you slip and skate in place before catching yourself on the bathroom sink because you forgot to stand on the bathmat while slathering yourself in baby oil and vaseline to protect your brown skin and you laugh in the mirror and wonder if there're white people doing the same thing in the thick of Winter.
Clean with alcohol only. Do not attempt to replace blown fuses. Do not remove access panels. Return to certified mechanic for regular maintenance. Made in the USA.
Showing posts with label hygiene. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hygiene. Show all posts
12/29/16
9/26/15
1/17/15
The Unwritten Beard Manifesto and Subsequent Referendum That Never Happened
Here's why:
I'm not against shaving. I just hate it. I say that shaving is for pussies. Its a joke that cuts both ways. If you don't see the humor in it, you're an idiot. If you don't see the humor in it, allow me to clarify. Shaving is for pussies, as in weak people that feel they have to present a certain image of themselves to be attractive. Beards are awesome. Lady, if you've got a mustache, the only thing weirder is shaving every morning. Everyone sees your five o'clock shadow. I dunno, bleach it or something maybe? Okay, fine. Shave it. Laser it. Laser the hell out of your face. It's a complicated issue, I know. Shaving is for pussies, as in pelvic areas, as in the vulva, is a joke. It's sarcasm. Can you imagine walking around with razor burn on your crotch all day, everyday, with the most confining underwear known to mankind? I can. I once completely botched a ball shaving job with an electric razor and didn't realize it until my scrotum was on fire in a pair of fine mesh black panties while sitting at a bus stop in the middle of summer. It was ten o'clock in the morning. It was one of the worst days I've ever experienced hygienically speaking. Oddly enough, when I do it right I can shave my crotch with great ease and never have the problems induced when shaving my face. If I had pubic hair for a beard I could shave every day, easy as pie. However, I could never grow a beard because I would have pubes on my face and a full forest in my pants and that's just asking for all sorts of smelly sweaty awfulness down there and who wants a pube face? I mean, than I would absolutely have to shave every day and that's just a hassle on another scale. Shaving is not for pussies. Trimming perhaps, but not baby smooth shaving. That's just weird and hazardous to your health and safety. Beards are awesome. They keep the wind off of your face in Winter. They shimmer in Summer. They're low maintenance. They let the world know you are a sexy beast. They let the world know you are not a child anymore. They make a statement. They give you a chin if you don't have one. They give you something to play with and tug on and snuffle into. I'm not against shaving. I just hate it. I hate it like I hate Nazis. Okay, I hate Nazis more. Slightly more. There should be an extra notch above hate so that I can hate Nazis more, but there isn't so I have to hate shaving slightly less than I hate Nazis. So I don't actually hate shaving. I just strongly strongly strongly dislike it. Why set your face on fire everyday? I don't like anyone enough to go in for that no matter how much they like a smooth cheek. How's that working out for you now? What do you mean you don't want to nuzzle my horribly broken out, bleeding ingrown haired face? Wasn't that what you wanted? Aw, go to hell! You don't know what you want. I want a nice thick beard, thank you ma'am. Shaving is not for pussies, its simply not for me. No need to spark a revolution. Grow a beard or do not. I won't love you less, but you may find I love you a little more.
I'm not against shaving. I just hate it. I say that shaving is for pussies. Its a joke that cuts both ways. If you don't see the humor in it, you're an idiot. If you don't see the humor in it, allow me to clarify. Shaving is for pussies, as in weak people that feel they have to present a certain image of themselves to be attractive. Beards are awesome. Lady, if you've got a mustache, the only thing weirder is shaving every morning. Everyone sees your five o'clock shadow. I dunno, bleach it or something maybe? Okay, fine. Shave it. Laser it. Laser the hell out of your face. It's a complicated issue, I know. Shaving is for pussies, as in pelvic areas, as in the vulva, is a joke. It's sarcasm. Can you imagine walking around with razor burn on your crotch all day, everyday, with the most confining underwear known to mankind? I can. I once completely botched a ball shaving job with an electric razor and didn't realize it until my scrotum was on fire in a pair of fine mesh black panties while sitting at a bus stop in the middle of summer. It was ten o'clock in the morning. It was one of the worst days I've ever experienced hygienically speaking. Oddly enough, when I do it right I can shave my crotch with great ease and never have the problems induced when shaving my face. If I had pubic hair for a beard I could shave every day, easy as pie. However, I could never grow a beard because I would have pubes on my face and a full forest in my pants and that's just asking for all sorts of smelly sweaty awfulness down there and who wants a pube face? I mean, than I would absolutely have to shave every day and that's just a hassle on another scale. Shaving is not for pussies. Trimming perhaps, but not baby smooth shaving. That's just weird and hazardous to your health and safety. Beards are awesome. They keep the wind off of your face in Winter. They shimmer in Summer. They're low maintenance. They let the world know you are a sexy beast. They let the world know you are not a child anymore. They make a statement. They give you a chin if you don't have one. They give you something to play with and tug on and snuffle into. I'm not against shaving. I just hate it. I hate it like I hate Nazis. Okay, I hate Nazis more. Slightly more. There should be an extra notch above hate so that I can hate Nazis more, but there isn't so I have to hate shaving slightly less than I hate Nazis. So I don't actually hate shaving. I just strongly strongly strongly dislike it. Why set your face on fire everyday? I don't like anyone enough to go in for that no matter how much they like a smooth cheek. How's that working out for you now? What do you mean you don't want to nuzzle my horribly broken out, bleeding ingrown haired face? Wasn't that what you wanted? Aw, go to hell! You don't know what you want. I want a nice thick beard, thank you ma'am. Shaving is not for pussies, its simply not for me. No need to spark a revolution. Grow a beard or do not. I won't love you less, but you may find I love you a little more.
12/22/14
Stand Up Act 10
Stand Up Act 9
Don't be a quitter. You can say you're not funny, but you are a little funny. Everyone's a little funny in the head. Knee slapping toe tapping funny? Yeah. I was just thinking about my very confused moment when I thought it was raining while pumping gas because it was overcast and I wasn't paying attention and it's pretty funny. Imagining the view of someone waiting in line inside the mini mart and the line is eight, maybe nine, people long and it was a pain in the ass to find parking and when you did you still had to watch one of the fueling stalls with a hawk's eye until you realized the car you were watching had someone in the front passenger seat, but not the driver's seat and you knew you may as well go and pay at the register instead of at the pump because chances were good they were in there anyway, it's pretty funny. Standing in the mini mart, eight bodies deep, and the person you're waiting for four feet in front of you and instead of staring flaming arrows into the back of their head you glance to your left out of the mart front's windows and see me whistling away the afternoon and nodding my head to a killer soundtrack entirely between my ears while gasoline pours all over the ground and my shoes instead of into my car's tank... kind of hilarious. Until you ask yourself "is he about to commit suicide? Am I about to witness an act of terror/protest? Immolation? Is that the word? Buddhists aren't violent! What is going on???" That's when it becomes semi-not funny. Still funny though. Don't be a quitter. Quitters cannot be relied on for shit.
