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Don't forget to read
the past columns:
03.01.09
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06.22.09
The
Farting Llama When llama finger puppets and a fart application on the iPod Touch (hooked up to the car stereo) collide:
03.01.09 The Panera Dilemma This
past summer, in order to save gas, I drove Steph to work, and then I
came to Panera. I mean, we have two cars, and I could've stayed home
easily, but you see, we're meeting up with friends for dinner close to
where Steph works and instead of driving two cars, well, you get the
picture…
02.28.09 Salad Cream The video camera goes with me wherever I go. You never know what you're going to find. Friday night, while out grocery shopping, I came across this in the world foods isle.
02.19.09 Holding Out for a Hero: Puppet Edition
02.15.09 The Ballad of Rescuing Buddy The signal was out in the sky again: Help! As I drove home, I was barely out of Carmel – not even close, really, as forests of surbanite-brick-faux-mansions were closing in on me – when I saw a small black dog trotting down the sidewalk. The wind blew wicked that evening, as it gave foreboding signs of the frigid doom that was on its way. According to forecasters near and far, it was going to be the coldest Indiana has seen in five years. The wind whipped the little pup around, and I drove past him at first, but my heart strings were pulled and I turned around to go get him. It was far too cold to leave the little guy alone. I pulled over, executed Operation: Hazard Lights and went to the sidewalk to see if he would come to me. He did. Of course he did, are you kidding me? Our story among the animal world must be out. Since we’ve been married, Steph and I have become unofficial pet rescuers. It all started with Raible, our rescue Collie-Golden mix. Since then, we’ve rescued a baby bunny (a couple, really) in our backyard and let them go back into the wild. We adopted Fauna, who was a part of a litter of puppies that were abandoned on the side of the road. We picked up three kittens that were left in the Target parking lot. We took them, crying out desperate cries of desperation and hunger, to Petsmart to get litter and food to take care of them for the weekend. Luckily, the woman at the check out felt sorry enough for them, that she took all of them. Another rescue operation happened this past summer when we picked up Jake, the Beagle mix. Once he came to my hands, I picked him up and stole him away to safety. I had a quilt in my backseat and wrapped him in it. He sat on my lap as I drove through the jungle of faux-mansions and vinyl villages seeing if anyone…ANYONE…was out searching for a small poodle-ish dog. He had no collar, so I had to do this the hard way. I called 411 to see if Carmel had their own Humane Society (our house would work quite well, but at this point, we weren’t at liberty to bring a dog home due to extenuating circumstances). No one was out. I drove by one house and my heart jumped because I thought, “Oh, old lady! Are you being sad and looking for your—oh. You have two large poodle-like dogs going potty…what? Why are you giving me a dirty look? I’m not being creepy driving through the neighborhood. I’m rescuing, here! Besides, creepy men don’t drive cute Beetle convertibles.” After my searching failed, I drove up to the Hamilton County Humane Society. Steph met me there. While Rescue Dog and I waited, he climbed (at this point, I knew to check to see if he was, in fact, a he) up and down the windows and dash and whined as people came and went. I wondered if any of those people were his owners, and he recognized them… Once Steph arrived, we took him in. A large man greeted us and helped us go through the steps. Steph went in, because dogs weren’t allowed during the first steps, and I was left with the large man. With his hands on his belly, he kept talking to Rescue Dog with that “I’m a lonely pet owner” tone: “Oh, baby…” he cooed. “You’re a sweet thang, aren’t you?” And, “I used to have a dog like you…” He kept addressing him as a her. I almost picked him up and shook the dog’s wang in the man’s face. After all of that, we decided to hold onto him. We ended up at Steph’s parents, since it was the closest place to go at this point – plus, if worst happened, they would’ve been able to hold on to him for a while (we hoped). After some basic investigation, we knew he was well-kept. He wasn’t skinny, he had a pretty and clean coat. He knew how to sit and shake. This wasn’t a dog that was dumped off on the side of the road, so it was a matter of time before he got home. I called the police to see if anyone had called for him. After a few calls back and forth, I found out someone was looking for Rescue Dog fitting his description. I called him and he answered the phone all desperately breathless. After all my “prove it” questions, he said, “I just need to see him and make sure that’s him…” And then, the reason for his panic: “He’s my fiance’s dog…” You are a dead man, I thought. We planned a public meeting, because you can never be too careful these days. Who knew if it was some awful ploy where they “lose” a dog and then, once you’ve planned the meeting, they mug you. When we drove up, we saw the man with his fiancé. She looked like she had been crying. When we got out, we found out that Rescue Dog’s actual name was Buddy. Buddy ran straight to the woman and jumped up on her. At this point, it was obvious. We chatted, they thanked us, but the woman was adamant that she pay us for our troubles. After a few rounds of hugs, they took Buddy and drove off. And we drove back to Steph’s parents for dinner, proud that we were able to help a pet get back home. Loving animals and rescuing them paid off. Literally.
02.07.09 Hold My Hand Double-click the picture for the performance of a lifetime. To pause, double-click again. I'm not sure why the controls aren't showing up. I'm currently looking into copyright law about posting my puppet shows that use actual songs. I'm thinking for some of them, I could get off because of "parody" stated in copyright law.
02.01.09 The Legend of Sue and Chubbs We frequent Petsmart often. Wait. Is it Pets’ mart, with emphasis on the mart? A mart for the pets? Or is it Pet smart, with emphasis on smart? Because animals are totally smart (well, OK, not all animals), and we, as owners, are smart for choosing to shop there. That plagues me every time I see the sign. Luckily, I slur the whole name together, as to not make any emphasis on any part of the word. Regardless of the pronunciation, we frequent the shop. That is where we can find Raible and Nigra’s food at a one-stop-shop. Sometimes, during a Friday night outing, after dinner, we’ll stop in just to see if owners decided to bring their puppies out to socialize. One night, a few months ago, we walked in with no true purpose (that I can recall). We wandered, looked at all the calendars (again), and flipped through the puppy books. Then, we headed over to the hamster cages. Our eyes glanced over a few cages; most of the little balls of fur were clumped together, their eyes shut and paws hidden, as they kept each other warm in sleep. Out of the corner of my eye there was a burst of movement. In one of the cages, zipping around from corner to corner, was a little tan hamster, the size of two cotton balls. After it tired of running around the cage, it jumped into the wheel and ran at light-speed, the wheel hinges creaking. It would go so fast, that when it was done running in the wheel, it would go with it, land outside of it and start its random pursuit of hyper-drive all over again. Corner to corner, wheel and then flop. Corner to corner, wheel and then flop. We ducked down to look inside the igloo that was their “house” and noticed all the other friends of this little spazz were clumped together and stuffed inside the igloo sleeping. One looked largest of all, centered around his brothers, with his eyes little sleeping slits and his tiny paws in a prayer next to his white chest. We both melted at this scene. If I could place a picture next to “adorable” in the dictionary, all of these little guys would be in it. The little spazz continued to run, never tiring, constantly going, kicking up bedding as it darted from spot to spot. We decided to name him: “He looks like a Gizmo,” Steph said. “Nah, Gizmo is too common. He’s needs something a little more creative,” I said. And it came to us. Runaround Sue, because that’s what this little guy did. He ran around. And who hasn’t heard of the song “Runaround Sue” and “A Boy Named Sue”? It was perfect. It was also perfect, because the type of hamster was called Robo Dwarf. Anything that could run that fast was definitely robo. Like Robocop, but smaller and not from the eighties. As he darted, it occurred to us that we couldn’t just leave him there. And this is, here, is my caveat. Never name an animal, if your original purpose wasn’t to purchase it. The minute you name the little creature, it’s all over – that little (or big) animal is all yours. At this point, we looked for help, found a cage that we thought would be appropriate, picked up bedding, found a bag of food, all the goods to take Runaround Sue home. As we went home, I started feeling buyers’ remorse. Sure, Runaround was only $15, but what were the Girls going to think? Here were three medium-to-large dogs at home, and we were bringing home a little hamster 1/1000th their size. This buyers’ remorse was strange. Shouldn’t you feel it with large purchases, like a house or a car? I never felt it when I bought the Beetle or the house…but with a hamster? I felt like I just made a really bad economic decision. Steph talked me through it, and I began to get a little more excited about our new pet. After we brought Runaround Sue home, we set up the cage, put him in it and waited. All he did was find a hidden corner and stay there. There was no darting around. There was no light-speed-wheel-spinning. There was no effervescent cuteness that had made us purchase him. Really, there was no sign of Sue, because he hid underneath his little platform. And we read that they were nocturnal, so if we didn’t see him now, when it was night, when were we going to see him? The next morning, with no Sue in sight, I decided (the one who suffered buyers’ remorse) that Sue was lonely and needed one of his brothers. We put on our jackets and went back to Petsmart to purchase the little sleeping hog that was burrowed in the center of the igloo. He looked a bit chunky. Perhaps he was the lazy counterpart of Sue’s hyper-activity, and because of that, we already named him. We wanted something sophisticated, something with dignity, something that dealt with its weight. Steph picked the name Stanley, and I liked the name Chubbs. Therefore, he became known as Stanley Chubbs. It was easy to tell them apart because Sue was lighter and Chubbs had a little black part that ran down his back, and also, he was a little heavy-set. We brought him home, opened the lid of the cage and tried to ever-so-gently drop him into the bedding. And… They both went into hiding. I did not purchase silly, little creatures to stay hidden from me, so within the next couple of days, Steph went out and purchased enough tubes and housing materials to renovate the cage. Out came the giant wheel and the hiding platforms, and in went a little house, a tube and a smaller “silent” wheel. They must have needed to get accustomed to their new surroundings, and as they did, they snuggled together in their little igloo (one facing north, the other facing south). One would “live” in the house, while the other would “live” in tubes, and they would sit right outside of either next to each other. According to Steph, they were on the porch, visiting. So far, the Girls have no clue they exist. And now that we’ve owned them for quite some time, and the newness has worn off, sometimes I will forget that they even exist, too.
01.20.09 Testing Testing Testing As I continue to make this website a better place for both you and me, I am in the process of testing video and uploading to see if it will hold. Recently, I've been saving it to a place called IndyTube and for some reason...it doesn't exist anymore. Now I must be my own Tube. After serious debate and consideration, I've decided to start using YouTube. It's just so much easier to post it there, have them write the code, and then embed it here. My first test run will be Raible, who hates the camera -- but not the video camera...
12.15.08 The Giraffe's Christmas My secret passion is to create puppet shows using the sock puppets I've made for Steph. While my holiday writings haven't always been the best, I've decided to present to you another show.
10.17.08 I'm Holding Out For a Hero, Are You? Humor writing just isn't my bag anymore. OK, maybe it is, but what about humor dancing?
06.27.08 Parking in the Handicap Spot When I’m in a public restroom, I use the handicap stall. Now, I don’t know if it’s like handicap parking where you get a ticket if you park there, but I have yet to meet the pooh police and I doubt they would want to write me a ticket while standing there. I drink coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. Here’s the thing, though, I have not met or seen a handicap person in the bathroom – ever. No man has crutched or wheeled his way into the bathroom, pass the sinks and into the large stall that’s the size of a walk in closet. I begin to wonder if handicap people really do use the restroom. I’ve never seen them. The only time I’ve come in contact with a handicap person was when I accidentally kicked the walking stick from the hands of a blind man, where I stopped and apologized the hell out of the situation, like I was using my head to beat a dead horse. The man squatted, found the stick and moved on. I looked around to see if anyone else saw my foot ostracize a blind man’s walking tool, and then I looked for more blind people to make sure I wasn’t a threat to them. It would come to no surprise, one day, if I was using the handicap stall and as I looked down below where the end of the door gaps, I saw a set of wheels roll up. He would shake the door, but realize it was locked. The man would probably bend over to see if there was evidence of an instrument touching the floor. Assuming that I was using a hovercraft, he would sit politely while I continued. I would blush quietly, and feel ashamed. I’ve been caught. It hasn’t happened yet, but social faux pas is my specialty. If I can kick a blind man’s walking stick, I will use the handicap stall when a man in a wheel chair needs it. My exit would probably go something like this: After finishing, I would hike my pants up (fear not, I attend to the wiping first) and bashfully open the door, peering out with a wince on my face as if I left a horrid smell (but really, it is a wince of apology, but the man would look up at me and just assume sour air residue awaited him) and I would whisper, hushed and quick, “sorry,” and wash my hands. I’m sure the man would think nothing of it – we all have to go, but as I wash my hands, in my head, the imaginary dialogue begins and I awash him with a ton of excuses, even if they were outright lies. “You know the rule; you never go into a stall or use a urinal right next to one that’s being used. It’s common courtesy to jump one over.” “There was no more toilet paper in the other stalls.” “That one had the latest issue of the paper, and I read when I go.” “I love to feel like I’m 5 and have my feet dangle from the toilet.” “It’s because your toilet is always so much cleaner!” It’s the last excuse that holds the truth. The handicap stall is usually cleaner than any other stall – and it must be, because of the golden rule: You never leave a mess in the handicap stall. If you do, you are heartless. Men pee all over toilet seats, not giving a tinker’s damn about whose behind will rest there next (like someone who forgot to take their Immodium, for example). If it’s not someone peeing all over the seat, a man will go number 2 and use a whole roll of toilet paper and make it unflushable. But to do that to a handicap toilet? There’s a special place in hell for people like that. It’s a fact that public restrooms are torture. It’s just one more step I don’t have to take (because I’m in the public restroom, so I’m obviously desperate) if I don’t need to wipe the seat down and put a toilet seat condom on it. If I can forgo that, me and Target (or wherever) will all be a little happier. I know I’m not alone in my illegal use of the handicap spot, but by putting it out in the open, I hope my honesty will bring others out of the stall, and maybe we can start installing 2 per bathroom. One for me and one for the people it’s really intended for.
