. So, it can't really get any better. The way I see it, these are supposed to give you a fortune that tells you about something that's going to happen to you eventually. This used to be how it was, back in the day, but it seems like now I get them and they just have stupid sayings that don't even mention anything about what will become of your life in the future. This angered me, because everytime I get Chinese food, I expect to be knocked out of my fucking seat by some extremely philosophical sentence about what my desiny ultimately holds (I have admittedly high expectations). Eventually, it got to the point where I just stopped opening them, because I would get all excited about what was inside, and I would always be disappointed. It was a feeling akin to when you would get a mini football helmet keychain out of those coin machines in front of grocery stores and end up with a team you hated.
So, I'd just get my food, throw the fortune cookies into a drawer in our kitchen, and forget about them. I have no idea why I didn't throw them away, but I didn't. Probably because I'm kind of a pack rat. Today i was looking for a bag of chips that I could crush up and put in Spencer's shoes or a can of sardines I could put into his bedroom's heating vent for no good reason, and I found the cookies. Since I have nothing better to do than fuck with my roommate, I decided to open and read all of the cookie, and attempt to analyze them and deduce whether or not they meant anything to my life. Some of them were just stupid sayings, but some did try their best to predict things, and I did my best to figure out if they had happened or not, and if so, in what respect and way they had happened.
I figured I'd type them out here, because again, I apparently have a lot of time on my hands. Believe it or not, there are twenty of them. I don't have a frying pan with a handle, but I do have an abundance of fortune cookies.
This is probably going to be a huge waste of your time, and you probably won't get anything out of it. If this is something that bothers you, just stop reading and do something productive, like watching Oprah or indulging in psychadelic drugs. Do both at the same time, even. I'm not one to judge. Anyway, you can't say I didn't warn you.
The happiest circumstances are close to home: This makes a certain amount of sense to a lot of people, because I guess most people dig being home. To be honest, my hometown is extremely dull and rural, so the only reason I really like to go home is to see my family and the small amount of people I still keep in touch with from the area.
That's not to say that home is without its happy circumstances though, because what I normally do when I'm at home is sit around drinking and watching television. Basically, I get to live the American dream of any man over the age of 40, except I don't wear wife beaters or have a child to run and get his old man another Budweiser from the fridge.
I guess I also get happy when I'm at home because my family is more fun to fuck with than anybody I go to school with. Believe me when I tell you it's a lot more fun to wake your mother up with an airhorn than it is to wake up a roommate.
The first blow does not fell the tree: I laughed at this one a little bit, because I'm still not mature enough to not say "that's what she said" when I read anything that has the word blow in it. On a serious note, though, this does seem like a little bit of a sexual innuendo, though I can't really figure out what it is. My best guess would be that it's trying to tell me that I'm not a premature ejaculator. Strike one against accurate fortunes written in fortune cookies. It's already beginning to occur to me that I'm not very good at analyzing these things.
Don't be afraid to smile, you never know who's falling in love with it!: I'm not sure if this one really applies to me, because I don't think I was frightened to smile even when I had braces. I think it's mostly just a natural reaction, and not something that most people consciously think about--which is why I sometimes look like a big douche bag when I'm told to smile for a picture.
But, I do admit that smiles are very nice to look at, and you can probably fall in love with them. As long as it's not the only thing you fall in love with. I've never heard anyone say they got married because of their spouse's uncanny ability to grin. That might not be the best foundation for a long-term relationship, but I think it's safe to say I'm not the msot qualified person for advice on such things.
But I do like smiling. It's my favorite.
Do you believe? Endurance and persistence will be awarded: This one's vague, and kind of weird. It's like a question, then there's a little bit of advice that is not in any way affiliated with the question that precedes it. I'm very confused by this. I don't know what I'm supposed to believe in, per se, but I think persistence is probably rewarded, at least sometimes. I believe that whoever is writing these things is probably wasted and just spewing out random thoughts. Reading these is like hearing Jim Rome talk.
:) Good news will come to you from far away :) : Those smiley faces were absolutely on there. I didn't add them for flavor.
This one is one of the few that actually gives someone a fortune and sticks to the roots of what fortune cookies are supposed to be about, which leads me to believe that I received a cookie that is at least five years old, because they don't make 'em like this anymore.
Stunningly, this one actually has come true for me. I've gotten a lot of good news from far away locations lately, and I feel pretty fortunate about it. Probably the funniest good news though has come in the form of a monetary check. Allow me to explain.
In the months leading up to my spring break I was approaching financial ruin, and was desperate to find a way to make some money that I could use to pay for my trip to Florida. Some of my friends and I were sitting around and watching some television one evening when we saw a commercial for Cash4Gold.com. I realized that somewhere around my house I had a ring that I had given my ex-girlfriend when we were together, and had no idea what I was going to do with it.