Quitters tend to be non-showerers. Soap dodgers. "Why should I take a shower? I'm only going to get dirty later." Yes! That's it! That's exactly the point! You're going to get dirty later, so take a shower! What is so difficult to comprehend about that? Why should I change my tires? They're only going to wear out later. No! Terrible logic, sir or madame! The entire point of changing your tires is so that you can still get to where you need to go without driving on the inside parts of your wheels after your rims melt into white hot vapor and you destroy the infrastructure of society by going to get a loaf of bread. That's the entire point of changing your tires.
Do you really want to be that person that provokes violent and sudden and detrimental change to the fabric of citizenry itself with the funk emanating from inside your clothing? That makes you a disease to the American body. You, person skipping bathing, are literally a disease and what you have made airborne is going to get into someone else's nose and push them right over the edge on what was probably a sub-par day of the office. That person is going to go home with a little extra essence of pure rage from having to deal with your soap dodging ass and sit and fume for hours, perhaps days. That rage is going to fester and grow and fall out of that persons brain like lightning bolts while you sit at home and think about not taking a shower while you eat some microwave heated shit dinner that comes in three different flavors, and have you tried the one with the pudding square?
That person is going to slowly fume and every time they smell anything normal, but slightly off, they will squeeze their mental stress ball until it can't be squished any smaller and they will find a board with a nail in it while they're at work and just start cracking peoples brains open. All over the place. Brains everywhere. That person's kids will grow up in a single parent home and become a serial killer. Not that your spouse didn't try, but fucked up is fucked up, let's be honest. That serial killer will shut down your cities night life and going to the bar will be a fucking shit show because no one will be there. You'll have extra time to think about not bathing yourself and I hope you feel terrible because you'll have ruined it for everyone else who does take showers, created a psychopath, and ruined a marriage, and quite possible a necklace of future children who will never have a normal childhood. All because you didn't take a shower. Be better than that.
Showering is important. There's a shower graph. It's the graph of inward and outward perception. At the bottom of the graph is zero. As the "Y" axis goes up, it heads towards an actual physical intervention. As the "X" axis goes across, it heads toward infinity number of days without washing your body. The green line is the array of points indicating what people feel about the condition of your dirt suit. The red line is the array of points indicating what you feel about the of your dirt suit. Day 1 through 2, depending on your deodorant situation, even at zero.
Day three the green line starts to inch upward. The red line is still zero. Day four, you're at "maybe shower, but my clothes are still clean so whatever", the green line is at "I'm pretty sure he's stopped showering." Day five, the green line is at "does he wipe after number 2?" The red line is at "I can still tie my shoes without being able to smell my own groin. We're good." Day 6, they're asking you if you are okay and if someone has died in your family or has your heart been broken recently. Day 6, you are realizing your skin has been chipping off pretty easily and no matter what you wear it feels kind of itchy. On day 7 people are beginning to actively avoid standing near you and it's great because you can't hear their bullshit conversations or are obligated to make conversation because they're out of the range of politeness.
Day seven too, you realize when you dig in your pockets it pulls the waistband of your jeans far enough from your hips to release an ungodly plume of b.o. the world has known only in stories of lore. It's not that your nose was close either. The mushroom cloud of violently decaying nuclear fissionic waste rolled up your tummy and chest and hit you right in the chin from underneath your shirt and jacket like NES punch out Tyson. At a grocery store. And now that's on camera forever. They'll be looking at their loss prevention footage and cue you up and point you out when you went to get your wallet out of your pocket and recoiled from yourself like a ghost held it's index finger up to your nose after finger banging someone and said "check this out!"
That's when the graph points match again. Right at the top of the graph around day 7. What's crazy is if you hit day 7 and that happens and you're completely unphased you just go back to day zero. That red line falls straight back down the "Y" axis and the thought process changes from "why not take a bath" to "why take a bath, I'm good with this."
No, don't be good with that. You're going to ruin someone's life with the way you smell. Don't be good with that! The truth is, when you get back to zero, that green line indicating how you are perceived by the world outside your skull goes to infinity. People start to really consider if they should ask you some deep ass questions. Maybe you're hiding some sort of extremely deep seated trauma or maybe you did something or something happened to you that you really need to talk about, but can't put the words together. No. None of that. You've just accepted that being a dirty assed human being is acceptable enough to you. Selfish prick. Take fucking showers. Don't be a life ruiner.
Also don't be that guy on public transportation that sits next to whomever to prove that they're fine with all walks of life. You're not impressing anyone. Anyone in their right mind knows the old man at the front of the bus in the handicap seat has shit his pants and was not wearing a diaper this afternoon. Arm sleeve tattoos are not a nose clip. Everyone on this box on wheels can smell the fact that he has shit his pants and is not at all concerned with the fact. Join the rest of the green curb at the back of the bus. It doesn't make you any less of a person. I'm sure you're a really great person on the inside and a free spirit, but shitting next to.... sitting next to a steaming pile of happily oblivious is still sitting next to a steaming pile. We live in America, people. You have the option to object. Trust us, we're not judging you from the back of the bus. We are sometimes shaking our heads and wondering what the hell is wrong with your reasoning capabilities, but we are not judging you that harshly. Come back here where the music is live on cellphone speakers and I am not acknowledging you because we have the same dealer and I remember you from two Saturdays ago, but did not realize we live close enough together to have gotten on the bus within a few stops of each other and you didn't call me back. Asshole.
Clubs and bars are like giant sleepovers. The only caveat is that everyone does have to go to sleep eventually, but everyone's sleeping bags are miles apart so that conversation you would normally have while falling asleep get's sent out through text messages and various post outlets instead of mouth to mouth to your friend. The thing is it would be creepy to send them those messages directly, way too affectionate for society now. Society is way too sexualized. Way too sexually charged. If I send you a text at 2 A.M. there's no sexual connotation to it. It's just an extension of a conversation I wanted to have earlier, but it took me a while to put the thought together, just like at a slumber party when all you can think about is all the rest of the shit you did that day. All you can think about is the cookies and the iced tea and the video games and playing tag and hitting that three on the backyard hoop they have and your friend's mom's tits and while you're trying to fall asleep you remember that thing that occurred to you that was kind of poignant and wanted to break it out for conversation and analysis before you forget that the thought ever occurred. And now you're creepy trying to talk to your 32 year old friend about a ridiculous theory that, though apt given the days events, now sounds like Silence of the Lambs pillow talk.
Social media is a lot like a giant sleepover. A giant massively multiplayer sleepover. Think about it. What did you want to do at every sleepover? Stay up as late as possible. Check. You can stay up as late as you want to whenever you want to, every time. What else did you want to do? Drink as much soda as you wanted to? Check. Play whatever game you wanted to for as long as you wanted to and cut out the players you did not want to play with at will. Check and check and check. Watch movies and talk about them as much as you wanted to? Check. Talk about current events? Check? That kind of makes you an awful person to have at a sleepover, but whatever floats your boat. Alright. It's basically an enormous, wonderful, slumber party that you have to pretend to be asleep during parts to avoid the other people at the sleepover that are not your friends. It's great!