06.05.08 You Mean Haiti is in South Carolina? Usually while traveling, the actual traveling part is fun because it’s the anticipation that builds and builds. Steph and I have rules to follow, sort of, for a successful trip, which often include gummy snacks of the worm or bear variety, a Cosmo magazine, and window markers. Since we decided to leave at 11 p.m. Saturday night and travel straight through to Myrtle Beach, it was dark, so we had to cut out the above. Instead, we had the iPod and my one playlist of 80 songs. It lasted a good four hours nonstop. Even though we lacked automobile entertainment, the anticipation was still there and thoughts of the beach entwined us. But after fog and road construction, we drove through the mountains as the sun rose to a gloomy, mist-filled Sunday morning. Exhausted and realizing we still had five or so hours more of driving, we felt defeated. We battled out the overnight drive, and the overnight drive won. After losing all concept of time, space and physical place (as well as feeling nauseous), I just wanted to get to our destination. At this point, we had entered and been driving across South Carolina (the entire diameter of the state, mind you) and Steph and I had switched positions for the last time, making me the co-complainer -- I mean pilot. We started through the last 60 or so miles toward Myrtle Beach. As we drove down 501, we passed run-down town after run-down town, filled with flea markets, small shops and wave after wave of bright yellow Myrtle Beach visitors centers clamoring how they had Starbucks coffee, “so please, please visit us.” “Pay no attention to the corpse over there! Look over here! We’re a bright, yellow building! Wee!” These visitor centers threw me off course because they didn’t belong. They were Cape Cod estates surrounded by slums. They also threw me off because it made it seem like the beach was much closer than it actually was. I said aloud, “I don’t want to stay here,” as we passed a million more ramshackle areas. I began to feel guilty, too. Here we were, driving through this very financially depressed region and I began to envision this area of South Carolina much like Haiti. One area, a very small area (Myrtle Beach) was paradise, but the reality of it, the rest of the area, much like Haiti, was brutally and economically famished. What was I doing traveling to the beach when I could be here helping the poor? My conscious couldn’t bear it. To add to the drama, we saw big, black birds hunched over, vulture-like, reading the obituaries. I thought to myself, “If the car breaks down, there is no where to run to.” We could’ve run there – to the bog that festered with the human remains of the last tourists that suffered a similar fate, or we could go over there – where the bird just squatted and pooped. Yes, if the car broke down, we would never go back home to Nigra, Raible and Fauna, and we would be prisoners of an ill-fate harvesting pig organs in the back barn behind the beautiful yellow visitors’ center. Then my phone rang, and it was my dad: “Are you there yet?” “We’re driving on 501,” I said. “The long stretch before you get there?” “The one that looks like Haiti?” And since we were not close, I was not in a good mood, and there was still the threat of breaking down, and becoming slaves to a legless, goat farmer. This drive was before we decided we weren’t going to drive the trip home without an overnight break, so the pit of my stomach started pushing up fresh bile, and I urped up nervous gasses and swallowed heartburn, fearing the trip back. But, since we got to spend the day at the beach the day we left for home, and we got to stay in a hotel six hours into part one of our trip home, the drive back through 501 was completely different. I didn’t have my sunglasses tinted with desperation and exhaustion, and the area looked poor, but it wasn’t merely as scary as it looked when I was the exhausted co-pilot. Before, I could’ve sworn there were 15 visitors’ centers, but, really, there we only two. Something we did pass a lot of down in North Myrtle Beach were monstrosities, so large and pale yellow, called (in no particular order) Beaches, Pacific, Wings, Bargain, and they were each befittingly placed close to the beach, and they were always clustered together because everything happens in threes. In these stores, people who lived in the strip of Haiti on 501 worked and tried to sell you potions and pigs feet. There was also the chance to get a free Hermit Crab, with the purchase of its cage, $2.99 sweatshirts that even your poor grandparents wouldn’t wear, magnets, mugs, swords, knives, candy, ice cream and suntan lotion – anything you could possibly want with the words Myrtle Beach emblazoned on it. They even had Myrtle Beach Butts and Boobs magnets. To help the Haitian economy, we bought a couple magnets and suntan lotion.
5.10.08 Driving Overnight's a Bad Idea We decided to drive overnight to Myrtle Beach, which was a bad idea. The first five hours from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. (even the first six hours) were not terrible. I had brewed coffee before we left, and got another 24 oz. at a Speedway, and another 24 oz. (don’t worry it was half decaf that time) at another Speedway. I was so hopped up on caffeine and my senses were alert. I could’ve driven without headlights because my eyes were vibrating at high speeds. I could see through the mountains as we made it through Tennessee. We drove through mountain fog as well, one of the true highlights of the vacation, and semis and trucks were speeding by. Some tried to turn on their brights, shining high beams into milk-thick air. At some point, after we entered the mountains, we were stopped by an officer waving his tiny-lighted traffic cone-light. We were forced to watch un-needed construction on the side of the road. “Oh no! The rail isn’t right. Stop traffic! We need to fix it now!” I felt my caffeine dissipate and my bladder fill during those twenty minutes. By the time a hazy Sunday morning started to brew, we were nauseous from staying alert through the night. After we stopped for a quick breakfast we both weren’t really hungry for, we got McDonald’s iced coffees. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, but after having 72 ounces of coffee in about six to nine hours, the idea of pumping even more caffeine into my body turned my stomach. Luckily, we didn’t stop at too many rest stops, but the ones we did stop at… Pardon the tangent… Can someone please tell me why it’s so hard to flush a urinal? I know we’re all spoiled these days when we walk away from the potty and it automatically flushes (as well as no-touch faucets and no-touch paper towel dispensers). I just want to remind my fellow penis-bearers that when a urinal has a metal stick poking out of the side, you pull that down. It takes your stale-smelling urine away. Don’t leave it there to dissolve the pink urinal cake, that’s gross. And while I’m at it, flick it in the bowl, will you? People wear flip flops during warm weather, and it’s sick to stand in your puddle of pee residue. Okay. I’m off my urinal cake box. Back to the mountain range: As we entered South Carolina, long before we were at our destination on the other side of the state, I was already stressed out about the return home later in the week. I just knew we were going to drive through the night all over again on Thursday after spending time at the beach (sea air makes you drowsy). My tongue was already wagging and my left eye started to twitch. Later, when we finally arrived at Myrtle Beach, we drove around, unpacked our things, sat on the beach for a little while – I couldn’t fully enjoy myself because we had another non-stop trip to make back home. The waves crashed in and receded out, but the relaxing beauty of the ocean was nothing compared to the screaming death inside my head about driving overnight all over again. Then my dad called us while we were on the beach and we told him the drive in was such hell that we would definitely be stopping Thursday night at a hotel. He, then, offered us his Holiday Inn Express points so we wouldn’t have to lift a credit card. At that moment, the voices in my head stopped and the ocean glowed. I could finally enjoy my time away from home, regardless of another drive, since that drive was going to be split into two. Come Thursday night, after the beach, we didn’t have to drive all night. Instead, we slept in a king-sized bed, washed our sun burnt skin in a Jacuzzi tub that was in the middle of the living room space and slept eighth hours, but before we fell asleep, Steph whispered outloud: “Bless your dad.” 4.17.08 They Could Have Seen Me On Vacation So, Steph turned to me one cold February Saturday and said, “How about Myrtle Beach for spring break?” And I thought, hell, why not? “Is it warm there during the first full week of April?” We looked up one of those “Please vacation in South Carolina, you won’t be disappointed” tourism websites and to our glory it said the averages were in the mid-70s. I was blogging, probably, as Steph was secretly looking up condos in the Myrtle Beach area. It never occurred to me to actually look something up for a vacation during spring break because we don’t normally go anywhere for spring break. The usual excuse is “we don’t have the money.” Things on the money side are changing a little and so we went ahead and booked four nights at a condo, priced by the vacation gods who were granting us passage to the south, and all we had to do was get excited for April to come. Finally, as students were planning their trips to Key West and the Galapagos Islands (or wherever it is that's expensive where they go), as they asked me if I was going somewhere for break, I could reply, “yes, indeed, I am.” And to be even cooler among the middle school crowd, some of them were going to be in Myrtle Beach, too. And thank God, I haven’t seen any of them at the beach. There’s always tomorrow, which is our last day for the beach, and that’s usually my luck…I’ll be sitting there crab red, which I am right now, and they’ll come prancing up looking uncomfortably older than eighth graders and they’ll be all, “hi, Mr. Williams!” And there I’ll be, wearing Mary’s sunglasses (Steph’s bridesmaid who’s a missionary and left her big diva sunglasses in the Beetle, so I wear them because they’re pretty asexual) wishing for them to not see me…perhaps it’s another Mr. Williams, a man they met during their own trip to Myrtle Beach. That’s a good reason to avoid Florida as a destination spot for spring break. Lucky enough, as a middle school teacher, the college spring breaks were over a month ago, so I can miss out on all that drunken porn on the beach and all that College Men and Women Gone Wild garbage. The trouble is, I teach in a school district that is well-off enough to afford vacations and so goes the dodging and running from the students and the “I hope they don’t see me” thinking, which can be more stressful. It would be there, in a popular Florida destination that I would be having a large Margherita, feeling a little buzzed, when they stop by and say hi. Remember, teachers don’t have lives…and to be seen living one, by those curious eyes of your students, can make you begin to feel a tad bit guilty. Like, will that big-as-my-head Margarita haunt me back in the classroom? There is always one student who likes to cross the line and ask inappropriate questions and put you on the spot: “Did you drive somewhere after you had that really large drink? It looked like it put you over the legal limit…” There is never a correct way to respond to those awkward questions, which I tend to ignore anyway. So, instead, I’m on a balcony, away from being seen, except by retirees who are down by the pool enjoying the evening sunlight and constant hammering as a new set of condos are built less than a block away. It’s nice to know those older folks won’t judge you, and I’m sure a few of them have had many more wilder days than I ever will. And the only question I plan to return to is “did you have fun, wherever it was that you went?”
4.1.08 Salmonella Brings Me to My Knees Cutting raw chicken isn’t so bad when it’s frozen. Cutting raw chicken that has thawed, while it’s as flimsy and slimy as a slug, is like gutting an alien. I can and will do it, but the minute I am done with that cutting board and knife, I will throw it into the deep sink awash with suds. I, armed with sponge, attack that cutting board, scouring its surface with antibacterial goodness, killing off what’s left of the jelly chicken guts to rid myself of that dreaded salmonella. Or as I call it, the dreaded (phonetically) sal-lah-moh-nil-lah. Salmonella brings me to my knees, just like a good back injury. It’s presence in life is to kill. The bloody mixture of raw chicken juice swirls and pools in the plastic and Styrofoam container from the grocery. When I cut the plastic wrap off the chicken, drops dribble onto the surface and I have to stop right away and clean that one spot before I begin again. These little groupings of bacteria, even though microscopic, probably clump together like bad cottage cheese. And even though 40,000 people per year come down with the illness (severe diarrhea), commercials are always making it sound like skin eating bacteria. “I spray my counters with Clorox and let it sit for hours because of the dreaded salmonellosis yuck that pours forth from the thawed Tyson packaging.” Before I became more comfortable cutting raw chicken, I would get pee-chills up and down my body as I was cutting, which isn’t very safe – because I opt for the largest knife we have when I go a-cuttin’. Here’s the contradiction, though. As much as I fear dying from salmonella poisoning, I am a sucker for brownie batter and raw cookie dough. The bacteria are probably still there, but it just looks prettier. The runny, saliva-like juice that comes from the chicken packaging is not something I would drip into a shot glass and choke down. Cookie dough, however, chocked full with chocolate chips, is a much better presentation. And these days, it’s all about the presentation. I will take about five spoonfuls as I’m dropping the cookie dough onto the no-stick sheet, just enjoying the gooey mess as its sweetness makes my mouth water. Brownie batter is a little runnier, so I just lick off the spatula, but it’s chocolate and chocolate doesn’t kill (only dogs and in high doses). Steph reminds me that there’s raw egg in the dough and batter, and sometimes she seems confused that I’ll shove raw-egg materials down my throat, but I’ll scream like a girl when I handle raw chicken. I don’t really thinks it’s the chicken that gets me…it’s really the juice…the raw, infected juice. It almost makes me queasy. And now that I think about it, if you want to kill me dead, just drizzle a bunch of raw chicken juice over someone’s open-back surgery.