So, naturally, I sent it to Cash4Gold's headquarters and they mailed me a check for it. That check was good news from a far away location (they're located in California).
I sold the ring I bought my ex-girlfriend on Cash4Gold.com, and it paid my gas fees to get to and from Florida! Tell me I shouldn't be on one of those commercials.
Live in THIS moment: Back to advice instead of fortunes, but I don't really mind. This is a pretty solid little slip of paper, and I'm all about living in the moment. The only thing I don't particularly understand is how they expect people to live in the moment in which they typically open a fortune cookie, which would be after finishing their Chinese. I don't know about you, but that's one of the few times that I really look to the past and wish I was there; and by past I mean the 10 minutes prior when I was actually eating some lo mein. The only time I'm satisfied with living in the moment immediately after eating Chinese is when I have an abundance of left-overs in the refrigerator.
Now is a great time to broaden your scope of influence: Yeah, that should be really fucking easy, since I'm looking to work professionally as a journalist for a newspaper or magazine. In case you aren't really in the know, publications are folding all over the country, the economy is in its worst shape since the depression, and nobody reads anymore. God, if I want to influence anyone, I'm going to have to write a book about teenaged vampires or the intense companionship I have with my dog. I can't do the latter, because I eat so much Chinese, and we all know that the Chinese kill dogs and serve them, right? So I don't really care that much about dogs, apparently. (See, I told you. That shit is not even close to funny. Point made). Or I'll have to start a blog or something, and blogs are for little bitches.
Do your best to make it happen: For some reason this makes me think of me with my hand on Lenny's shoulder, gazing deeply into his eyes and giving him a pep talk that could ultimately result in him making the two-backed beast with a female. If this is a fortune, I really hope it comes true soon.
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination: Two things about this.
1) I must be the smartest kid in the world if the true sign of intelligence is based on imagination. I'm writing over a thousand words about fucking fortune cookies right now, and I'm not even under the influence of any kind of drug except enthusiasm. I've been blowing rails of happiness all day long.
2) Only poor people who wish they were artists and haven't succeeded in pretty much anything say things like this.
:) You have a natural grace and great consideration for others :) : Yeah, tell me something I don't know. Just kidding, I'm easily one of the most un-graceful people I've ever encountered. Ask anyone who has seen my two-step dance, and they will tell you all about it. I have scars on my body from just walking around and falling on my face. That is not grace.
Some say faith is nowhere. Others say faith is now here: Look at that wordplay. It's like Jason Mraz's understudy is writing fortune cookies. I don't really even know how to go about trying to figure this one out, because faith can be a pretty confusing thing. Like trying to figure out why boobs are good or why anybody likes Nickelback.
You are one of those people who goes places in life: This is so true. I went to Scranton last weekend, and I went to two classes today. I go mad places.
This is the year when ingenuity stands high on the list: It really is that year for me. But I think ingenuity always stands pretty high on the list. At least it always makes it higher than doing actual meaningful work or making something presentable of myself.
What's vice today may be virtue tomorrow: This one just doesn't make any sense at all. How can a vice become a virtue? What if your vice is a hard drug addiction? How can that ever become a virtue? If a heroin addict got this fortune cookie, they may be given a great deal of false hope, and nothing is worse than false hope.
You are born with the sixth sense and superb insight: First of all, this isn't a fortune, because it tells me about something I was born with, not something that's eventually going to happen. This particular fortune cookie was not anywhere near the delivery room on November 6, 1987, so it doesn't know what I was born with. It's a pretty sweet compliment though, if it does end up being true. I'd love to have superb insight. I just don't know if I want the ability to see dead people though.
One extends one's limits only by exceeding them: Obviously. Who writes these, John Madden? I think this particular cookie is telling me that I should go out and try to drink more than 28 drinks in one night. That's pretty much my most extreme limit, and I feel like I should try to extend it sometime.
Time is the wisest counselor: This can be true, but I think I lean more towards experience.
****
Well, that was fun. I guess I learned that fortune cookies aren't always accurate, but they can definitely make you think about things. I also learned that I'm a dumbass for ever thinking that a cookie could tell me where I'm going with my life, because I think fate extends much further than a sugary snack, if fate does indeed exist.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
An Open Letter to Boyz II Men Bass Singer Michael McCary
Dear Mr. McCary,
You are, without a doubt, my favorite member of Boyz II Men, the most successful and awesome all-male rhythm and blues vocal group in the history of the world. Or at least the ‘90s.
I’d be willing to bet that you don’t really get that compliment so often, or at least not sincerely (and certainly not as much as you should, damnit), but I assure you that I am completely serious, sir. Of the original four members of the band, you are the one whose action figure I would purchase first, if indeed they ever existed.