The best thing is, if you want to get up for a glass of orange juice or something at 3 A.M. you don't have to sneak around. You can get up like a boss, go get the quart of O.J. and chug that shit straight out of the bottle.
Don't be a quitter. You can say you're not funny, but you are a little funny. Everyone's a little funny in the head. Knee slapping toe tapping funny? Yeah. I was just thinking about my very confused moment when I thought it was raining while pumping gas because it was overcast and I wasn't paying attention and it's pretty funny. Imagining the view of someone waiting in line inside the mini mart and the line is eight, maybe nine, people long and it was a pain in the ass to find parking and when you did you still had to watch one of the fueling stalls with a hawk's eye until you realized the car you were watching had someone in the front passenger seat, but not the driver's seat and you knew you may as well go and pay at the register instead of at the pump because chances were good they were in there anyway, it's pretty funny. Standing in the mini mart, eight bodies deep, and the person you're waiting for four feet in front of you and instead of staring flaming arrows into the back of their head you glance to your left out of the mart front's windows and see me whistling away the afternoon and nodding my head to a killer soundtrack entirely between my ears while gasoline pours all over the ground and my shoes instead of into my car's tank... kind of hilarious. Until you ask yourself "is he about to commit suicide? Am I about to witness an act of terror/protest? Immolation? Is that the word? Buddhists aren't violent! What is going on???" That's when it becomes semi-not funny. Still funny though. Don't be a quitter. Quitters cannot be relied on for shit.
Quitters tend to be non-showerers. Soap dodgers. "Why should I take a shower? I'm only going to get dirty later." Yes! That's it! That's exactly the point! You're going to get dirty later, so take a shower! What is so difficult to comprehend about that? Why should I change my tires? They're only going to wear out later. No! Terrible logic, sir or madame! The entire point of changing your tires is so that you can still get to where you need to go without driving on the inside parts of your wheels after your rims melt into white hot vapor and you destroy the infrastructure of society by going to get a loaf of bread. That's the entire point of changing your tires.
Do you really want to be that person that provokes violent and sudden and detrimental change to the fabric of citizenry itself with the funk emanating from inside your clothing? That makes you a disease to the American body. You, person skipping bathing, are literally a disease and what you have made airborne is going to get into someone else's nose and push them right over the edge on what was probably a sub-par day of the office. That person is going to go home with a little extra essence of pure rage from having to deal with your soap dodging ass and sit and fume for hours, perhaps days. That rage is going to fester and grow and fall out of that persons brain like lightning bolts while you sit at home and think about not taking a shower while you eat some microwave heated shit dinner that comes in three different flavors, and have you tried the one with the pudding square?
That person is going to slowly fume and every time they smell anything normal, but slightly off, they will squeeze their mental stress ball until it can't be squished any smaller and they will find a board with a nail in it while they're at work and just start cracking peoples brains open. All over the place. Brains everywhere. That person's kids will grow up in a single parent home and become a serial killer. Not that your spouse didn't try, but fucked up is fucked up, let's be honest. That serial killer will shut down your cities night life and going to the bar will be a fucking shit show because no one will be there. You'll have extra time to think about not bathing yourself and I hope you feel terrible because you'll have ruined it for everyone else who does take showers, created a psychopath, and ruined a marriage, and quite possible a necklace of future children who will never have a normal childhood. All because you didn't take a shower. Be better than that.
Showering is important. There's a shower graph. It's the graph of inward and outward perception. At the bottom of the graph is zero. As the "Y" axis goes up, it heads towards an actual physical intervention. As the "X" axis goes across, it heads toward infinity number of days without washing your body. The green line is the array of points indicating what people feel about the condition of your dirt suit. The red line is the array of points indicating what you feel about the of your dirt suit. Day 1 through 2, depending on your deodorant situation, even at zero.
Day three the green line starts to inch upward. The red line is still zero. Day four, you're at "maybe shower, but my clothes are still clean so whatever", the green line is at "I'm pretty sure he's stopped showering." Day five, the green line is at "does he wipe after number 2?" The red line is at "I can still tie my shoes without being able to smell my own groin. We're good." Day 6, they're asking you if you are okay and if someone has died in your family or has your heart been broken recently. Day 6, you are realizing your skin has been chipping off pretty easily and no matter what you wear it feels kind of itchy. On day 7 people are beginning to actively avoid standing near you and it's great because you can't hear their bullshit conversations or are obligated to make conversation because they're out of the range of politeness.
Day seven too, you realize when you dig in your pockets it pulls the waistband of your jeans far enough from your hips to release an ungodly plume of b.o. the world has known only in stories of lore. It's not that your nose was close either. The mushroom cloud of violently decaying nuclear fissionic waste rolled up your tummy and chest and hit you right in the chin from underneath your shirt and jacket like NES punch out Tyson. At a grocery store. And now that's on camera forever. They'll be looking at their loss prevention footage and cue you up and point you out when you went to get your wallet out of your pocket and recoiled from yourself like a ghost held it's index finger up to your nose after finger banging someone and said "check this out!"
That's when the graph points match again. Right at the top of the graph around day 7. What's crazy is if you hit day 7 and that happens and you're completely unphased you just go back to day zero. That red line falls straight back down the "Y" axis and the thought process changes from "why not take a bath" to "why take a bath, I'm good with this."
No, don't be good with that. You're going to ruin someone's life with the way you smell. Don't be good with that! The truth is, when you get back to zero, that green line indicating how you are perceived by the world outside your skull goes to infinity. People start to really consider if they should ask you some deep ass questions. Maybe you're hiding some sort of extremely deep seated trauma or maybe you did something or something happened to you that you really need to talk about, but can't put the words together. No. None of that. You've just accepted that being a dirty assed human being is acceptable enough to you. Selfish prick. Take fucking showers. Don't be a life ruiner.
Also don't be that guy on public transportation that sits next to whomever to prove that they're fine with all walks of life. You're not impressing anyone. Anyone in their right mind knows the old man at the front of the bus in the handicap seat has shit his pants and was not wearing a diaper this afternoon. Arm sleeve tattoos are not a nose clip. Everyone on this box on wheels can smell the fact that he has shit his pants and is not at all concerned with the fact. Join the rest of the green curb at the back of the bus. It doesn't make you any less of a person. I'm sure you're a really great person on the inside and a free spirit, but shitting next to.... sitting next to a steaming pile of happily oblivious is still sitting next to a steaming pile. We live in America, people. You have the option to object. Trust us, we're not judging you from the back of the bus. We are sometimes shaking our heads and wondering what the hell is wrong with your reasoning capabilities, but we are not judging you that harshly. Come back here where the music is live on cellphone speakers and I am not acknowledging you because we have the same dealer and I remember you from two Saturdays ago, but did not realize we live close enough together to have gotten on the bus within a few stops of each other and you didn't call me back. Asshole.