1.14.08 The Dalmatian-Mix Suffers From Autism I know there are services out there for autistic children where dogs are assigned to them and the dogs help keep them calm in social settings, but is there a service available for a dog with autism? Perhaps a small child to care for the dog to keep it calm… I’ve Googled and Googled (and since I’m the modern researcher, I haven’t gone to the library to look it up), and I swear Fauna Leena, our Dalmatian mix, has autism. Now, Dalmatians usually have high energy, or even pent-up energy. She can go for a run with me and last longer than I can, especially on a hot day. While trapped in a giant plastic bag. I run and run her outside, but nothing seems to tire her out. Her only kryptonite is an icy day. Since she is short-haired, her little feet and legs begin a-quivering and she just doesn’t have fun anymore. She is very loyal, as well. She must be with us at all times, and is jealous of the other two dogs. She not only responds to her name, but comes when Nigra and Raible are called. Those traits (which can be tiring) are nice, and she is a beautiful animal. She is a mixture of black and liver spots. It looks like someone took her coat and smeared the colors when she was a puppy. The spots aren’t as defined as a true Dalmation. She is very lean. She has large chocolate-brown eyes that can make you melt, which we call “puppy eyes.” She will kiss you to death, if you let her, and she snuggles at night. But there are times we cannot get through to her. And there are actions she has that are a mystery to us. She can never be seen without a toy. Ever since we got her, she is seen with a large stuffed animal in her mouth at all times. If you take the toy away from her, she begins to freak out and reach for it, using all her force and energy to get it, even clawing you to death if she needs to. She needs that toy. Just like an Autistic child, she has a preoccupation with objects. Her favorites are the stuffed animals we buy at Kohl’s. We have Grinch, Sam I Am from “Green Eggs and Ham”, a Sneetch from “The Sneetches and Other Stories”, and Blue Fish from “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.” Her other two favorites are a large stuffed chicken and a rhino with a bow tie. I have repaired numerous toys because they get so worn out. We have a shoebox stuffed with animals waiting to be fixed. Her other autistic preoccupation are ice cubes. She will wait until you are comfortable on the couch when she will sit down, look at you and bark only once. She’ll grab her toy, jump on the couch and start walking all over you, before she gets back down on the floor and barks once more. This is her way of telling you she wants ice cubes. Water isn’t enough anymore, and she wasn’t always like this, but now…now she will demand ice cubes. I will put a full bowl of ice down and she will pick one cube out at a time and bring it into the living room and munch on it. I can pull the ice out of the freezer and just hand it to her like it’s a treat and she will walk away with a bounce in her step, happy to drip water all over the floor. Because of this, we can’t walk around the house in our socks anymore. I must always wear my Crocs, or my galoshes. And wear my high-water mom jeans. Another trait of her doggy Autism is her extensive moaning. She severely lacks verbal skills. She does not bark, except for the above rare occasions, but she will have that Sneetch in her mouth and moan, groan and erupt with guttural noises while staring at you. She will moan when she’s hungry. She will moan when she’s tired. She will moan when she needs to go outside. She will moan when she wants to get up in the morning. She will moan when she wants to play. And she will moan when she wants water. All the moans are of the same caliber, and so we never know what she wants. Her verbal skills are not where they need to be, and so, again, I chalk it up as another characteristic of autism. Even though her chocolate-brown eyes will make you ooze with love, often they are not filled with emotion, but a disturbing blankness. She stares off into space while holding Grinch in her mouth. She violently shakes her tail, wagging it back and forth so hard, her tiny waste bends like Gumby (or more appropriately, his animal friend Pokey). She will climb up on my lap with her two front paws, shaking her butt with violent speeds and, instead of looking at you, she stares past you, and with that stuffed animal in her mouth, she will also moan. Those blank eyes lend us to believe her brain has flat lined making the sound of a broken heart monitor. When she finally looks at us with eyes filled with emotion, we exclaim that she’s actually looking at us with “puppy eyes!” "Oh, Fauna, we lost you. Where were you?” The dog cannot sit still. As we vegetate on the couch, she will pace back and forth on us, walking all over our legs and stomachs, wagging her tail, hitting us in the faces, shoving her large paws in our crotches and stepping on Nigra and Raible. She knows no personal space. After she has walked a mile across our stomachs, she will lie down and push her paw down on Steph’s chest, which usually makes her yell, “quick pushing my boob!” This is said at least twice a night. When Fauna is really excited, she will mount us like a mountain lion, wag her tail from side to side, and moan. We’ll push her off, but she’ll climb right back on. Also, she will get so close, that Steph’s convinced Fauna doesn’t just want to be near her, but to be inside her. As of now, like any night close to 10 p.m., she balls up on the couch and takes up only one-tenth. It’s like that nursery rhyme about the girl with the curl: when she is good, she is really, really good, but when she is bad she is wicked, evil and will torture you to death! 11.25.07 These Magazines Are Made for Douches I used to read magazines for douches. Actually, I still do, but come March 2008 I will be done learning how to be a douche...and I will become one? Hardly. I don’t have the money to, say, douche it up. I have been, for years, subscribing to Details and GQ magazines. The mainstay for me has been the design, but the luster has started to fade. I got fed up with GQ because there was nothing in there I benefited from, sans the sangria recipe from one issue. I decided I would continue to get only one, and so I decided on Details. Now, issues and issues of Details have landed in my mailbox and I’ve been reading about… …an article about presidential candidate Fred Thompson and his wife. The article is nothing about politics, but how we need a hot first lady. So basically, he’s the crypt-keeper and she’s some twenty-something that loves rotted bones. …how I need some three-piece Ralph Lauren suit for $1,295. And the ass-wipe smirk to go with. …to please look at marcjacobs.com where the cologne is shoved right in front of a naked woman’s hoo-hah. And remember, they sell clothes, too – much like Abercrombie. Invisible clothes. …how I need to please put my collar back in my jacket, because I’m not Elvis. Not that I do that, but I better not if want to live. …and to stop wearing my Converse shoes with dress clothes. …and I need to stop wearing square-toed shoes. …and, my gawd, could I please stop wearing t-shirts with writing on them. …I’m learning how video games are the new cocaine (which I guess I could semi-agree with). …which steakhouses cost no less than $80 for a steak (and that’s the cheaper end of the spectrum). …and that pointy, ugly leather shoes for $1,400 that make feet bleed are stylish in Anderson, Ind. At least, they should be. I don’t put it down and feel a creative rush like I do with Entertainment Weekly, and I don’t find one thing I can actually use in my classroom like Wired magazine. Instead, I learn about fashion where all the male models in the magazines look like young, teenage girls wearing their daddy’s clothes. The captions have the cost for each article of clothing and only the people who are fed liquid money through an IV can afford it. Any article is about people made of plastic with mommy-issues that go back to how they were raised. It’s a social mess. The minute I get an issue in my mailbox, I just groan. I specifically remember one article called “are you a douche?” I held that issue of Details up to a mirror and asked it , “So, Details magazine, are you a douche?” The light just reflected off it’s shiny paper. I used to enjoy the man-smut, but then little “games” like Broadway face or O-face started getting published. Are they a singer or are they screaming in a porn? Then I realized my self esteem went down as I read the articles and looked at all the ads and photo spreads. They were all beautiful people. I was not. I think the breaking point was when they published an article about men called Mandingos: big, black men who are hired for parties to sexually “please” married women, while their husbands watch. Might I add, the people who hire them are white. It’s nice that people are doing that, but how is it going to help me learn how to calm down my hyperactive dog? Plus, the magazine has stopped originality. They publish the same men on the covers over and over. We have Brad Pitt on February, June and November. Then there is Vin Diesel on January and September (because he’s not been in any movies, and he's not with Angelina Jolie). After that, all the other months are left over to Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck and Sean Penn. They play pinochle to duke it out and they call each other “man-bitch” while doing it. Tom Cruise watches in the corner and cries, knowing he won’t ever be on the cover again. I open the magazine, well, actually I unwrap it from its plastic cover because only pretentious magazines can’t get wet. I mean, it’ll ruin the cologne samples inside. In the past, the free samples of $200-an-ounce-cologne was the best part, but even they are beginning to smell bad… …like vinegar.
08.18.07 Surprise? Birthday Parties I am currently kicked out of my house for the time being. Steph and I really got into it. “You will leave so I can set up for your birthday party,” she screamed. It’s time for the annual “what does Evan hate most” birthday party. It’s a surprise party of sorts. People will freak if I ask them if their coming, “you know about it? You’re not supposed to know about it!” Oh, but I do. I pick the menu. I just don’t know who’s coming, and when I arrive, I don’t know what the theme will be. Yes, they are themed. I find themed parties some of the best. As a teenager, you just want to go to houses and be a defiant little shit, play drinking games, make-out, wear your jeans, drop acid and so on. Once you hit adulthood, going to peoples’ houses is a great way to hang out, but on certain occasions, coming with a costume can be more fun. How else am I supposed to fill up my Flickr.com account? (Note to self, sign up for a Flickr.com account) I think this started during one summer while Steph was working on her Masters. Plans were made for me to meet up with her and a couple of friends who drove down from Muncie. I cleaned up nice and off I went. As I walked up to the porch of her first-story apartment, they all sat there in what I despised: sweat pants with elastic on the bottom and tacky t-shirts. Why did I even bother showering? They greeted with me my own pair of white (the worst color) sweat pants and a large yellow t-shirt. To make the evening worse, we went to the Wal-mart (a place I abhor) and we had to walk around in public. I felt like white trash. I wanted to yell to people that “I don’t really dress like this. This…is…not…me!” But once the embarrassment wore off, I got into it and started hiking up the sweat pants and dancing around in them. Going out to eat later wasn’t a big deal, plus it was a drive-in and we stayed in the car. Pictures were taken later that evening and my friend Eric pulled up his pants so high, he had a camel toe. Steph and I got married and our first summer together was a chance for Steph to pull together another plan, to theme an event over something I disgusted. I was forced to leave the afternoon of the party and returned to people all dressed up. In jumpers. In apples. In denim. With shirts tucked in. I’m a teacher, yes, but I do not enjoy the iconography that goes along with the profession: #1 Teacher, World’s Best Teacher, apples, etc. To me, all that goes along with elementary school teachers – and from time to time, during college, people would hear me complain about elementary school education majors. “Let’s make a bulletin board,” and how they were all sorority girls and the like. It just annoyed me. All the gifts that year were apples and baskets and mugs with “#1 Teacher” all over them. Most went back to the Goodwill. Then, the theme became more complicated the next summer. Again, after cleaning and getting ready, I had to leave. It took them forever to call me, so as I waited, drove around, I found myself at the park swinging. Once I could finally come home, I opened the door and there they all were, in vests (even Nigra had a vest on) with their nametags: “Wal-mart. Always.” Hanging all over the place were yellow balloons with smiley faces, signs on different parts of the house that spoke of falling prices and then it was time for gifts: everything Equate and Sam’s Choice and Best Value, not to forget the ugly plaid shirt by Faded Glory. Some of the gifts are beneficial, like the generic Tylenol and picture frames, I even used the petroleum jelly on my dry hands over the winter time so they wouldn’t crack and bleed, but the Faded Glory shirt hung in my closet. I wanted to take it back to get the money (because you can take back anything to the Wal-mart, even if you didn’t buy it there), but I never got around to it. I am currently sitting at a Starbucks. I hoped it would have wireless Internet, but you have to pay for it. Doesn’t Starbucks make enough money as the conglomerate coffee shop for free Internet? Alas, it is like bottled water. You. Must. Pay. Last year I kept guessing what the theme of the party could be. I told Steph it could be Wal-mart, but she said that would be too difficult. So, I kept thinking of other things. When I walked in, I was right – but not completely surprised. This year, I decided to not even think about it. I do know costumes are in the plan (why do I bother putting on nice clothes when I leave the house, I should’ve thrown sweat pants on) and so I continue to wait at the Starbucks, buzzed from my caramel Frappuccino, waiting to go home to my surprise party. To the friends I love. To the wife I love. To the food I chose. To the theme I hate.
07.29.07 Back Injuries Make Me Faint During the fourth grade, when growth spurts (mainly for the girls) began to erupt and heights of students teetered across the line for the bathrooms, we all were sat down in the darkened classroom and in they wheeled the TV/VCR unit. The teacher-in-charge stuck in a video cassette and we all had to sit and watch. “We are going to learn about scoliosis,” the fake doctor said. “It’s a disease of the back that makes your spine bend in ways that make it impossible for you to live a happy life. The surgery to correct it is painful as mortal sin and since you’re pre-teens hitting the time of your life where the body is changing, you will soon begin growing at rates your parents can’t keep up with. “You will be stuck wearing pants that are far too short and you’ll start wearing sneakers that are too long.” God, man. Whatever. Get on with it. But, seriously, I wish he hadn’t. Standing in a sterile, gray room the “I’m not a real doctor, but I play one on TV” stood there and in walked a girl in her bathing suit. She was asked to touch her toes. She did so, gracefully, and…nothing. She looked like a normal person bending over. She was sent away and in walked another girl in a similar blue bathing suit. “Bend over you disgusting mess,” the doctor commanded her. She did, and growing out of her back was this large, unnatural hump. During the video, my face was white – I could feel the floor falling away from me and I wanted to fall with it. The teacher saw me and asked if I was OK. I can’t remember responding, but since I wasn’t unconscious or puking, she walked away unconcerned. The teacher turned off the video and informed us that we were all going to hit our growth spurts soon, and if we didn’t grow straight, we would grow crooked like that girl, and there would be a bend in the spine and that bend is called scoliosis. I went home that night and cried. Hard. “I don’t want to grow crooked!” Worry consumed me. Didn’t you grow while you slept? How was I not going to be cock-eyed if I slept in strange positions? I was going to get it, I knew. Scoliosis was mine to have. The name was scary in itself, and I cried and cried because that name of the back disease-injury-problem-thing was so damn scary. Granted, the Quasimodo shown on the video didn’t help. It never helps to have a visual representation: “Hey Jenny, before you get your painful spinal surgery, could you put this bathing suit on in front of the camera and bend over?” The next day at school, we were called down, one by one, to the nurses’ office. She stood there and told us to take off our shirts and to bend over. I remember that we had to do this a couple of times throughout our elementary and middle school experience. I could just feel my spine bending the wrong way. Now that I do yoga, my spine bends the wrong way all the time and it’s normal. But having watched that video, it made me sensitive to such topics as spines. They are this tremendous part of the human body, part of the central nervous system, can bend all crazy, it’s made of different vertebra and they can also break. The fact they can break makes my legs week. It’s just gross. Pour blood all over me, that’s fine. I’ll watch a dog surgery any day, I’ll get over it. Talk about breaking spines – I’ll pass out, and you’ll have to catch me and drag me home. Year by year, I begin getting more pale at different health defects. This is one of the reasons I am glad my cable provider doesn’t give us Discovery Health. I had my own Discovery Health moment at school this past year. An art teacher was gone for a couple of weeks because she had back surgery. During lunch, the band teachers asked how she was doing, and she replied how she felt so much better after the surgery. She must’ve been in much pain prior, and she looked well and acted fine, but then she started to go into detail. I wanted to say, “please, I’m eating.” “And then they cut through my skin and onto my spine. A blade came in contact with my spine (I’m getting white writing this) and as my spine was exposed to the air, the doctor looked at my spine, they touched and looked at it! Can you believe it! And they cut out a part of the herniated disc. They cut it. Cut. Cut. Cut. Spine. Cut. Blade. Spinal chord. Cutting spinal chord. Blood.” They didn’t see me fall out of my chair and eat carpet, which is fine. I didn’t want to take the attention away from her. I mean, that’s so impolite. I could’ve been a spinal surgeon. I could’ve been the one that surgitized, or whatever, on the art teacher. I could be the one that takes the pain away from so many who suffer from back pain, but damn that video. Damn it. Because of it, I will continue to be worthless to the human race, doing what I wasn’t really supposed to be doing.