Why are you my favorite? It’s simple. As a self-proclaimed wallflower myself, I deeply admire—and empathize with—your ability to blend into the background and surrender the limelight to your band mates. While they are bitching and moaning about love lost, you are content to stand off to the side, absent-mindedly bobbing your head and otherwise doing absolutely nothing.
To the inexperienced Boyz II Men listener, it might seem like you’re not even paying attention to what’s going on. But then comes that part of the song, usually following the second chorus, when there are only instruments playing softly in the background while one of your group mates moans all types of unintelligible noises in extremely high pitches.
This, Mr. McCary, is when you come into the musical picture, and this is when you shine. Who cares if it’s the only time you even open your mouth during the entire song? You come to the front of the stage, the spotlight shines on your forlorn visage, and you begin to talk. Not sing, just talk. But, you provide the most heartfelt portion of the entire song. In the song “On Bended Knee,” for instance, you say things like, “Baby, I’m sorry, please forgive me for all the wrong I’ve done,” and “please come home girl.” At this point, you’ve definitely got the attention of the woman you’re speaking to (or that of the estranged girlfriend to whom the song is being played by a desperate, philandering man). Then, you go in for the kill when you say, “I know you put all of your trust in me, and I’m sorry I let you down.” You then ask her to forgive you. Again. What woman could ever say no to that? Not any that I have dated, that’s for damn sure.
Not only do I admire you because of the fact that you’ve got strong enough character traits to admit when you’re in the wrong, but also because you do it in such an effective manner while performing in an R&B band without even singing a word. Really, you sing only slightly more often than those two dudes from Milli Vanilli.
In closing, though, I must admit one thing: that I am jealous of you, Mr. McCary. I am green with envy over your occupation, because it has to be the easiest and most pressure-free celebrity job in existence. Except for hand model or NFL punter.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t respect you. You are a hero, Michael—may I call you Michael? Your voice has played a large part in saving my marriage, and I just thought you should know that you are deeply appreciated.
With Warm Regards,
Scott
****This was something I had to write for one of my classes, and I've sent it to McSweeney's to try and get it published. We'll see what happens.
You are, without a doubt, my favorite member of Boyz II Men, the most successful and awesome all-male rhythm and blues vocal group in the history of the world. Or at least the ‘90s.
I’d be willing to bet that you don’t really get that compliment so often, or at least not sincerely (and certainly not as much as you should, damnit), but I assure you that I am completely serious, sir. Of the original four members of the band, you are the one whose action figure I would purchase first, if indeed they ever existed.
Why are you my favorite? It’s simple. As a self-proclaimed wallflower myself, I deeply admire—and empathize with—your ability to blend into the background and surrender the limelight to your band mates. While they are bitching and moaning about love lost, you are content to stand off to the side, absent-mindedly bobbing your head and otherwise doing absolutely nothing.
To the inexperienced Boyz II Men listener, it might seem like you’re not even paying attention to what’s going on. But then comes that part of the song, usually following the second chorus, when there are only instruments playing softly in the background while one of your group mates moans all types of unintelligible noises in extremely high pitches.
This, Mr. McCary, is when you come into the musical picture, and this is when you shine. Who cares if it’s the only time you even open your mouth during the entire song? You come to the front of the stage, the spotlight shines on your forlorn visage, and you begin to talk. Not sing, just talk. But, you provide the most heartfelt portion of the entire song. In the song “On Bended Knee,” for instance, you say things like, “Baby, I’m sorry, please forgive me for all the wrong I’ve done,” and “please come home girl.” At this point, you’ve definitely got the attention of the woman you’re speaking to (or that of the estranged girlfriend to whom the song is being played by a desperate, philandering man). Then, you go in for the kill when you say, “I know you put all of your trust in me, and I’m sorry I let you down.” You then ask her to forgive you. Again. What woman could ever say no to that? Not any that I have dated, that’s for damn sure.
Not only do I admire you because of the fact that you’ve got strong enough character traits to admit when you’re in the wrong, but also because you do it in such an effective manner while performing in an R&B band without even singing a word. Really, you sing only slightly more often than those two dudes from Milli Vanilli.
In closing, though, I must admit one thing: that I am jealous of you, Mr. McCary. I am green with envy over your occupation, because it has to be the easiest and most pressure-free celebrity job in existence. Except for hand model or NFL punter.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t respect you. You are a hero, Michael—may I call you Michael? Your voice has played a large part in saving my marriage, and I just thought you should know that you are deeply appreciated.
With Warm Regards,
Scott
****This was something I had to write for one of my classes, and I've sent it to McSweeney's to try and get it published. We'll see what happens.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Trying to get a little attention.
If you enjoy some of the stuff I put up on here, please take a second and click the above icon. It will apparently give me some exposure. The more people that click it, the more exposure I get. Thanks a lot, everyone.
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