Clubs and bars are like giant sleepovers. The only caveat is that everyone does have to go to sleep eventually, but everyone's sleeping bags are miles apart so that conversation you would normally have while falling asleep get's sent out through text messages and various post outlets instead of mouth to mouth to your friend. The thing is it would be creepy to send them those messages directly, way too affectionate for society now. Society is way too sexualized. Way too sexually charged. If I send you a text at 2 A.M. there's no sexual connotation to it. It's just an extension of a conversation I wanted to have earlier, but it took me a while to put the thought together, just like at a slumber party when all you can think about is all the rest of the shit you did that day. All you can think about is the cookies and the iced tea and the video games and playing tag and hitting that three on the backyard hoop they have and your friend's mom's tits and while you're trying to fall asleep you remember that thing that occurred to you that was kind of poignant and wanted to break it out for conversation and analysis before you forget that the thought ever occurred. And now you're creepy trying to talk to your 32 year old friend about a ridiculous theory that, though apt given the days events, now sounds like Silence of the Lambs pillow talk.
Social media is a lot like a giant sleepover. A giant massively multiplayer sleepover. Think about it. What did you want to do at every sleepover? Stay up as late as possible. Check. You can stay up as late as you want to whenever you want to, every time. What else did you want to do? Drink as much soda as you wanted to? Check. Play whatever game you wanted to for as long as you wanted to and cut out the players you did not want to play with at will. Check and check and check. Watch movies and talk about them as much as you wanted to? Check. Talk about current events? Check? That kind of makes you an awful person to have at a sleepover, but whatever floats your boat. Alright. It's basically an enormous, wonderful, slumber party that you have to pretend to be asleep during parts to avoid the other people at the sleepover that are not your friends. It's great!
The best thing is, if you want to get up for a glass of orange juice or something at 3 A.M. you don't have to sneak around. You can get up like a boss, go get the quart of O.J. and chug that shit straight out of the bottle.
2/8/14
Stand Up Act 9 (dialogues)
Stand Up Act 8
I don't want to go fishing today.
Why not, I was just putting on pants after you called?!
I changed my mind.
Why?
It's gross out.
Seriously? A little rain?? It's got damn Pittsburgh in Autumn. It's a perfect day.
Nope, its not.
You're from Pittsburgh! What the hell is wrong with you?
You're being unreasonable!
It's beautiful outside!
You're being unreasonable!!
Am I?
Yeah.
Okay.............when are you free next? I'm looking at the ten day forecast right now.
Throwing a rager tonight?
Yeah.
What time?
Sixish.
Nine?
Sixish.
Sixish?
Yes, sixish.
Have you thought about nine?
No. Well, I did. For a while. Then I remembered I had shit to do. Before. After I remembered.
Whatever, you know where I live. Hit me up and we'll combine parties at nine.
Ninish?
We're going to ramble on, because we can, and also why not. The longest set ever.
Cats have short memories. They have learned behaviors, but I think it's fair to say they have short memories. They're beings of routines. That can make you functional. If you have a short memory, but a solid routine, you can definitely get by alright. No harm no foul. What you have to keep in mind is what really defines getting by. Do you want to get by as well as a human being does or as well as a cat does? Granted, cats have it pretty good.
Defining work aside, not to say that it's easy to be a cat. Can you imagine having to sleep so much? Yeah, I need to eat lunch, but first I have to take this three hour siesta in this sun beam because it's really god damn warm right here. Yes, I know your car died on the shoulder of interstate 376 and you cancelled your triple A because there was an order of 30 pounds of catnip you had to get in so that you could ensconce yourself in plant matter on demand for the year, but this sun beam is really really warm and if I get into my car right now I will fall asleep immediately if traffic stops for longer than five minutes and I'm not trying to get stopped by the police with my inspection sticker out of date. I'll see you in a few hours. Yes, I'm in the shower right now. I just ate. I'll be done when I'm done. Whether or not I'll be jerking off for the next hour before I take this nap is frankly none of your business. If you keep talking like an asshole we are definitely brawling when I get there. What's it to you anyway? We're not family. If I could live without a housemate I would! Well, I didn't touch your snack stash, I just ate all of the food you left after you took off after breakfast. Yes, including the things you set aside for lunch. No, I didn't touch your stash or your green. If I did, I would be too busy not answering the damn phone.
It's a little bit alarming though when you look up from repairing a broken laptop or keeping up with email nonsense and see your cat dangling from the side of the fish tank you specifically perched on top of bookshelf because, the last time you checked, cats couldn't climb bookshelves.
From a purely physics standpoint, it shouldn't work. There's a reason cat trees are covered with carpeting instead of smooth faced fake wood. On top of that you've seen them try to climb it before close to forty times. They jump in three shelves up, the earliest possible landing point and watched them look at and sniff at the fourth shelf like a hardcore dungeon crawling RPG player trying to find the secret entrance to the glitch cave. As though, if they looked hard enough and poked around long enough, somehow the bookshelf programming would split apart and instantly teleport them to the next level up if they jabbed the right pixel with their nose.
Yet, there he is. Climbing on top of the fish tank with no lid. I'm scrambling to find my camera and trying to keep one eye on him to make sure he doesn't fall in, because the only thing worse than a cat soaked to the bone in fish poop filled water is washing that cat. And somehow he figures out how to step from edge to edge and not fall in AND terrorize the fish dumb enough to come near the surface with a thing twenty times their size looming overhead and thrusting enormous claws through the surface of the water with the only thing in mind being poking one of those two foot long (by scale if fish were people) talons through their itty bitty eye holes.
How the hell did he get up there? I took him down and watched him attempt it again and again for a good day and a half and he never managed to pull it off again. Which was kind of disappointing. It reminded me of how shitty my own memory was. Not to harp on passwords, but I have made passwords and forgotten them not more than a handful of days later. The security question is what was the make and model of your first car. Two days removed, I'm asking myself "the make and model of the first car I ever drove or the first car I ever crashed?" "The make and model of the first car I can remember riding in or the first car I ever drove myself." "The make and model of the first car I fell in love with or the make and model of the first car I knew I wanted in my dream garage." Ending with "your account is locked, please call customer service at 1-800-555" five five, five five. How are achievements so forgettable?
I want to sit the cat down with translator boxes strapped to our throats so we can understand each other the way it happens in science fiction and go over what exactly went on. Because maybe he just needs some coaching? Maybe he did it once and it was a wild success and he got so caught up in the success that he forgot to make mental notes of how he actually got there and now he's broke and sitting on the floor, looking up at the fish tank angrier than ever, and clueless with how to actually deal with it.
I at least wish he had opposable thumbs and manners enough to ask me to pass him the sugar dish so we could sit down at the kitchen table and talk about our short comings. Or at least sip tea and nod instead of stalking around the apartment in circles mad at things we can't discuss and counter mad at each other for being mad about things we can't talk about and madder that the atmosphere is so hostile when we both have nowhere else to be and nothing else to look at besides our counter counter madness.
So treat yourself. Nothing cures unhappiness like a good nosh on something yummy. It makes the world go pretty swell, when at the end of the day you go over the steps that got you to where you were the month before only to find utter soul crushing DMV line wait times to find you never filled out form H-09 and you can't forge the notary stamp in the bathroom anyway so there's no need to explain that you have explosive diarrhea from the fast food joint you never went to and will be back in a moment.