07.18.07 My Birthday German Style I think my motion-sickness came about when I started a paper route my junior year of high school. My mother would drive and I would twist and shout while I threw papers into yards, or stuffed them into holders. Moving forwards, stopping, going from left to right, stopping, going, turning, it was no wonder I got “sea sick” on a river. The money raised from the newspaper route funded my trip to Nürnburg, Germany the summer I turned 17. I was so nervous to be in a new country, it took me a week before I could eat normally without getting nauseous from an anxious stomach. So, it made sense I got sick while riding a boat down the Rhine River. It wasn’t stopping and going. I wasn’t throwing papers covered in an orange baggy. There were castles on the riverside and I couldn’t watch. We finally stopped off at some tourist-trap town, a city full of Americans acting like Germans, and I can’t remember anything but sitting down in the street wanting to die. It was like being stuck at Epcot Center, but with a harsher dialect of German. The trip home on the bus was hell. I was lying down in the back of the bus with friends, feeling sorry for myself because the next day was my birthday, but the teachers made me move to the front, upstraight and not reclining. One of the German teachers was a foul terd idiot and was like, “look at the grass…at it blows…just watch it…” I vomited a couple of times in a trashcan after that. I should’ve projected it at her. This was the day before the best birthday I ever had. I got to my host family’s house, rushed upstairs to bed and my host mom pulled back the rug and gave me a trashcan. My host family consisted of mom and dad (whose names escape me) and three brothers. My host brother, whom I was similar in age to, was Fabian (all Fabio jokes aside, please). Early morning on my birthday, I crept downstairs and no one was up. I was still feeling a little woozy, but having slept a million hours, I didn’t want to lie around anymore. But since I was in a foreign house, I didn’t feel like staying downstairs in the dark either. I came down a couple hours later to the hustle-bustle of the family. A Happy Birthday sign hung over the table, the table was set and my space had a bunch of gummy bears sprinkled all over the place (Harabo, only the best for my birthday, thank you). Fresh rolls were placed in a basket, and I was afraid to eat anything heavy, so I reached for a croissant and had tea. My host mom presented me with a package, which I tore open enthusiastically, I mean, they really didn’t have to do this, and it was Faber-Castell pastels and a drawing tablet. They knew I enjoyed drawing cartoons and they told me I should draw a “comic.” I tried to draw for them on the spot, but it came out horrible. They probably see all that money as wasted to this day. German “Bill Cosby” comes on, and they just look at each other, rolling their eyes. “Remember that stupid American boy? Who couldn’t draw shit for comics?” Fabian told me we were going to meet friends, so we went to the bus stop and waited for about twenty minutes. I was annoyed they didn’t have the gull to show up, so we went back to the house and there were my high school friends and their German partners in the dining room waiting for me. My host-mom presented me with a homemade cheesecake, which I love, and I received presents. One being this stuffed pumpkin. I’m not sure what was up with that, but since I was in a foreign country, I received it with joy and named it Smashing Pumpkin. Pictures taken at the party were later put into a small binder for me to keep and take home. Everyone left and I went upstairs to take a nap. I still hadn’t recuperated from the idiot German teacher’s comments about swaying grass that make me puke. Oh, I forgot to mention what Fabian got me. He bought me a ticket for the Schaumparty that was taking place that night at a disco downtown. I’ll explain this party later. For dinner that night, my host-dad made Chinese food (the only time I ate typical German cuisine was when went out to eat…we had Italian, Chinese, American the rest of the time I was there…). After dinner we got ready to go and went to the disco. The Schaumparty was outside. It was an area by the disco which had a machine that spewed out suds, and the parking lot area designated for this was covered waist high with bubbles. God knows how many people were having Tide sex. We danced, met up with friends (who some of them got in trouble for talking about it. One of the German host-teachers forbid us to go…that the Americans are too young…and I thought Hitler was dead). My friend Jessie got trapped dancing dirty with some nasty German man, so I had to rescue her. Who knew these people who only knew me for two weeks would take me in and celebrate my birthday in such a way it can never be topped?
07.07.07 Emo Will One Day Rule the Earth One morning I was asking my students if anyone listened to Fall Out Boy. I just started listening to the album “Infinity Is High” and they had a pop-rock feel to them, a sound I figured most eighth graders would enjoy. Since I want to try and connect with my eighth graders, I try to pick up certain types of music they would listen to. It gives us something to talk about and it lets me see them as more human than the hemorrhoid-ravaged monsters they can be – I mean hormone-ravaged, sorry, hormone ravaged! I asked, “Does anyone listen to Fall Out Boy?” And groans released in the air like farts: “Fall Out Boy is soooo Emo!” “They’re terrible!” “God wants them destroyed!” “They’re the reason democracy is dying!” I got the point, quick. But I tried to defend them like they were a solid belief I had, “No, they’re not Emo! They’re more of a pop-rock!” Then it resonated in me the rest of the day. I was listening to a band that every student thought was Emo. This word, this phrase, has been thrown around by middle school students for some time. To get under another each other’s skin, they’ll insult each other: “You’re such an Emo!” “No, I’m not!” “You are!” And so forth. One day, frustrated with all this talk of being “Emo” and not truly knowing what it meant in middle-school-speak, I looked it up. To be Emo, you need an over abundance of angst and pain. According to Wikipedia, the new, large, generic place to get information (almost as bad as Google – teenagers are so lazy when it comes to information on the Internet. When I walk past them in the media center at school, it’s always Google, always Wikipedia), Emo is supposedly punk and goth’s retarded baby where cutting wrists is accepted (just hugging the blade with angry love, really) and terrible poetry is law. To look the part, one must wear tight, ugly pants (for boys, they call them “girl pants” and I wouldn’t be surprised if one day a kid turned around and there it was on the butt, Limited Too), eye liner (and for the gents, “guyliner”), shaggy neo-punk hair and tons of whiney music. They must be outcasts, and since there’s always a group of them, they’re never really individuals, just another group of people who look and speak the same. To be honest, I’m not truly ignorant when it comes to the term Emo. In my day, Emo was just a basic description of a new trend in rock. The lyrics were “emotional” and usually about break-ups and being treated wrongly in relationships. They were usually sung by men, showing a more vulnerable side in the rock genre (granted, isn’t that what Journey did?). The voices could be a little higher than the average range of male singer (again, Journey comes to mind…), and sometimes it came off as an angry, whiney sound. Now, how it became this un-trendy thing where people are like, “ugh…that is so Emo,” I don’t understand. These students say things like that, when they, themselves, fit the heinous description. These labels kids give themselves have been around for eons. Emo is just the new Goth for their generation. It’s funny when an adult will be like, “I thought you as a kind of preppy,” and the student responds, “Oh, I thought preppy was when people wore pleated pants and sweatervests…” “Um…that’s 90’s dork, not preppy…” Even Spiderman 3 has an “Emo Spiderman” and an “Emo Peter Parker.” But then, during a blog exercise my sixth graders work on toward the end of the grading period, one student turned it in with all kinds of “yay, I’m Emo” all over it. The blog assignment consists of creating an online journal (on paper, because kids + Internet = hostile takeover) and writing descriptions about themselves, writing four entries that other students in class can comment on. It’s a very interactive assignment, and I thought it did a nice job simulating how a blog functions. I read each one to make sure they’re appropriate (one kid actually wrote four entries about Michael Jackson, one being a bad dream where a naked King of Pop chased the student). One of them, a girl who just moved from Florida, had “I Y Fall Out Boy” all over it. She also wrote how “I am so Emo!” She didn’t have the bad fashion and ugly hair, though. Go figure. Florida Emo must be different than Indiana Emo.
06.30.07 The Man With Half A Soul I think every person has a few high school experiences that are tagged as interesting, but can you claim that you’ve met a person with only half a soul? I was such a Goth-wannabe in high school. I loved their attitudes, how they were outcasts and liked it. They didn’t want to fit in. After being made fun of for four years in middle school, I didn’t know how to fit in. I wasn’t ever allowed to. So meeting people who chose to be social outcasts (who were always very nice people) was amazing. “Wow, you can choose not to fit in?” I asked the Goth as he put on Alice Cooper eye make-up and fluffed his velvet, black pirate shirt. I wanted that, too, but I wasn’t rebellious enough, nor did I own the attire. I came from a Catholic school and my closet was full of navy blue pants and white polo shirts. Instead, since it was mid-nineties, I was caught wearing the flannel over the “whatever” t-shirt with my ratty jeans. I admired the Goths, but I never hung out with them en masse. If I did, I would’ve looked like Marilyn from “The Munsters.” The friends I did have, also admired Goths, I think. Goths also played a game called “Vampire: The Masquerade.” I had the book to learn how to play the game, but it was about 300+ pages. No game should have a rule book that is more than five pages. The game seemed interesting, but I couldn’t find the time to read an instruction manual when I had novels to read for English class. The game, which was a role playing game, was also titled a storytelling game. The object of such a game wasn’t to win, but to create a story with a group of friends (or blood fetished weirdos). You created a fictional character with a sheet describing all the traits this character would have (that being a vampire) and then you sat around with a bunch of “friends” and take those characters through stories. Since it was called a storytelling game, and I’ve always enjoyed a good story, a game like that sounded fun, even if I didn’t want to read the book. That was before I realized people dressed in their black trench coats and played this game, live action, in the Kmart parking lot in Castleton across from the Perkins. It couldn’t have been a Wal-mart parking lot because some hill-jack would’ve pulled out a gun and shot the freak. Then the Kmart turned into an electronics store and the “vampires” lost their deathscape, or whatever. I think it was on the news. I was invited to play “Vampire” at a friend’s apartment. Maria, was the friend’s name, and although she was really a “friend of a friend,” I found out later in life she had gotten pregnant and then sold her baby. But this was Pre-Baby-Selling Maria. So we sat in a circle and never really started to play, at this I am still angry. Actually, I think I’m angrier at the turn of events that evening than playing the game. I was either a freshman or a sophomore in high school and my slate was very clean. Call me naïve if you want. But the following events scarred me: We started play, but something interrupted us. What exactly, I can’t remember, but my two friends, Beth and Jessie, ended up in the bathroom with Maria’s boyfriend, Jeremy. Jeremy was a fit chap with long light brown hair, tight black jeans, a couple earrings, and I think he walked around without a shirt that evening. I’m not surprised they both got up and went to the bathroom with him when he beckoned. As they were in the bathroom with Jeremy, for about an hour or longer, I was stuck in the living room with Maria and her minions. She was the type that wore velvet, homemade capes, no bras, weird eye make-up and loved the spirits. I can’t remember if she was wearing a cape or not that night. Someone asked me if I wanted a cigarette, but I declined, because I didn’t trust the self-rolled type. He cracked the window open and started smoking it, and boy, it didn’t smell like a regular cigarette. I dare say that he smoked the marijuana. We all sat in silence, in the dark, me praying that the cops wouldn’t come, because they were all engaged in the act of underage drinking, along with the possession and usage of an illegal substance. Then Maria started doing tequila shots, sucking on lime and licking the salt off her arm. I don’t know if she was trying to rapture me the way Jeremy did the other two. She did this with a fan aimed at her, looking in the mirror at herself while she flipped back her cape, lime juice squirting everywhere. I was ready and waiting with my wood stake to take on Maria and her minions, when Beth, Jessie and Jeremy finally came out of the bathroom. I was sweating profusely, ready to get the hell out, but we had to be polite and chat for a bit, since the boyfriend of the Caped Tequila was in the bathroom for over an hour with two other girls and it’d just be plain rude if we left abruptly. I mean what would Maria think? It wasn’t until we left the apartment when I found out why they had been in the bathroom with Jeremy. “Evan, Jeremy only has half a soul!” After spending the majority of my evening with the Darkness, I, too, had half a soul. 06.19.07 Gay Jay Junior year of college I had a roommate. He was a freshman. So I vicariously relived my freshman year. I had met him the previous summer through a friend. They were best friends from high school and so, we, too, would be best friends. Or so I thought: My friend, Tom, and I piled into my black Stratus and we drove up to a suburb outside of Chicago. It was high-July and the skies were cloudless, making the heat so fierce it killed. The elderly without fans weren’t going to make it that week. Although I love the city life, I hate driving in Chicago traffic, but since it’s too practical to find another way around northern Illinois, it was through the Chicago midday traffic. At one point in the drive, it got so hot, Satan came out and did a little dance in a tight-red leotard. “Did you know when the dew point reaches our body temperature, we’ll suffocate,” Tom said, always bringing a touch of pessimism. With that said (whether or not, it’s true…), I started to hyperventilate. I couldn’t breathe. I felt the dew point reach my 98.6 degree body temperature. My pores were getting larger and larger. The stand still traffic made me feel like Medusa – just one look, and everything was stone! Oh the humanity? Why would Tom tell me that we were going to die? This is it, isn’t it? The Stratus’ paint was already blistering, popping paint bubbles all over the Chicago freeway. Plus, I was stupid and didn’t have the air circulating itself while the air was on, so the car didn’t exactly cool off. After six hours in the car – a four hour trip gone to hell – we arrived at Jay’s house. I literally climbed to the front door, screaming, “we’re finally here!” And so started Tom and I’s visit with my future roommate. We went to Six Flags Great America and Gurnee Mills. We spent an entire day downtown, because our car was towed and we walked miles to the pound. One afternoon, right before Tom and I’s schedule departure, Jay announced to his family and us that “I’m going to take a relaxing bath!” We were just about to leave for pizza. A bath? Who takes baths? We left for home. August came and went, school started and I learned more about Jay. He was a theater major – the scorn of my existence, only because they have no limits or personal space. I, too, have few limits, but I guard my personal space with an air of paranoia. After his showers, he would stand around in his boxer briefs and amass handfuls of Lubriderm lotion and slather it all over his body until he was greasier than McDonald’s fries and he reflected in the fluorescent light. His desk was right by the window, which annoyed him to no end because the sunlight always glared all over his computer, so he shut the blinds. That annoyed me to no end because the oriental rug we had on the floor over the tile already made the room dark, and everybody hates living in fluorescent lights, except for Jay who always had it on in the room since it was over his desk, so it was an unnatural green all the time, and all I had were a couple of dim lamps so I could see around desk. I’ve always enjoyed having a roommate through college – the company was nice. Free time was immense. It was a thick tropical forest of free time and conversation was a good machete to cut through that free time. But Jay was never around. I got to know the other guys on my floor pretty well instead. With all the theater events, he was never in the room. As his presence became less and less, questions about his sexual orientation began to pop up The bath he took while Tom and I were visiting should have been a sign, and I can’t remember if it was a bubble bath or not, but during the year more questionable behaviors started to show up at the door. I don’t remember his name, but he came loaded with CDs. One afternoon while I was in the room, I asked if I could look through his two massive binders. I asked what he listened to, and as I started flipping through: “Cats”, “Phantom of the Opera”, “Jekyll and Hyde”, “Ragtime”, “The Pajama Game”, “My Fair Lady”, etc. I started to see a trend. “These are all musicals. What else do you listen to?” “Musicals are the only thing worth listening to,” he scoffed. And for a week in January, Mr. Musical Theater would come and take Jay away, “to some girl’s house” his BFF from high school later told me, and I was supposed to believe that… Sure he would say how “hot” Sarah Michelle Gellar was while I watched “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” but I wasn’t convinced since MTV’s the “Real World” was the best show ever. And he would, like, totally talk on the phone and speak like this, and oh my God, I know, and talk about how one of the characters on “The Real World” was being a complete and total beyotch, but how, oh my God, I know, how he would just looove another character. So, I would call Steph and tell her my recent observations and whether or not we thought Jay was gay. He came armed with his Lubriderm and lathered up right after he showered. Okay, so he had good skin care. He watched the “Real World” with thwarted passion – so he had poor taste in television. After all the different pieces were thrown around… Lightbulb. Later that summer, when I lived on campus, I met our mutual friend for lunch (Jay’s BFF). Over Subway, she finally told me that Jay was gay. I said I figured that out. I also said it would have been easier if he had just told me. She said Jay was afraid I’d be uncomfortable with it. Strangely, I was more uncomfortable with not really knowing. 2.13.07 The Handicapped Mime When I go to bed at night I look like a handicapped mime. Before I lay me down to sleep and after I rub Vaseline all over my hands, I place them into my gloves…granted, as “Silence of the Lambs” as that sounds, it’s true…the gloves were a gift from a student. Instead of the Starbuck’s card that I’m accustomed to, I received a bag with coffee, soap, tea and moisture gloves. These are the type of gloves you put on overnight, with hands covered with Vaseline, to keep the skin lubricated and soft. It was a day spa in a bag, minus the dermabrasion. When I wake up from nightmares, I honor Marcel Marceau, and silently, with cunning conviction, act out the zombie wedding I witnessed during my R.E.M. sleep. The only thing I’m missing is the white pancake make-up all over my face. (This brings me to an odd story about my junior year college roommate. After every shower, he would stand in front of the mirror in his underwear and lather himself with Lubriderm. He pumped it out using quick, thrusting, um, pumps. Supposedly it was unscented, but the room smelled like lotion. God-awful, greasy lotion. This was the type of guy who would come home after long breaks with an economy-size bottle, ready to lube up some more. Sure his skin was healthy, but my innocence was not.) Then, once the gloves are on, I strap on my carpel tunnel bands. Long ago my hands used to fall asleep constantly. I would wake up with a pins and needles sensation, and since I thought I had really poor circulation, I figured it was just something I would get over eventually, perhaps take some aspirin to thin my blood and make it flow faster (making sure I avoided sharp glass and knife blades). In the end, I went to the doctor and he handed me nude colored bands that thrust my palms up. I look like I’m ready to give high fives with both of my hands. The bands stop the wearer from driving, eating, making out, heavy petting – unless you’re kinky like that. The upside is the bands resemble a skater’s wrist guard. Nude Wrist Guards. I Fake people out by falling in the midst of a sweet 250 plant, land on my wrists, scream bloody murder, etc. The wrist guards help deter the return of my pins-and-needles-work-related-injury. Or they help me when I fall down, protecting my wrists. Or when I fall out of bed. So, all this pain adds to my beauty. I’m a skater in my sleep and a mime on very cold days. Why would I want to be a mime-wannabe with the gloves? I have gnarly, cracked, alligator skin. The skin on my knuckles breaks and bleeds, so when antibacterial hand gel and lotion come in contact with my hands, it stings the like an ocean of lemon juice on a paper cut. Dry skin runs in my family. My dad’s thumbs are so dried out, if he picked up a Nintendo controller, he’d scratch up the buttons. If I want to have a snow fight, I need to wear gloves; otherwise people are bound to get hit in the face with a bloody snowball. So that tube of petroleum jelly I got for my birthday really pays off. That sounds gross, doesn’t it? 10.20.06 Spending Time At Your Local BMV It’s happened to most of us. Regardless of updating a new address on the driver’s license, updating it before it expires, renewing plates on the automobiles, etc. people have suffered those damned plastic chairs in BMV’s across the country, and probably all the way back to when Rome was an empire (at that point they were registering chariots, horses and the such). Overall the worst is going on your birthday. What’s better than celebrating a birthday by sitting in plastic chairs created by Marilyn Manson, surrounded by angry, pissed off, blue-shirt wearing workers. Last week I sat down in the eroded plastic chair – and I digress here, people say that toilet seats don’t accumulate germs, per say, but I think the chairs at the BMV are magnets to any nasty germ attached to the seat of anybody’s pants. I leaned back in the black eroded chair and bumped into a woman’s arm. Her long jean jacket arm took up three chairs, so bumping into her arm was written in the stars. I quietly said, “’scuse me,” and all she could do was muster up a nice attitude-filled, “um-hm,” and moved her extra-long arm. So I turned to her and said, “You’re a pleasant dear, aren’t you.” She looked at me in disbelief. “You ain’t mindin’ your elders boy,” she said. “I said ‘excuse me,’ my sista-elder, because your monster arm was all up in my business.” “You wouldn’t know if something was all up in your business if it was all up in your business,” she retorted and left it at that as her name was called and she dragged her five-foot arm off all fifteen chairs, putting it in her extra-large purse, and headed to one of the Blue Shirts. If only Dr. Seuss wrote a story telling all of us, both young and old, how to deal with the insanity that is called the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Of All the Peoples You Peep! Each and every one’s a creep, And if your snarfles won’t let you be nice Oh the pays you will pay for that price! But we don’t know exactly how to act when it comes to the BMV. We know to wait in line and then get angry because we haven’t secured all 29 documents we needed for the address change. So we go back to the car, shuffle around all the Chik-Fil-A boxes and wrappers in our Dodge Torpedo, and hope that the ketchup won’t ruin the most important document you need proving that you are, indeed, a U.S. citizen. And once we’ve been strip searched, we get to sit our behinds in those black plastic chairs again, awaiting the glorious hour when one of the Blue Shirts will call our name. And we glance at our watches and cell phones as time creeps by slower than that old man getting up to get his vision checked so he can continue maneuvering his Cadillac the size of a boat. Of All the Peoples You Peep That old man don’t drive no Jeep His car is larger than a mobile home Rusted and dented with no trace of chrome! So we wait with our book or magazine. Waiting for our number to be called, looking up at 38 and then looking at our little ticket that says 94. They offer the suggestion, “oh, go get some lunch, since you’re so far back, you can have a martini lunch, go see a show, come back and still have twenty minutes to catch up on your Smithsonian magazine.” But do we dare trust that Blue Shirt? God forbid we leave, because the minute we step foot outside the door, the Blue Shirts will fly past the 40’s through the 80’s and by the time we come back, the Blue Shirts will be on antsy customer 192. So we sit and wait. Glaciers melt. Global warming heats up and cools back down. Evolution brings about a new species of Reptile People. Our faces and legs itch from lack of shaving. But gosh darn it, we will hold out and wait, because we will not be passed up. Of All The Peoples You Peep! Don’t you realize you’re just a sheep? Waiting the waits that no one can wait Working that patience for heaven’s gate. And an hour later we’re finally called. We’re older. We’re grouchy. We’re sitting next to Sista’ Elder with her 15-foot-long arm. We sit across from the Blue Shirt, relieved that we can finally get our business done, when she smiles meekly and excuses herself to go relieve herself in the bathroom. And we’re stuck waiting again. 10.10.06 RBS I went from yoga and three-plus days at the gym, to not working out at all. That was a year ago. Then we got a phone call: “Come tour the Anderson YMCA and get two weeks free!” When we got there on our scheduled day, we signed in and awaited the hyper-active man who passed us back and forth, causing a breeze, wearing a path into the tile floor. And so we walked through the almost-but-not-really dilapidated building that contained free weights, weight machines, a pool, bikes, a couple of TVs to watch while working out, a skank-filled hot tup and tons of old naked men wandering around with their sagging chodes in the men’s dressing room. But the most glorious place of all was the two racquetball courts side-by-side. After the hyper-active man, hired by the Anderson YMCA to heighten enrollment, sat us down and gave us the “inside scoop” about how they were offering a great deal to those participants who got the phone call. Obviously he was telling everyone the “inside scoop” so they’d come back and join. I felt cool, like he really was telling us something that he wasn’t telling others who sat down with him, as he did the math on the back of a scrap piece of paper, explaining how much it would cost to join with this grand deal. That we were the only couple told this valuable information in order to bring us back in a week to officially sign up? This coming from the kid that sat on a firecracker just because his older brother said so. Luckily the hyper-active man wasn’t really “burning” us with some fake deal. After some discussion, the fact that I missed my YMCA experiences back when I lived in Fishers (where membership was half your soul), and a place to go that wasn’t the typical over-crowded gym, we did sign up. But before we officially signed up, we took the Y up on its freeness and decided that we’d play a game of racquetball. Neither of us are pros, but the idea seemed fun. After we joined, it turned into RBS – Racquetball Saturday. We go, rent out the gear, and begin to whack that blue ball all around the enclosed room. I studied up on the rules and how to play, score points, etc. but none of the diagrams made any sense and so we went convinced that it’d be more fun to just hit it back and forth against the wall. It couldn’t be that hard. Well, there’s a reason they give you those plastic goggles when you rent the equipment – that blue ball comes at you with a vengeance. It’s like the anti-smiley face from Wal-mart, not coming to slash prices, but your face. I am part of the hand-eye coordination generation – Nintendo and Genesis were created with my brain cells in mind. Super Mario engrained a specific ability in me at an early age – watching the screen without looking at my hands. Hand-eye coordination for a video game like Pong is a far cry from watching that little blue ball bounce with an inertia that’s out to kill with its velocity. Watching the ball go to-and-fro with a racquet in hand isn’t like playing Pong. Because even though the wall doesn’t move like the classic Atari game, you do, and as the soles of your sneakers screech against the floor, with your eye is on the blue ball, and your racquet ready, you’re not paying attention. That’s when the wall jumps out in front of you and hits your whole body, reminding you that you’re not playing correctly. “You passed the line with your foot,” it says. “Your serve is awful and you don’t even know how to perform a proper backhand.” The first time we played racquetball we played three 20-minute games. The goal for the first ever RBS was to just hit the ball against the wall to the other player and hit it back again, without stopping, hitting the other player in the shins or nailing them in the eye. We weren’t wearing the protective eye-gear. As safe-conscious as we are, we didn’t want claustrophobic goggles that had been pink-eyed on. The second RBS, after we officially joined, was a little more effective. The blue ball was green this time and less angry. We didn’t hit it against the parallel wall as hard and we were able to get the “to-and-fro” part down. Still, we did not score, but the wall was much kinder to me, as it allowed my knee to miss it entirely every time I tried to go after the ball when it was over my head. Until the introduction of Dance Dance Revolution, there was no jumping in video games – physical jumping, that is. Mario could jump all he wanted, but I just sat on the floor. Hand-eye coordination, with racquet in hand and ball in air never went Wimbledon-smooth as I tried to jump for the ball and hit it. Instead, I missed it entirely, allowing it to bounce against the plexi-glass and pop its way toward my butt cheeks, goosing me. We laugh because we’re so horrible, but as we’re trying to speak to each other in the vacuum that is the racquetball court, the echoes swoosh through the air like banshees, making it impossible to have a conversation. The only time we can talk is when we whisper to each other, standing still, like it’s a secret we’re trying to keep from the blue ball. As we continue our journeys at the Y during RBS, we learn that playing slower allows us to play smarter, and by playing smarter, we actually hit the ball back and forth. Also, I played a game of tennis with my tennis team and RBS definitely helped. The kids were impressed with my hits. But they weren’t as impressed as I was.
09.10.06 A Tennis Coach's Secret Part One They came to me in a rush. I was talking summer job opportunities with a fellow co-worker, when the athletic director and the head girls’ coach caught me off guard. “We’ve been looking for you,” the athletic director said. This had me worried. This past winter the PTO thought it funny to buy a plastic Trojan outfit (our mascot) so a teacher could wear it at different basketball games. I adorned the outfit numerous times, but when I turned around to face them I said, “If this is about the Trojan costume, I am not wearing it. It is made of plastic and it is too hot out.” I wasn’t going to rake the long jump pit as an assistant track coach while wearing molded plastic armor, a red cape and my black Teva sandals. They assured me that wasn’t it. Of all things, they asked if I would fill in as a head boys’ coach for a season. They said to think about it, but I went ahead and jumped at the chance – not because I knew the game, but because a little extra in the paycheck always helps. Now that the season has started, I realize now why they asked me to think about it. I can’t decide if the pros outweigh the cons. For one, I teach in one of the richest counties in the U.S. And when you say “rich”, what’s the first sport that comes to mind? No, not golf…although this sport is almost as boring. With no formal training, except one summer as a young adolescent, I accepted the head boys’ tennis coach position. Yes, this kid who went to one tennis match his senior year to cheer, without any clue there was such a thing as “tennis etiquette.” I cheered so loud that my friend got distracted and lost. Parents gave me “the eye” and I sat down, quickly learning what the etiquette was. Be quiet. Get bored. Watch the ball go back and forth. And as my athletic director says, “There’s no better place to learn than middle school athletics.” I still need to check out my copy of “Tennis for Dummies.” Part Two This is my third year at the middle school and parents do not intimidate me anymore. I know exactly what I’m doing, therefore all that anxiety has worn off. The minute they have a question about something, they are on my turf. Now I’m on their turf. Every time something happens I want to turn to one of the kids and ask, “what just happened?” Then I stop myself. I can’t give myself away. They already buy into my elaborate lie. I needed a good story to tell them when they asked the dreadful question: “Do you play?” “I did when I was your age.” “How long did you play for?” “Well, I didn’t make it on the tennis team in high school, so I started cross country, instead. I’m more of a runner.” “Did you see that double fault?” Or is it vault? Walt? Volley? What? “No, I just missed it.” “You were looking at the court.” “I have a cold.” “That doesn’t affect your vision.” “My glasses are bad. I need a new prescription.” “Don’t you wear contacts? I can see better out of my contacts.” “My contacts are broken. Oh look, it’s time for you to play. Run along now.” Then I shout at them while they play: Great overhand! Great underhand! Great volley! Look at that double Walt!