Get out the cat treats and their having pork sauteed with salmon juices and beans and rice so they poop good, and you have bleu cheese buffalo wing flavored butter crackers with nothing but mayonaise to dip them in (if you want to go so far as to dip them in to something).
There are some things, some foods, that have no business here on this green earth. I don't know how they get passed beyond their developmental stages or who fell asleep at the wheel, but they do enter the realm of otherwise useful, palatable, strange and uncommonly tasty besides the fact, sometimes unassuming, palette expanding digestables. If it's not broke, don't fix it holds true for most foods. Sure, stick a turbo charger on there. Put some bigger rims on there. Maybe some slicker tires. Change the paint scheme and put some tint on the windows. Lower the suspension. Make that vehicle of flavor crystals sexier to my tongue and I won't complain.
Maybe though, it would be a good idea to take the concept sketchers out of the room when you get down to the nitty gritty of actually putting together the deliverable? Maybe, instead of a massive grille with chrome highlights, go with a slight variation and make it a few inches bigger instead of a foot and a half bigger with ten inch wings sticking out of the sides? Consider the Ruffle potato chip. Let's make the ridges bigger, but just by a few millimeters. Sure: instantly better. Let's take the barbecue flavor and make it a little more peppery and a little more salty and a little more savory. Sure: instantly better. Let's take the barbecue flavor and make it a million times sweeter and a thousand times more sour and paint it orange! No.
Part of what makes these x-foods so ridiculously awful is the half commitment. Case in point: parmesan garlic bread flavored anything. That never works out. In every essence lab there's probably some guy or team of people working on distilling the essence of a food that is an experience unto itself. You will never be able to distill the experience of chomping into a piece of properly toasted, well seasoned, garlic bread. Ain't gonna happen. God bless you for trying, and enjoy the pay check in the meantime, but you are trying to get through a brick wall by poking it with a finger tip. Chicken and waffle potato chips? Nope. Gimme the chicken and the waffle and some hot syrup please. In a bag. On a shelf. That I can buy, take home, pull a tab and trigger an exothermic reaction that heats it all up, and then pour it out on a plate with a knife and fork and a little plastic baggie of syrup and a packet of salted butter to bust open on top of it. I'll pay the extra ten dollars for rehydrated deep fried meat, science, and happiness instead of a $3.50 bag of sadness.
It's tiring. I keep falling for it and it's tiring. I imagine the woman at the gas station where these unspeakable abominations of food stuffs keep showing up (am I shopping at one of the test kitchens? I DON'T KNOW, but I wish I did) sees me stumble in at five in the morning looking for something, nay anything, besides what is already in my pantry or my fridge and watches me walk up and down the aisles and sees my eyes light up at the latest new riff on an old classic and waits for my shoulders to fall. Waits for the long sigh of defeat because she knows I'll try anything once because we had a long conversation three days after the first time I tried heroin and she eventually came up to me and asked me if she could help me with something and it scared the living daylights out of me to the point where I literally jumped backward from her because I was convinced I was there alone somehow at the time and my brain was still maladjusted to person to person contact in ways far worse than they are now.
I imagine her watching that long breath and knowing I'm going to come to the counter with some Island of Dr. Moreaux shit to put in my gut and she'll check me out and wish me the best of luck again and she knows I could just ask, because she's tried it before, but she knows I won't listen. "You could've just called." Instead of waiting to get hammered until two in the morning expecting people to show up and packing an entire evening of inebriation into the three hours before the sun comes up and having to deal with them already completely soused and begging you to slow down because they're already ready for sleep and you're just getting started and they are in no mood to field your thirteen text messages about the things you normally talk about when you party and collaborate and get drunk at the same pace together.
But that's when you know you can die happy. Assuming your death isn't brought about by being fed feet first into a wood chipper while you're still conscious, you can definitely pass quietly and quite happy into death knowing you did call who you were supposed to, when you were supposed to, and remembered the things you were supposed to remember how to do along the way, and didn't fall for things like a taco shell made of doritos that tasted like hot vagina cheese vomit on the way down and nothing like an electro statically cheese powdered tortilla chip casing taco fixings at all, and everything you did or at least some of what you did was what you were supposed to do.
"Hell, I'm two days and six hours late for work" is never a good feeling. When you get that sensation that what you're on to is something you can fade out doing and never wake up from, you know it's something good. Sure, you can get that feeling artificially (see Patton and the suicide drug), but when you've earned your way on to that path toward what you do better than anything else, don't get comfortably confused with doing best because there is very little comfortable about writing or art or whatever keeps the motor spinning when you'd rather have it idle or, better yet, shut down completely, you know you're on to something worth while and pursuing. Perhaps in vain, but like I said before (not really) vanity is a poor man's occupation.
I can't wait to operate out of ego. Vanity is sport. Ego is conquest.The definition of poor being not within the scope of ... being too tired to masturbate.
You really do have to reevaluate your life if you reach a point where you are literally too tired to masturbate. When you cross that line where the prospect of masturbation puts the same look on your face as when you want a nip of a candy bar, but can't decide which brand or make or model or if it should have ground effects on it, or if the candy bar just has speed holes punched in it or a new paint job, but it'll let you down in the end and even the piss amount of money you spent on it will lead to days of regret later when you are one dollar and 33 cents short of getting the one thing you actually needed later on in the month, you know it's time to make some changes.
No one should ever have to suffer being too tired to masturbate. It's natures gift to the animal kingdom and as the king of the kingdom you should be and are entitled to, by the mandate of science and creation itself, masturbate. That's one thing I will never understand about relationships. The person that gets upset about your masturbating is so clearly in the wrong, it's practically insane. In terms of pure practicality, absolutely insane.
I'm not cheating on you. You're not having sex with me. I need to feel sexually fulfilled nightly so I don't kill you and then all of our children and then my coworkers tomorrow morning and then myself. What's the big deal? You're happy, because I did not sexually assault you during the night when my dick got hard and I couldn't sleep for the third night in a row. You're happy because I wake up in a good mood and feel rested and you feel rested and don't have to wash cum off of your ass and out of your cooter or off your dick and thighs. I feel fulfilled because I slept well beside you and you feel good because I slept well beside you and enjoyed breathing in your sleep smells. You feel good because you're not obligated to fuck me and I feel good because you feel good about that. Who cares what I'm actually thinking about? Brain space is brain space. It's no ones property. It's no man's land. So it's okay to think about baseball and dismantling an engine block and nun's elbow fat to keep myself from cumming while we fuck, but it's not okay to think about fucking if we're not fucking? Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now? Can you see why this might not work for me?
If you're too stressed to masturbate you need to reevaluate your life choices.
I do think I am becoming a bit asexual. It's getting close to the point where it is impossible to meet a good shag without the baggage. I don't want to know your life story. I'll listen. I'll talk. I won't ask, but if you ask I'll tell. I think it comes with moving up the age bracket and getting to that point where everyone begins pairing off and eggs start to get few and far between and people either start to go more and more insane or more and more stable and there is less and less gray area between the extremes because it really does take a good portion of your life just to figure out who and what you are and what the hell you are projecting and how the hell it's actually being perceived.