08.11.06 School Supplies More Expensive Than Useful It's August, and you know what that means - it's time to buy school supplies and books. And I had the pleasure recently listening to parents gripe about how much they pay for registration, and why can’t they just write one large check and drop it off, and why it can’t just come from their taxes like they do in Georgia, and why there isn’t enough wood to build another Ark and is it true that the law of gravity can be debunked? I want to tell those middle school parents, “lucky it’s not college…” Not only are they forking out money for book rental, but they still haven’t made that trip to Target to get all those school supplies, and not just notebooks, mind you… Regardless of the education system implanted here in the U.S., it seems that our lives are reliant on modern school supplies - mostly consisting of technology. School supplies these days aren't like our grandparents’ school supplies. "Back in the day when I walked uphill both ways to school in 100 inches of snow with rabid wildebeests chasing me, all I needed for school was my slate and chalk, one pencil that I used until it was a nub and a single sheet of paper." Pencil nubs and slate boards just don't cut it anymore for Generation X and Y. Turbulent minds are pounding out new technology daily for consumers to devour, and while the cost of college continues to rise (making it available for only Prince William), school stays expensive because of the "new" list of school supplies. Stab vampires with your pencils, use your notebooks as toilet paper and grind up all your chalk and sell it on the drug market because you're going to need the money. Here’s why: These days, before we start school, we need to get our lives prioritized. Schools are beginning to demand incoming undergrads to come prepared with laptop computers. It can be the fancy MacBooks that are ready to work out of the box with all that podcasting, blogging, music downloading, you-mean-I-actually-have-to-use-this-for-work?, or they’re on their way to CompUSA, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. looking around for that Toshiba laptop that requires the user to scan their finger prints before logging on for security purposes. What’s next? The iPod that requires a retina scan? The FlashDrive that won’t work unless we squeeze a pin-drop of blood on it for it to recognize our DNA? School supply shopping has become Mission: Impossible. This shopping supply list will detonate in 3.5 seconds…3…2…1… And modern students must e-mail their papers to their teachers and professors because paper is just so yesterday. Modern students need DVD players, mp3 players and Internet gaming to help them procrastinate; also, a student of psychology needs to counsel their friends by talking online. Modern students need Roller Coaster Tycoon, Halo 2, the Nintendo Revolution. Students need to purchase books for studies (each book costing that of our first born child), and recent books come with CD-ROMs that have most of the information on them - since the publishers know we don't read. It will go down to the youngsters who aren’t corrupted by all the technology, too. Soon, the book "Everybody Poops" will come handy with its own CD to plug in and play. “Jimmy, click the orifice where the pooh comes from…” And although book publishers print out handy books to write our assignments down - nobody uses them, because we're all smart enough to recite the alphabet, feed and dress ourselves and of course, remember all our assignments without writing them down. But wait! We can't live in this world without a pocket PC or a personal organizer (digital of course) because our memories don't function without the latest Intel processor. And guess what? All of these handy new devices come with instruction epics written in fifteen languages because of the phenom called Global World Community Networking Virtual Media Outreach Integration - or something like that. We don’t have time to do homework, we have to push aside all of our studies to learn how to work our required gadgets. Who cares how to organize our files alphabetically? We want to know how Pong and Tetris work on our personal pocket gizmos and how to update our Myspaces during class. At least we're keeping our parents and Oompa Loompas in the tech industry with jobs. We can't sacrifice our stumbling economy to the evils of being frugal. Plus, who's going to pay for all of this junk? We need our parents. Remember, as students, we've maxed out about three credit cards by now. 08.05.06 School Is Different When Not A Student School started and a friend said “that sucks, I’m sorry, man.” He’s a sports reporter/photographer for a TV station in Evansville, Ind. and I said how awful it was that football season was starting. He laughed. Of course it wasn’t going to suck – he enjoys sports, even high school games, so regardless of the assignment, he’s going to enjoy it, especially now that he just left a dead end TV job in a town aptly named Hazard. He’s ready for his Friday Night Lights, while I prepare for the shortening days to the point of Monday Morning Brights. People often apologize for school starting: “But I’m not on the receiving end,” I say, “remember, I assign the homework.” Sadly, I also grade it – that is my paperwork and my own version of homework. I’m in a profession that allows jealousy – sometimes. It depends if I will have to take a job during the summers, or (in the future) jam-pack a Masters Degree on top of paper grading and lesson planning and teaching and coffee binging. The two-months off, even if I have a job, is nice. It was either that, or working for a small town newspaper with limited vacation days. Years ago when I brought the notion up about changing from a news-ed. major (that of reporting fires, drunk-driving accidents, selling my soul to an editor, becoming addicted to cigarettes, drinking too much booze, over-stimulating myself with espresso shots and Red Bull, etc.) to a life of education, my dad worried that there was no money in education. And as a current teacher, we continue to worry about that… While waiting for a seat at one of those common steakhouses with the peanut-shell carpet, I realized one of those jean-totin’ waiters was a future version of me – working a second job. Reporter by day and then I would moonlight as a waiter. After the waiter passed me, I looked at my dad with pleading eyes. He was afraid I wouldn’t make much as an educator, but I reassured him when I told him the beginning salary for a reporter: $19,000. I changed my decision based on many factors, but when I did find out the starting pay of a reporter, I quickly applied for my PRAXIS test so I could apply to the Teachers’ College. I didn’t want to strip on the side for gas money. Although, since gas prices are reaching $3+, I may have to start stripping on the side nonetheless. I better call Bob for that bikini wax, although they do have Nair for men now. I had no clue what I was doing, however, and I needed to find direction. So I went to the guru of journalism education at the end of my sophomore year in college and talked to him about changing my major. I was going from something I had been doing for years: coming up with story ideas, asking people questions, writing down their answers, writing a story, then starting all over again. It was frightening to think that I would be doing something different. I met with Bob. Bob wasn’t too convinced that I was a good candidate for the major. Bob tried to talk me out of switching my major because I wasn’t sure of myself and what I was getting into. Bob didn’t have a degree in Journalism, or Journalism Education for that matter, I mean, really, he was an English teacher. Plus, Bob had a saggy face, yellowed teeth and a personality that made prunes vicious, and I didn’t have the personality to be a teacher? Luckily, he quit and I worked with someone entirely different. But Bob told the new guy about me and how I wasn’t teacher material. I guess I sorta proved Bob wrong. I was accepted into a mentor program with only 2½ years experience. I’m going to be the guiding light for new teachers! I…uh…is this a good thing? I don’t want to ruin them. New teachers are fragile. Alas, school is almost in session for plenty of grade-school kids, college students and those pursuing educations higher than a master’s degree. It’s a groan. It’s a sigh. The pool’s closing. The book bags are aggravating scoliosis. The dress code is broken. The detentions are doled out. Now that school has started, it sucks for a lot of people. But not me. 07.20.06 Sex Scene More Frightening Than Suspense In Novel There’s a reason romance novels are stereotyped. Four words: Poorly written sex scenes. The cliché romance novelist: “What’s another word for engorged?” shouts out Allison Janney, waiting for another student to come in to her counseling office (as her character secretly types a romance novel on her laptop). How teenagers feel about the cliché romance novel: “I’ll let you get back to General’s quivering member…” says Julia Stile’s character, leaving the counseling office. Those two pieces of dialogue from the movie “10 Things I Hate About You” are where we find romance novels today. One of my perpetual goals is to read a romance novel, something with that happy-ever-after ending and a cover showing a man and a woman about to consume each other in the depths of a dark, but hot bed. Where they will wallow in each other’s brilliant radiance… It’s difficult to pick a romance novel because the covers are always borderline porn. OK, so it’s more rated-R, but based on the artwork there’s a set of two and a half nipples showing on every cover, how aren’t two of these books alike? We have Fabio wearing leather pants and a lacey, unbuttoned shirt with pectorals that are larger than Pamela Anderson’s boob-job. Then we have the woman, the top of her dress coming apart with ease because of Velcro, and her hair isn’t as shiny and pretty as the man’s. Both have an enormous amount of Aqua Net holding their shimmering locks in place – the distinguished blown-dry look. I wandered around the paperback section of the local library and I couldn’t decide what was best for an amateur like me. You really can’t base a romance novel on it’s cover…they’re all the same. In the past, before I was curious about the romance novel, I had the special gift of picking up a random title, flipping through the pages and instantly finding a sex scene. The woman was always “blossoming” while the man “consumed” her “core.” Although I didn’t find a pleaser this summer, I did read “Whispers” by Dean Koontz. Koontz, known for suspense novels, had sex scenes I wasn’t suspecting, which made those parts of the novel the horrible, scary scenes that left me uncomfortable as a reader. The murder scenes were nothing in comparison. First of all, there was the clothing style: He unbuttoned her blouse. He unsnapped her pants. Who wears pants that snap? Hilary, the heroine of the novel, must’ve worn a silky white blouse with pants that went over her waist, all the way up past her belly button. Koontz should’ve written the beginnings of the sex scene like this: Tony unsnapped Hilary’s Mom Pants. But that didn’t hinder him, because he “pulled down her panties,” a word most women cringe at. Then he “slowly, slowly moved his hands up her gorgeous legs, over the lovely curves of her calves, over the smooth thighs. He kissed her glossy black pubic bush…” Stop! Stop that Tony! Stop it! Just…STOP! Don’t make me call your mother. But Koontz’s sexy language worsened with the addition of dialogue: “Yes, yes, yes,” she said as he filled her up (like a gas tank, oh my God). “My lovely Tony. Lovely, lovely, lovely Tony.” It all started with the unsnapping of the pants. I mean, yes, it obviously started there, but I’m talking about the bad writing, people. Poorly written eleven-page-sex-scenes that should only be eluded to and left for the reader to dream up the images… The cover to this book isn’t two people painted like Barbie and Ken, but a silhouette of fingers covering a mouth in a scream. After reading those eleven pages, that’s how I felt. On the cover it says: Fear shouts. Terror whispers. I was definitely shouting and screaming. And to think, I wanted to pick up an actual romance novel? Not anymore. “Whispers” was 500 pages of plot with about three sex scenes sprinkled in, but that first sex scene lasted eleven pages – eleven brutal, adjective and adverb-spanning pages that turned Tony and Hilary into a Lifetime Original movie. And even though there’s a part of me that will sit and watch a Lifetime movie and actually enjoy it, reading a sex scene is different. I’ve read one, therefore I’ve read them all – and I wasn’t even reading a romance novel. It was supposed to be a scary book and the only thing that frightened me was the deft Koontz had to keep…on…going! Anyone else can continue on with those novels, but that was enough for me. 07.11.06 An Accidental Photo Shoot Two years ago, late one night when I couldn’t sleep, I accidentally fell into the Gap Web site. At this time (in the late 2002) I wasn’t infatuated with the Gap as much as I am now (I own a Gap card, need I say more?) and being the poor college student I was, ogling at the clothes online subdued any urge to actually spend money. To make a long story short, they were having a contest for “normal” people to send in photos and describe their Gap style so the “normal” people could have their face blown up the size of Time Square in printed Gap ads. I applied. I didn’t win. It took therapy, perhaps too much medication, and electro-shock to get over it. I’m better now, but I think a monster followed me – the concern of my image. That and the slight “want” to become a model. I’ve always wondered what it would be like on the other side of the camera – to have lights and those translucent-white circles pointing in my direction as I wear the most expensive clothes no one will ever buy. With my hair twisted and out of control as I wear a business suit that even CEOs of successful million dollar firms wouldn’t even wear. I wouldn’t smile at the camera – instead, I would look angry, like the world wronged me. Maybe I’d wear a scowl. My hands would barely be in my pockets and I would shrug. My shoes would be untied (because somehow that would become trendy). I would wear stained, white sweat pants and a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt with a white collared shirt sticking out. I’d have a cigarette hanging from my mouth and bottle of Evan Williams in my hand (because at that point I would be extremely narcissistic) and my hair would be all mussy – very, very badass. It’s a sick fantasy – but some of it came true one Sunday during an outdoor photography seminar. The instructor needed a victim, and since I was the youngest there, I went ahead and volunteered myself to stand in different angles of sunlight and shadow. After the instructor made his point, I sat down on the grass and began taking notes – that’s when the equipment they use in studios came out. After they were done blinding me with gold and sliver fabric that softens and lightens a subject’s face, one of the fellow students told me he took a lot of pictures and he’d e-mail them to me. When I received them, parts of the equipment could be seen and it did, in fact, look like some Entertainment Weekly photographer was taking pictures during a photo shoot (something for Details, about how I became published in a hot, new market). For a few minutes my narcissistic dream came true, and even though it wasn’t Gap-worthy, it was some accidental photo shoot. 