That moment in middle school at the graduation dance when the dance floor cleared out and the chaperons were busy talking about futures and "oh my gawd, my son..." and "I know, my daughter..."s and other bullshit parents talk about to stay sane around other parents and not sound weird or give any indication that their little bastards backwards tendencies have anything to do with what goes on after he/she gets home from school, and everyone is in a circle talking to someone or listening to someone and you realize you're looking up at the lights in the ceiling and listening to everyone listening and talking to each other and you're happy there, happens all over again when you get older. Except this time around you're fully aware of it.
And that's when you realize you should stop suggesting things to do with other people because they're flat not interested, no matter how enthusiastic about it you try to come across. Maybe there was an inkling of interest when the topic first came up, but by the fourth phone call and the tenth text message over the course of a month with no success it's time to face facts: they don't want to hang out with you the same way you want to hang out with them and it's only going to get more pronounced as they continue to grow and you continue to grow and you're not growing apart, by no means. You're just not roll dogs the way you used to be.
Eventually it's going to get creepy and they're going to cut you off entirely so simmer down. That's hard to do though. Especially when you get pity-vited to hang out. That's always the worst. A pity-vite followed by endless pursuit leads to call off after call off after call off, because, let's be honest, they're trying to let you down easy and if you think about it a little bit, had you met them outside of the circumstances in which you actually met, you never would have known they existed in the first place. Your blip is over. The good thing is though, if you do relax the pursuit a little bit, you might get to have a fun pop in/pop up later when you've had enough time away to have something interesting to relay to them and that's nothing to sneeze at. Unless you sneeze when someone turns on the light. Then it is something to sneeze at. Something to sneeze at and explain while you run for some toilet paper and your clothes because finding people that fuck with the lights on is almost as hard as not forcing the issue.
It's kind of like coveralls. You either understand their value or you don't. There's a large age divide in understanding the coverall. There's a large age divide and a large occupation divide too. When it comes to occupations the idea of the coverall is pretty obvious. You either have to stay really really clean or you have to get really really dirty. Either way, any sort of regular clothing is not going to cut it, but whatever job you are doing at either end of the spectrum is absolutely essential to the furthering of civilization. You're either working at the very top end of technology and physiology or you're working at the machine level where the rubber meets the road. Either way, if you show up in regular clothes or a suit and tie someone is going to say "what the fuck were you thinking" and/or "go home and change or don't come back at all."
The other area is a little more finicky. The other area is weather related. If it's just that damn cold outside it makes sense to wear coveralls. Plain and simple. The children in snow suits will nod and nearly high five you up until you hit the tweens and teens and young adults. That's when you run into the girl still wearing heels in an inch of snow and the guy in all leather skinny jeans and bubble jacket vest with the flat brimmed sports hat that still has its sticker on it. That's when you have to share the sidewalk with the guy with the vintage belt buckle and man purse shivering at a bus stop and the mom in enormous sunglasses faux studded with diamonds with a stroller. That is, however, also when you run into the gal in her early thirties who stops you and asks you where you bought those coveralls because waiting at the bus stop at 7 A.M. with a windchill of -5 has had the presence of mind to understand a skirt and leggings with knee high leather boots was a bad idea.
The logic gap from age 13 to 23 is a strange one. Everything is very obvious after, I dunno, say 26. After 26 it's just a matter of execution and can do, will do, won't do, can't do, on the books and ready to go, or still thinking it over indefinitely postponed. It does make me laugh sometimes walking home from work in nice thick coveralls perfectly fine, the wind breaking in front of me and not feeling a thing knowing that I score a 0 on style points and 100% on no regrets or thoughts about "if I lived here, I'd be home already" because I know in coveralls I can walk for days. Hell, I could curl up and take a nap, but we know how that usually ends (flashlights in the face and "where do you live"s and "this is a public park, you can't sleep here"s, but those days are behind us).
Growing up is a shame but necessary. I got my first gray hair a few weeks ago. Right in the middle of my chin. A friend of mine said "you're going to be one of those creepy 40 year olds with gray hair all over," I told him it's not true. The preferred term is silver fox. It's a badge of honor. I honestly didn't think I'd live long enough to see a gray hair on my head so it's actually a badge I am happy to wear. I can run with it. Chicks dig salt and pepper fellas right? Even though I don't particularly dig chicks. It's still nice to be prized a little bit. Let's you know you're not a complete dumpster fire. If you're not a shock jock, I'm pretty sure not being branded a dumpster fire is a good thing.
Unlike most people, I've been waiting for gray hair for a very long time. It's welcome. My hair will finally start catching up to the miles I've put on my brain. If someone took me home they'd be calling up lawyers about lemon laws and scam artists even though there is still a heart beating 10 years old inside of me. Flipping through channels you'd be well advised to skip cartoon network because I will start jumping up and down and shouting that we have to stop to watch All Dogs Go to Heaven and Up coming on right after and we can't miss Courage the Cowardly Dog marathon after; Law and Order and the NBA game be damned!
With the kid does come soap dodging. I still don't shower enough. Then again, as you get older, the value of washing tends to increase. Aside from my own OCD showering because... well... because! If you shower six times in one day you've either done way too much coke, done something really bad, are absolutely breaking down mentally and can't stop touching your own skin to save your life (if someone pointed a gun at you and sad the next time you rub your forearm I am going to put a bullet inside your fucking brain and you actually had to think long and hard about whether or not that itch right at the crook of your elbow was worth investigating because technically it's not your forearm and besides you really really have gone way too long without checking to make sure you were still inside the skin wrapped around your muscles, veins, arteries, and bones), or you just really like showering.
If I could live in my shower I probably would, Seinfeld style. It breaks my heart sometimes, making references to things kids have never seen. By kids, I mean early 20 somethings. I can live with it. It still grates my nerves though.
I did realize I was soap dodging the other day. After I realized my shower fetish was getting out of control I decided to shower as little as possible and went to visit a friend. I sat down right beside their fan boosted space heater. Terrible idea, I know, but there was nowhere else to sit. Let's just say, I got comfortable sitting on the floor beside it and spread my legs a little bit to sit cross legged. The temperature wasn't particularly high or particularly low, but the fan was boosting airflow continuously and, yeah, it felt great blowing through my paints and airing out my junk because I'd been at work all day and it's nice to get a breeze going when your sack is stuck to your thigh.
I thought I smelled alright. Ten minutes in, the girl sitting next to me asks me if I want to turn the heater off. The heater is in passive mode so my answer is no. The temperature is fine. Ten minutes later she asks me again and this time we make eye contact and her eyes have that "something is not going well" slit to them. So I put two and two together and made four. Whatever funk I thought was contained has been let loose like the dogs of war all up on her face. It was the nicest way anyone has told me I reeked in a long time.