06.29.06 Disgust Shown In Letter to Previous Homeowner Dear Previous Home Owner: I wanted to sit down and let you know that your washed-out idea of a house is now infused with color. But in the long of it, I wanted to tell you, regardless of how brilliant you were with your hands as a masonry contractor – you left much to be desired now that I have lived here for over a year. Please read the below list of items and realize where it was you went wrong: The carpet seemed to be in good shape. A nice cream color that has the potential to go with everything, but then I dripped orange paint all over it while painting the white walls. The carpet was lifted and as we pulled it up strip by strip, we noticed stains the size of classroom maps. I blame your greyhound. It peed everywhere, didn’t it? Before we even decided to put a bid on the house, we noticed that you had many Asian-infused décor, Grecian-infused décor and Golden-Girls-infused décor. With that in mind, I remember you saying that your wife was the one with an eye for design. Let me ask: Was that eye crossed? Blind? Lazy? Made of glass? What kind of eye allowed the “Golden Girl’s” to thank you for being a friend with that faded tulip wallpaper in the kitchen. And how can I forget to mention the light with sharp edges that hangs and causes cranial blood blisters every time someone stands up, what was up with that? I wonder if you took Jesus’ crown of thorns and went all “Crafters Coast to Coast” with it, like some HGTV special. I enjoy international flair added to middle-American homes as much as any other homeowner who has a sense of style, but to cross two very distinctive, yet rich dynasties in one yard made me want to take an axe and go all Jack Nicholas on the yard and house, much like he did in “The Shining.” Asian cabinetry, bamboo planted in the backyard, rock-instead-of-mulch landscaping, a bush made to look like a giant Bonsai Tree, Buddah, an Asian gremlin-monster taking a shit next to a pagoda – none of these go with giant Grecian statues of Zeus, Hera, not to mention an armless, shirtless, butt-crack showing-Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Two big scary faces that hung on the house, one we named Medusa, and the other one looked like Hades, their mouths open, ready to vomit gore upon the already pulverized yard. And rocks. I don’t even know if rocks fit the Asian motif or the Grecian motif, or a motive, how many bodies are buried under all of the rocks that line the perimeter of the house? As we dig up the rocks in the gardens, we wonder, did you hate yourself? Did you hate dirt? Did you hate vegetation (weeds not included)? What could you possibly have hated to layer piles of rocks on top of piles of rocks? Because of you, we cannot access the dirt we need to plant our own vegetation. One Sunday, the pouring rain, we wanted to put strawberry plants next to our patio, but as we dug through the patch of rocks, we came in contact with a strange plastic-like tarp, and under that tarp? Could it be? Yes, even more rocks. We have pea-gravel, large rocks, those cement parking lot bars that scrape the undercarriage of low-riding cars, cement blocks, stone benches, stone statues, stone birdhouses, stone poodles, stone cherubs, a stone table. Is that what your heart was made of? Previous homeowner, it has taken patience, creative thinking and strength to recreate what you considered beautiful. From weeding out the wild flowers you planted (which will be our fifth or sixth time since that area of the yard has your curse instilled in the dirt), tearing up all the grass where grass shouldn’t grow and taking bucketfuls of rocks to the paths in the backyard so we could actually access the dirt to plant our flowers, I just wanted to let you know that the only thing that looks the same since you left is the front of the house with the two large pine trees. And we’ve already thought of options about getting rid of one, if not both, of those trees. I hope your condo is doing well and that it’s not white, or ugly. Sincerely, The Current Homeowner 06.14.06 Bad Smells, Bad Pop Culture, Allure Writer Lifetime movies about how men are the heart and women are the soul. CBS movies on Sunday nights that star Tom Selleck. Hallmark Hall of Fames that star sold-out 'B' television actors. The Pussycat Dolls and their hit "Don't Cha." Horrendous movies with no plot and horrid dialogue. Disney Channel movies about motocross. All of these are what Steph calls "bad smells." As I unleash a piece of my own personal hygiene, with a side of gross, the term "bad smell" has a place in our civilization. Granted, I am accustomed to these "bad smells," but I know I am not the only one. Here is the personal hygiene story, with a side of gross: one night as I looked at my face in the mirror and all of its imperfections, I traced my fingernails across my cheek and nose epidermis to rid any bacteria or dirt that stuffed itself inside my pores like a bad stocking full of coal. My fingernails dug out greenish matter, after greenish matter of black heads and when I was done dissecting the pores on my face, my finger nails had a slight pile of zit-ooze on top of them. I knew that my skin's oils had an interesting smell, but I was curious to what zit afterbirth actually smelled like. And so, like any curious teenager going through puberty, I sniffed. I admit it is a quirk that is gross. I admit that there's something keenly wrong with smelly zit residue, yet somehow my curiosity won and my nose drew near to the small pile of zit-bile sitting atop of my nails and I inhaled. It smelled oily. Me-oily. And Steph caught me doing it one night. "You like bad smells," she said. I like bad smells? What? What was she talking about? Sure, I laugh at farts, but I run rampant with the rest of my students when a kid in the room lets horrid butt-air escape and its smell is fetid. I don't put my nose next to the kid's ass and inhale a long, deep breath, and smile. I spray my Lysol "fresh linen" spray toward the floor (because you never know which student is an asthmatic) and I tell them to "waft up! Waft up!" "I'm sorry if it doesn't cover the entire smell up," I said one day. "It might smell like someone pooped in your clean sheets." But somehow, all of these bad smells -- whether they are farts that smell like fish, meatloaf or another food product, or actual meatloaves cooked by moms all over the world that smell like farts -- stop my curiosity and I sniff. I don't sniff and let out some orgasmic moan. I don't inhale and sigh saying, "yeah, that's it...right there...do you smell it?" I don't break out into song after someone flatulates and belt out how whimsically cruel it is to my nose, yet so noxious, it's delicious... Really...what do you take me for? Instead...I just take a short sniff and consider it for a moment, like when driving pass a cow pasture and inhale or smell the pig-odor that encompasses the car when driving in the country. I don't enjoy it. It's there. It stinks. I acknowledge it. And somehow, because of all of these random instances, Steph says that I enjoy bad smells. I like them. I can't wait for the next poop smell to enter my nasal passages. I laugh, considering how ridiculous it is, but also realizing, that yes, I do acknowledge bad smells. I don't find them fantastic. I just understand their existence and let them pass through the atmosphere. Even the worst fart will pass through, and even though we cannot stop it, we should at least recognize that it is part of nature. It is part of who we are. Perhaps that is a bit much, but it's not like we can escape it...especially professional suit-wearers who are sitting in on a board meeting and someone lets on rip. They can't run, screaming. Instead they sweat because it smells so bad. They cannot leave. They must live through it. It is a test of their will. Perhaps the boss loves to drink coffee, not because of the caffeine, but for the sake of a "game." Whoever can outlast the most pungent toot will definitely make partner. If this were a movie, Alec Baldwin comes to mind... Although this phenom blows Steph away...certain things have "bad smells" now. They are the horrible movies on TV that just rapture me. They are the pop songs out there that were written by 13-year-olds, and produced by Kanye West that are bubble-gum-infectious. They are the Harlequinn Romance novels out there with the really bad sex scenes where Adoline's blossom is engorged by Captain Suzel's branch during an orchard rain storm. All of those are bad smells. I like them, and they hold my attention. They make me stop, pause and contemplate. But I know I'm not alone in my love of train-wreck-pop-culture, otherwise it wouldn't continue to exist. And I am sure that I am not alone in my authentic taste of "bad smells" since I am making a CD for a co-worker who wants nothing but catchy, but horrid, pop music. There will always be bad smells. It just depends who actually stops to smell them. 05.04.06 Theme Park Serves as Human Zoo (orig. date 6.13.02) After much observation, I have come to a conclusion: Theme parks attract dastardly people. The research I decided to use was to surround myself with people at a theme park and observe their human behaviors and actions. Homo sapiens are an interesting breed of species to watch while standing in line for a roller coaster. All of the hours I spent watching, with my sore feet, knees, back and severe whiplash, led me to believe that a theme park is like a human zoo. Amusement parks, such as Paramount's Kings Island, (a trip I took with my office staff on Tuesday) led me to understand that Homo sapiens are not interested in their well-being, but at the same time, they are desperate for attention from insatiable love partners of the opposite sex. I watched the interesting mating calls of the voluptuous woman that wore her tight, white tank top with the word "hottie" spray painted across her breasts. Along with the tackiness of the blue "hottie" insignia, she adorned five bead necklaces around her neck. Apparently this ritual was to grab the attention of the male species. Something peacock-ish, perhaps? I watched more closely, while waiting in line for the super-cool, adrenaline rushing "Face Off" roller coaster, as a man slumped around in attire that won't, by any means, attract anything but flies and laughter. A gray, soiled t-shirt cut off from the upper torso showed off his round belly. His uncombed hair tangled down his back, while his sandals exposed dirty toes with black and yellow toenails. These two examples, the "hottie" and the "dirty," provided evidence that they did not care about their appearance nor their hygiene, but nonetheless, were probably searching for love in the wildest of theme park rides. I continued my scientific observations while standing in line for the "Flight of Fear" roller coaster (in the dark, I might add) and witnessed two young'ins begin their love making ritual in front of many on-lookers. Sadly, I had a front row seat -- breath taking for a crazy roller coaster trip, nauseating for a viewing of an NC-17 relationship. It began with the interlocking of their 14-year-old lips. With their faces smooshed together for unbelievable lengths added to a new conclusion: Adolescent Homo sapiens must salivate much more than adult Homo sapiens, and, therefore, they try to catch the excess amounts of saliva with each others' mouths. Can we say, "Um, get a room?" But it got worse. After watching these two suck the living souls out of each other, they began to gyrate and bump against each other, which started their social love making session. They were grabbing and pulling and honking and squeezing and smashing and licking and -- well, the female Homo sapien had gotten quite a rise out of her male counterpart. Did I mention the male Homo sapien had warts all over his fingers? Gag. This example, the exchange of perverted yuck between two teenagers, provided evidence that teenage Homo sapiens enjoy making raunchy grossness in front of large crowds -- like young, able zebras at a zoo -- as they begin their futures in exhibition. My scientific observations conclude with the attire of Homo sapiens at an amusement park. Clad tightly in stained spandex, loose fitting tank tops, shorts that show butt cheeks, male Homo sapiens showing off their "tighty whities" and butt cleavage, female Homo sapiens of all ages showing off their bodies with bikinis, old clothes, mullets, brown toenails, uncombed hair, wedgies and so on and so on, I realized that Homo sapiens either don't care how they look while risking their lives at an amusement park, or they just can't help the fact that they are instantly ugly after water rides on a humid afternoon. Although my dissertation is also opinion, along with my scientific observations, it's not what you wear that matters, is it? Or should we rename the park Paramount's Paupers Island? 04.05.06 Gorror Films Erupt Blood On Silver Screen, Not Scares I think we can blame Kôji Suzuki for all of this. Ok. Perhaps that isn’t fair. A horror novelist is really never to blame – especially if some yahoo picks up the book and decides, “Hey, let’s make this into a movie.” There have been countless Stephen King novels (*cough* “Dreamcatcher” *cough*) that have been quite frightening, but once a screenplay was written – all the fake blood and bruise make-up went down the toilet, especially with “Dreamcatcher,” which favored aliens that shot out of the victims’ behinds. My mom was doing laundry while I was watching that one and I was like, “Don’t leave me alone in here!” Yes, this coming from the child that couldn’t get enough horror as a teenager and read even more frightening novels. I could not sit alone in the family room as alien larva shot out while the victim used the toilet. I think it was the horror factor mixed with the not-so-toilet humor that made me squirm. I’ve seen people with hemorrhoids… Alas, I digress. I am not sure who to place the blame on. But regardless Kôji Suzuki, the author of “Ringu,” which inspired the 1998 horror flick of the same name, which opened in Japan, had no control over what was going to happen here in America. This movie must’ve made Japanese audiences scream so loud that American producers had to get their hands on it and create their own version: “The Ring.” Blame them. Hollywood. The ones that helped create the Brad and Angelina tabloid craze – a horror in its own right. Now, as psychological as “The Ring” was – and believe me, it had me in its grasp, that is, until the stupid mummified-black-haired-creep show came out of the television, dripping with water and killed the heroine’s boyfriend. This movie began this craze that technology must now play a part in the horror genre. And I mean “new” technology…the chainsaw doesn’t count. What do we have now? Well, although it’s a bit early to really say – multimedia and technology are beginning to play a horrendous role in the horror movie genre. We go from a cheap dollar store VHS with a girl stuck inside a well, to the latest chapter in using technology in horror films – video games that kill. Yes, enter “Stay Alive,” a movie about a video game based on a 17th Century “true” story about some scary chick with a big gray wig called “The Blood Countess.” The woman had a real name: Elizabeth Bathory. The Cliff’s Notes version of the story is as follows: she was traumatized by witnessing too many bloody deaths “back in the day” and became a wild woman who liked to bite people – her chomps not only tore skin but drew blood…which is why you will see many references to her as a “vampire.” “Stay Alive” is the latest in horror movies where the gore in the latest stock of horror films like “The Hills Have Eyes”; “Saw”; “Saw II”, surpass the blood spills in “The Passion of Christ” ten-fold, and therefore garner a name more appropriate: gorror. The synopsis of “Stay Alive” is less-than-brilliant: A person dies and a group of friends realize that, just maybe, it’s because of this video game. And since horror films never cast smart people, these idiots just cannot resist playing the game, knowing quite well that – hello! – their friend died because of the game. They play the video game, also entitled “Stay Alive,” and probably all die with a horrific sequel already in post-production. Wait, I forgot, with a sequel, at least one of the losers needs to stay alive. No pun intended. I’d rather watch “Staying Alive” with John Travolta, even if it was rated as the number one worst sequel ever made by Entertainment Weekly. Travolta dancing around in a thong is far scarier. So, since technology and pop culture are becoming the new fuel to pump out gorror films, I realized that producers are missing a great gorror film. It is right in front of them. They see it in the schools. They see it while people jog past them in the park. They buy these things for their children. If Hollywood has used the out-of-date VHS cassette tape and a video game to kill people, why not jump to something even more modern – the MP3 player. The synopsis is as follows for what I titled “Hearing Things”: An unknowing character walks down the street in a public place, definitely with a friend, because it wouldn’t be scary if they were alone, and they walk and walk and walk and walk. They’ll have some conversation that’s totally irrelevant to the plot, something that has to do with sex, since that sells and then, whoa…one of the main characters comes across a treasure just lying on the ground: the iPod Shuffle. “Hey George, look…someone must’ve dropped their iPod Shuffle. This is my lucky day,” David says. “I know David, because you’re a poor college student that can’t afford to purchase a sleek MP3 player…it’s sweet that you came across an item that’s usually quite expensive. It’s yours to keep now” “You’re right George, it is mine now. Let’s listen to it to see what the loser who lost it liked to listen to,” David says. “It was probably some teenager that liked crap like Fall Out Boy and all those bands that are trying to make a name for themselves.” David picks up the iPod Shuffle, puts the now-popular white headphone buds in his ear and hears – not a song, mind you, you movie viewer – but a death message: Scary voice, all phlegm-filled and hard to understand if it’s a man or Joan Rivers will be heard saying “Now that you’ve played this MP3 player, you will die!” Or something of that nature. “Your entrails will be everywhere,” it’ll say, “by nine o’clock tonight.” Or, “Tammy Faye Baker is your real mother.” And it’ll be a cheap knock-off of “The Ring” and the person who listened to the message will die in seven days – or we could make it more complicated and have them die in pi. 3.14159265 days. And since teenagers and pre-teens, who have dumb parents that let them see such garbage, will fill the box office – “Hearing Things” will gross more than “The Ring” and “The Ring Two” combined. It will demand sequels creating a new franchise of awfulness. The second film in this trilogy will be called “Seeing Things” and will use the iPod Photo. The survivor of “Hearing Things” will begin to freak out when he notices an iPod Photo sitting on the subway. The friend of the survivor will calm him, pick it up and say something about how it is their lucky day to pick up something they can’t afford, but wait! there are gruesome photographs of murders on the iPod Photo and the friend will mention how sick that is…but wants to also see what kind of music there is… And the survivor of the first two films will obviously have to live to see another. He will fall down on his knees during a crazed rainstorm and scream to the sky, “Why does this keep happening?” And off he goes, into the dark void tripping over limbs, brains and slipping in gallons of fake blood, losing more and more friends because of this little do-dad MP3 player. I would like to thank the “Scream” movies, written by Kevin Anderson, also creator of “Dawson’s Creek,” because he just had to show that even slasher-horror-movies can have a Star Wars-like epic storyline attached to them. The third movie to make it the awful trilogy it was set out to be (much like the “Saw” movies – yes, there will be a “Saw III” sometime in late 2006) will be the recently released iPod Video…which of course will be knock-off of “The Ring” like there never was, because whoever picks up this iPod will not only hear the awful message, but witness gruesome deaths in full-video motion. Maybe I have something, here, actually. I just need to flesh out the storyline a little, figure out what’s making the iPod so evil and send it off to Wes Craven. Step aside Freddie Krueger, your fingernails are no match for the iPod. 03.19.06 The White Steve Urkel If there was a contest back in the 90’s when “Family Matters” was popular for a white Steve Urkel, one of my friends would have won: the round glasses, the funny walk, the voice so nasal it made Fran Drescher sound like Celine Dion. I don’t know if I would have entered him in the contest at the time, since he was one of two friends that stood by me during my tumultuous years in a private middle school, but if I could turn back time. I admit I was awkward as I was growing up, and being in middle school wasn’t easy for me – especially when I was made fun of everyday. I was made fun of every second of every day. I was made fun of so much, that because of it, there are laws out there right now in schools how people need to report bullying – or else. I was made fun of so much -- the fat, greasy, pock-face kid made fun of me. He was above me and I was below him and his yellow pit stains, in both stature and social standings. So, in the meantime of being the dart board for everyone’s jokes, I could not be picky about my friends at school. I was lucky to have two close friends. And since White Steve Urkel was willing to stand by me, I was willing to stand by him and his turtleneck ways. Since I went to a private school, it was all white polos and navy pants – but the slight occasions when we could wear jeans, White Steve would wear his black jeans and a black turtle neck. All that was missing was a beret and a pipe, a table and a bunch of pot smokers surrounding him, snapping at him to finish another poem. But he did not don a beret, but a thick pair of glasses – he was far-sighted (which means you cannot see close-up) and his glasses made his blue eyes equivalent to Spongebob Squarepants’ eyes. Large. So large you could actually hear him blink. He also fowled out in style with his bowl hair cut. But that was then, and so my bowl cut was just as cool. But my opinion didn’t matter much back then. Remember, Pockface Yellowpits made fun of me. But on this jeans day, White Steve was wearing his typical get-up of black denim and black turtleneck. We were waiting out in the hallway for some reason; perhaps music class with Mrs. Sukup (pronounced Soo-Cup, not Suck Up). As we waited, I looked at White Steve’s shoulder and I took a step back. Black is a slimming color, and White Steve was already stick-thin, so it was like hanging out with Jack Skellington from “A Nightmare Before Christmas.” He was definitely skeletal in his black outfit, but dandruff piled up on his shoulders like the slopes of Colorado. “Uh, Steve,” I said. “You may want to brush your shoulders off.” He didn’t believe me and off he walked, snowing all over the tile floor. Since he stood by my side, I put on my snow shoes on and followed him. We hung out a lot at his house, since it was a block away from the school, and my friend Gus and I would often spend the night. I remember the first day I met his mother and realized where White Steve came from – they both had bowl-cuts, glasses and perhaps shared turtlenecks. I just remember meeting her for the first time and in my head was, “she’s old.” This was before 47-year-olds having twins was normal. But during my eighth grade year, White Steve turned against me. I’m not exactly sure why, but he did. My thought process: I wasn’t cool enough? Cool? That was a factor? Hello, dandruff? I mean, coolness couldn’t have been a factor. Nothing should’ve been a factor. The friendship should’ve ended in death. Somehow he jumped a few rungs on the social factor. I think he said he liked soccer to one of the “cooler” kids and was instantly better than me. Remember, this was the early-ninety’s, the Soccer Mom wasn’t invented yet. So my non-soccer ways were not to be trusted, and I was left at the alter of my small Catholic school ready to be sacrificed by “one of my own.” Eighth grade was ending, I had recently moved and knew I was heading to a high school that no other kid was going to, ready to move on, so I took it with a grain of salt – the pellet kind you put in your GM water softner, but whatever. At that point in my life, what was there to do? I realized the kid and I had nothing in common, really, and if our friendship endured, I would’ve needed allergy medicine from his chronic dandruff. So I wrote him a nice card thanking him for his friendship, even though he was an ass for being mean to me at a moment’s notice for no reason, but that was the P.S. Then I wrapped a bottle of Desenex, hoping he would get a clue. If he hasn’t, he probably wakes up in the morning and does a couple of snow angels before starting the day.
02.04.06 Lunchtime Noise Proves Entertaining (orig. date 4.8.03) Eating lunch is different on everybody's plate. Some prefer a slice of beef, while others enjoy a simple bowl of cereal. I am the bowl of cereal type. My metabolism is so fast that it wouldn't matter if I ate the beef or the cereal. In the end, I would weigh the same and females would continue to say, "I hate you." It's difficult to be hated at such a young age. I think that's why I often eat lunch alone. I am my own company; however, it depends who I'm eating around. I eat in public forums daily and technically will never eat alone -- I am surrounded by conversation. And, do you know what I do with that conversation? I eavesdrop. Don't act so shocked. You do it too. It's better than reality television. The conversations range from one-night stands to bad kissers to shy bladders, sacrificing goats to roommates that walk around naked, and the occasional sex talk. "You did that position?" asked the shocked girlfriend. "Not only did I do that position, but I also did this position." I hear the clink of silverware, and you can just imagine what the fork is doing to the spoon. I fear even more if the one-night stand actually involved forks and spoons. But I am distracted from the good conversation, because across the way a large laughter penetrates the dining air, and my eyes drip blood. This person fills the booth, jiggles in her seat, and defies sophistication with her mouth full of mashed potatoes, slamming both hands against the broken table. Yikes. But more entertaining than the sex-talkers, or the loud-mashed-potato-laughers, are the theater majors that perform during my lunch hour. I've never been to a dinner theater, nor do I ever want to -- thanks to all the over-dramatic karma I've received from theater students during lunch. They sing their welcome to the full table of denim, bleached hair, magenta hair, pig tails, stripes, spandex and Gap, and they all stand up in their chairs with choreographed moves, pelvic thrusts like "Greased Lightnin'," and, again, sexual references made with forks and spoons. Conversation is impossible to overhear at the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" table, and at that point, I drown out every noise with my CD player and headphones and become the degenerate, anti-social Gen-Xer I've been labeled. But, the production becomes louder than Pantera in concert, and so I succumb to their racket. At this point, I realize they are performing the finale -- it's always louder and longer, isn't it? The theater table's good-byes are so dramatic that they spend extra "dining plus" off their meal cards to purchase fireworks and colorful streamers for their exit. It starts with a huge blast from a firecracker, and then sparklers fizz in every which direction. They all put on their white gloves, and wave good-bye, while singing some unfanciful tune composed by a dead cow. By the end of this, they are all standing in positions on the table, chairs and kneeling on the floor while the lights in the cafeteria have dimmed, and the fireworks continue a geyser of bright light. They never bow, though. Then again, I never clap. In the end, I am amazed at the noise levels produced by all the vocal cords combined during lunch. With all the chatter from the sex-talkers, fraternizing big shots, mashed-potato-laughing-girls, and the theater crowd, they could create enough noise power to send a school bus to Uranus. 01.08.06 The First of Many Rejection Letters: A Soliloquy
"Writers
have two main problems. One is writer's block, when the words won't come
at all, and the other is logorrhea, when the words come so fast that
they can hardly get to the wastebasket in time." I’ve taken a stride this year with my writing. Okay, maybe not a stride, but more like a stretch – something painful looking, like when a gymnast does the splits on two folding chairs. Actually, a better analogy for me would be a gymnast falling on her crotch during a balance beam routine. Thank God it’s the Winter Olympics this year… Looking back at 2005, I finally took my first step as, what many would call a ‘writer’, I submitted work to an honorable online humor magazine called McSweeney’s (mcsweenys.net). Lucky it was via e-mail, and therefore I knew the wait time wouldn’t be months like written transcripts, but a matter of days or even two weeks at most before I found out I was rejected, but the e-mail came the next day. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was happy to see that it was my first rejection letter, well, okay, my first rejection e-letter. I can now begin what many writers and authors have in their house – a drawer to keep all the rejection letters. I wasn’t as sad as I thought I’d be since it was my first attempt to send anything out to the public. I’d honestly frame the rejection e-letter. Go me for trying to get my name out there like some “adult” writer I’m trying to be. I say “adult” because I wasn’t submitting to Highlights for children. Although, I was a bit bummed, I was happy to have initiated myself into the world of writer-rejection and took those first few steps to get something I created published online with a well-to-do online magazine. I suppose the reason I didn’t throw my laptop across the room and scream bloody murder at the past twelve or thirteen years I’ve spent writing was because they didn’t tell me what I sent them was and “bad” or “poorly written” or “needed improvements here, here, here and, oh, here,” or “shit on a shingle.” By the way – I took a risk and sent the piece I wrote about finding a fetus in the driveway of my in-laws. All true. All bizarre. It’s like saying: All Evan, All the Time. Maybe I shouldn’t have been as much Evan, but a little more Rick Reilly. He’s good – 19 years at Sports Illustrated tells me so. Reassuringly, I just sent the wrong kind of material and instead of a long letter of rejection, I got a simple: “Sorry. Not for Us,” and to me that says, “You wrote about an unknown fetus that was found in a driveway, and it was very bizarre and it could be funny, but it was just too weird – we want clever, not weird, or gross…that was just a little gross...” And I keep thinking how nonfiction sells more than fiction 3:1. The fetus was in the driveway. It’s been thrown away since, but would this journalist tell a lie? I’ll leave fictitious journalism to Stephen Glass from the New Republic. That short column was a risky piece to send to the public – and maybe I really didn’t get my name out there… Oh wait, now I’m concerned. The people at McSweeny’s are probably picturing me as this mussed-up kid who dresses in all black (all of it different shades, of course), with pallid skin that will sunburn from a 60 watt light bulb, a greasy slimy keyboard with granola chunks stuck in the keys and thick lenses on my glasses with a white film smeared across them. I mean really, what normal person out there who wants to start their career off would write about some fetus-like specimen from a driveway? Oh God, my name is out there – but as some dirty, holed-up, Edgar Allen Poe-type. Well, at least I’ll have famous writings when I’m dead – is that something to look forward too?
12.05.05 Things Kids Don't Want to Be When They Grow Up “I don’t want to be a ‘mine’ when I grow up,” one student said. We were confused. “You want to blow people up? You want to have people dig through you?” No. What he meant to say was that he didn’t want to be a mime. Continuing on with the younger generation, here is a compiled list of what they do not want to be when they grow up.
Or the whole country in his hands?
11.21.05 Jesus Lights Up My Life Christmas decorations are up at record-breaking speed this year, confusing young children that Mary gave birth to a pumpkin and at midnight on Christmas Eve, it became the Christ-child. Regardless of all the confused children out there, all the premature lawn ornaments remind me of the best décor I’ve ever seen in front of a house. Driving through the neighborhoods to get a taste of gaudy and gorgeous, each year Steph and I check out the lighting displays, hoping we’ll catch something delicate and simple, as well as something as hideous as the Griswald family Christmas – something so bright people drive by because they think it’s a grand opening of some super store. I don’t mind the large, plastic pageant scenes where Baby Jesus’ head glows a bright orange. I also don’t mind the latest fad these past few years with the Christmas scenes that are made from parachute material that inflate by a motorized fan, growing to the size of moonwalks children jump on like a trampolines. None of those – regardless of how many manger scenes sit in front of a small trailer – are even half as awful as the scene planted in front of one family’s house one Christmas. Steph and I were driving through the neighborhood where she grew up, rounding the cul-de-sacs, looking for white and blue beauty, icicles that drizzled sparkling light across the front lawn and tacky manger scenes that glowed like E.T.’s heart. And there it was. Now, I am one who straddles the fence on conservative and liberal (and people like Ann Coulter find people like me trouble, I’m sure) but some items in culture today, no matter how offensive, just make too much sense to me – especially anything created by “South Park” geniuses Matt Stone and Trey Parker. And other items in culture I will put my foot down. But this light-up Christmas scene took the cake, because no matter how religious I-have-Jesus-Post-It-notes-Thomas-Kincaid anyone could be, this one broke hearts – especially mine, a person who is very hard to offend. And there it was: a glowing outline of Jesus on the Cross. There we were, in my car, all “let’s go and look at all the pretty lights,” but amidst the Holiday Land setups, there he hung…sucking out all the joy of a holiday that was celebrated because of him. Like the owners of the light-up-crucifixion-fun-set wanted to tell everyone in the neighborhood that this colorful, humbling, disturbing outline of Jesus hanging on a brightly lit cross was reminding how people celebrated Christmas inspite of Jesus. “It’s My Party (And I’ll Cry If I Want To)” must’ve been their favorite song to hum around the Yule log and sip cider to. The next Christmas season, with visions of shining-Jesus-on-the-cross dancing in my head, Steph and I drove to the same cul-de-sac bummed – the light-up-crucifixion-fun play set wasn’t up. I was sad, not because I was like, “That’s right! Christmas isn’t about gifts,” but because it was so offensive in all the wrong ways. It broke so many social rules. I may not have agreed with the glowing statuette, but damn if I didn’t have the guts to stick that in my own front yard. The people who put it up were probably like (with good intentions) “Christmas is a mass ploy for gifts and everyone has forgotten what Jesus really stands for,” but the next-door-neighbors nervously knocked on the owners’ door, hunched over, politely begging the owners’ to take down the light-up-dying-Jesus because it stole away from their nativity set with inflatable snowmen in the background. I guffawed and wanted it back, not because it had some social message, but because it was simply wrong.
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