I respected that, switched to a kneeling pose to pin down the crotch sweat dragon, and turned off the blower. It's one of those simple things you can do to help other people feel more comfortable without other people being too shame faced. It's kind of like masturbating in that way. If you ever masturbate to a particular person, they don't want to hear about so don't say anything about it. The sentiment will be appreciated, but there's no reason to go as far as treading on graces and enjoying company. Be easy, be tactful, and they'll respect you for it. The thing is you won't know they respect you because you'll never bring it up, but understand that given the alternative to not knowing... yeah, they'll respect you for it and take the complement. Play it out in your head. Run the dialogues and the dialog trees and superimpose their characteristics on those dialogs to guide the decision forks and you'll always end up at the same conclusion: take more showers, take more time, die happy, and in the meantime don't eat shitty food and keep memories in tow better than a cat can.
I don't want to go fishing today.
Why not, I was just putting on pants after you called?!
I changed my mind.
Why?
It's gross out.
Seriously? A little rain?? It's got damn Pittsburgh in Autumn. It's a perfect day.
Nope, its not.
You're from Pittsburgh! What the hell is wrong with you?
You're being unreasonable!
It's beautiful outside!
You're being unreasonable!!
Am I?
Yeah.
Okay.............when are you free next? I'm looking at the ten day forecast right now.
Throwing a rager tonight?
Yeah.
What time?
Sixish.
Nine?
Sixish.
Sixish?
Yes, sixish.
Have you thought about nine?
No. Well, I did. For a while. Then I remembered I had shit to do. Before. After I remembered.
Whatever, you know where I live. Hit me up and we'll combine parties at nine.
Ninish?
We're going to ramble on, because we can, and also why not. The longest set ever.
Cats have short memories. They have learned behaviors, but I think it's fair to say they have short memories. They're beings of routines. That can make you functional. If you have a short memory, but a solid routine, you can definitely get by alright. No harm no foul. What you have to keep in mind is what really defines getting by. Do you want to get by as well as a human being does or as well as a cat does? Granted, cats have it pretty good.
Defining work aside, not to say that it's easy to be a cat. Can you imagine having to sleep so much? Yeah, I need to eat lunch, but first I have to take this three hour siesta in this sun beam because it's really god damn warm right here. Yes, I know your car died on the shoulder of interstate 376 and you cancelled your triple A because there was an order of 30 pounds of catnip you had to get in so that you could ensconce yourself in plant matter on demand for the year, but this sun beam is really really warm and if I get into my car right now I will fall asleep immediately if traffic stops for longer than five minutes and I'm not trying to get stopped by the police with my inspection sticker out of date. I'll see you in a few hours. Yes, I'm in the shower right now. I just ate. I'll be done when I'm done. Whether or not I'll be jerking off for the next hour before I take this nap is frankly none of your business. If you keep talking like an asshole we are definitely brawling when I get there. What's it to you anyway? We're not family. If I could live without a housemate I would! Well, I didn't touch your snack stash, I just ate all of the food you left after you took off after breakfast. Yes, including the things you set aside for lunch. No, I didn't touch your stash or your green. If I did, I would be too busy not answering the damn phone.
It's a little bit alarming though when you look up from repairing a broken laptop or keeping up with email nonsense and see your cat dangling from the side of the fish tank you specifically perched on top of bookshelf because, the last time you checked, cats couldn't climb bookshelves.
From a purely physics standpoint, it shouldn't work. There's a reason cat trees are covered with carpeting instead of smooth faced fake wood. On top of that you've seen them try to climb it before close to forty times. They jump in three shelves up, the earliest possible landing point and watched them look at and sniff at the fourth shelf like a hardcore dungeon crawling RPG player trying to find the secret entrance to the glitch cave. As though, if they looked hard enough and poked around long enough, somehow the bookshelf programming would split apart and instantly teleport them to the next level up if they jabbed the right pixel with their nose.
Yet, there he is. Climbing on top of the fish tank with no lid. I'm scrambling to find my camera and trying to keep one eye on him to make sure he doesn't fall in, because the only thing worse than a cat soaked to the bone in fish poop filled water is washing that cat. And somehow he figures out how to step from edge to edge and not fall in AND terrorize the fish dumb enough to come near the surface with a thing twenty times their size looming overhead and thrusting enormous claws through the surface of the water with the only thing in mind being poking one of those two foot long (by scale if fish were people) talons through their itty bitty eye holes.
How the hell did he get up there? I took him down and watched him attempt it again and again for a good day and a half and he never managed to pull it off again. Which was kind of disappointing. It reminded me of how shitty my own memory was. Not to harp on passwords, but I have made passwords and forgotten them not more than a handful of days later. The security question is what was the make and model of your first car. Two days removed, I'm asking myself "the make and model of the first car I ever drove or the first car I ever crashed?" "The make and model of the first car I can remember riding in or the first car I ever drove myself." "The make and model of the first car I fell in love with or the make and model of the first car I knew I wanted in my dream garage." Ending with "your account is locked, please call customer service at 1-800-555" five five, five five. How are achievements so forgettable?
I want to sit the cat down with translator boxes strapped to our throats so we can understand each other the way it happens in science fiction and go over what exactly went on. Because maybe he just needs some coaching? Maybe he did it once and it was a wild success and he got so caught up in the success that he forgot to make mental notes of how he actually got there and now he's broke and sitting on the floor, looking up at the fish tank angrier than ever, and clueless with how to actually deal with it.
I at least wish he had opposable thumbs and manners enough to ask me to pass him the sugar dish so we could sit down at the kitchen table and talk about our short comings. Or at least sip tea and nod instead of stalking around the apartment in circles mad at things we can't discuss and counter mad at each other for being mad about things we can't talk about and madder that the atmosphere is so hostile when we both have nowhere else to be and nothing else to look at besides our counter counter madness.
So treat yourself. Nothing cures unhappiness like a good nosh on something yummy. It makes the world go pretty swell, when at the end of the day you go over the steps that got you to where you were the month before only to find utter soul crushing DMV line wait times to find you never filled out form H-09 and you can't forge the notary stamp in the bathroom anyway so there's no need to explain that you have explosive diarrhea from the fast food joint you never went to and will be back in a moment.
Get out the cat treats and their having pork sauteed with salmon juices and beans and rice so they poop good, and you have bleu cheese buffalo wing flavored butter crackers with nothing but mayonaise to dip them in (if you want to go so far as to dip them in to something).
There are some things, some foods, that have no business here on this green earth. I don't know how they get passed beyond their developmental stages or who fell asleep at the wheel, but they do enter the realm of otherwise useful, palatable, strange and uncommonly tasty besides the fact, sometimes unassuming, palette expanding digestables. If it's not broke, don't fix it holds true for most foods. Sure, stick a turbo charger on there. Put some bigger rims on there. Maybe some slicker tires. Change the paint scheme and put some tint on the windows. Lower the suspension. Make that vehicle of flavor crystals sexier to my tongue and I won't complain.
Maybe though, it would be a good idea to take the concept sketchers out of the room when you get down to the nitty gritty of actually putting together the deliverable? Maybe, instead of a massive grille with chrome highlights, go with a slight variation and make it a few inches bigger instead of a foot and a half bigger with ten inch wings sticking out of the sides? Consider the Ruffle potato chip. Let's make the ridges bigger, but just by a few millimeters. Sure: instantly better. Let's take the barbecue flavor and make it a little more peppery and a little more salty and a little more savory. Sure: instantly better. Let's take the barbecue flavor and make it a million times sweeter and a thousand times more sour and paint it orange! No.
Part of what makes these x-foods so ridiculously awful is the half commitment. Case in point: parmesan garlic bread flavored anything. That never works out. In every essence lab there's probably some guy or team of people working on distilling the essence of a food that is an experience unto itself. You will never be able to distill the experience of chomping into a piece of properly toasted, well seasoned, garlic bread. Ain't gonna happen. God bless you for trying, and enjoy the pay check in the meantime, but you are trying to get through a brick wall by poking it with a finger tip. Chicken and waffle potato chips? Nope. Gimme the chicken and the waffle and some hot syrup please. In a bag. On a shelf. That I can buy, take home, pull a tab and trigger an exothermic reaction that heats it all up, and then pour it out on a plate with a knife and fork and a little plastic baggie of syrup and a packet of salted butter to bust open on top of it. I'll pay the extra ten dollars for rehydrated deep fried meat, science, and happiness instead of a $3.50 bag of sadness.
It's tiring. I keep falling for it and it's tiring. I imagine the woman at the gas station where these unspeakable abominations of food stuffs keep showing up (am I shopping at one of the test kitchens? I DON'T KNOW, but I wish I did) sees me stumble in at five in the morning looking for something, nay anything, besides what is already in my pantry or my fridge and watches me walk up and down the aisles and sees my eyes light up at the latest new riff on an old classic and waits for my shoulders to fall. Waits for the long sigh of defeat because she knows I'll try anything once because we had a long conversation three days after the first time I tried heroin and she eventually came up to me and asked me if she could help me with something and it scared the living daylights out of me to the point where I literally jumped backward from her because I was convinced I was there alone somehow at the time and my brain was still maladjusted to person to person contact in ways far worse than they are now.
I imagine her watching that long breath and knowing I'm going to come to the counter with some Island of Dr. Moreaux shit to put in my gut and she'll check me out and wish me the best of luck again and she knows I could just ask, because she's tried it before, but she knows I won't listen. "You could've just called." Instead of waiting to get hammered until two in the morning expecting people to show up and packing an entire evening of inebriation into the three hours before the sun comes up and having to deal with them already completely soused and begging you to slow down because they're already ready for sleep and you're just getting started and they are in no mood to field your thirteen text messages about the things you normally talk about when you party and collaborate and get drunk at the same pace together.
But that's when you know you can die happy. Assuming your death isn't brought about by being fed feet first into a wood chipper while you're still conscious, you can definitely pass quietly and quite happy into death knowing you did call who you were supposed to, when you were supposed to, and remembered the things you were supposed to remember how to do along the way, and didn't fall for things like a taco shell made of doritos that tasted like hot vagina cheese vomit on the way down and nothing like an electro statically cheese powdered tortilla chip casing taco fixings at all, and everything you did or at least some of what you did was what you were supposed to do.
"Hell, I'm two days and six hours late for work" is never a good feeling. When you get that sensation that what you're on to is something you can fade out doing and never wake up from, you know it's something good. Sure, you can get that feeling artificially (see Patton and the suicide drug), but when you've earned your way on to that path toward what you do better than anything else, don't get comfortably confused with doing best because there is very little comfortable about writing or art or whatever keeps the motor spinning when you'd rather have it idle or, better yet, shut down completely, you know you're on to something worth while and pursuing. Perhaps in vain, but like I said before (not really) vanity is a poor man's occupation.
I can't wait to operate out of ego. Vanity is sport. Ego is conquest.The definition of poor being not within the scope of ... being too tired to masturbate.
You really do have to reevaluate your life if you reach a point where you are literally too tired to masturbate. When you cross that line where the prospect of masturbation puts the same look on your face as when you want a nip of a candy bar, but can't decide which brand or make or model or if it should have ground effects on it, or if the candy bar just has speed holes punched in it or a new paint job, but it'll let you down in the end and even the piss amount of money you spent on it will lead to days of regret later when you are one dollar and 33 cents short of getting the one thing you actually needed later on in the month, you know it's time to make some changes.
No one should ever have to suffer being too tired to masturbate. It's natures gift to the animal kingdom and as the king of the kingdom you should be and are entitled to, by the mandate of science and creation itself, masturbate. That's one thing I will never understand about relationships. The person that gets upset about your masturbating is so clearly in the wrong, it's practically insane. In terms of pure practicality, absolutely insane.
I'm not cheating on you. You're not having sex with me. I need to feel sexually fulfilled nightly so I don't kill you and then all of our children and then my coworkers tomorrow morning and then myself. What's the big deal? You're happy, because I did not sexually assault you during the night when my dick got hard and I couldn't sleep for the third night in a row. You're happy because I wake up in a good mood and feel rested and you feel rested and don't have to wash cum off of your ass and out of your cooter or off your dick and thighs. I feel fulfilled because I slept well beside you and you feel good because I slept well beside you and enjoyed breathing in your sleep smells. You feel good because you're not obligated to fuck me and I feel good because you feel good about that. Who cares what I'm actually thinking about? Brain space is brain space. It's no ones property. It's no man's land. So it's okay to think about baseball and dismantling an engine block and nun's elbow fat to keep myself from cumming while we fuck, but it's not okay to think about fucking if we're not fucking? Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now? Can you see why this might not work for me?
If you're too stressed to masturbate you need to reevaluate your life choices.
I do think I am becoming a bit asexual. It's getting close to the point where it is impossible to meet a good shag without the baggage. I don't want to know your life story. I'll listen. I'll talk. I won't ask, but if you ask I'll tell. I think it comes with moving up the age bracket and getting to that point where everyone begins pairing off and eggs start to get few and far between and people either start to go more and more insane or more and more stable and there is less and less gray area between the extremes because it really does take a good portion of your life just to figure out who and what you are and what the hell you are projecting and how the hell it's actually being perceived.
That moment in middle school at the graduation dance when the dance floor cleared out and the chaperons were busy talking about futures and "oh my gawd, my son..." and "I know, my daughter..."s and other bullshit parents talk about to stay sane around other parents and not sound weird or give any indication that their little bastards backwards tendencies have anything to do with what goes on after he/she gets home from school, and everyone is in a circle talking to someone or listening to someone and you realize you're looking up at the lights in the ceiling and listening to everyone listening and talking to each other and you're happy there, happens all over again when you get older. Except this time around you're fully aware of it.
And that's when you realize you should stop suggesting things to do with other people because they're flat not interested, no matter how enthusiastic about it you try to come across. Maybe there was an inkling of interest when the topic first came up, but by the fourth phone call and the tenth text message over the course of a month with no success it's time to face facts: they don't want to hang out with you the same way you want to hang out with them and it's only going to get more pronounced as they continue to grow and you continue to grow and you're not growing apart, by no means. You're just not roll dogs the way you used to be.
Eventually it's going to get creepy and they're going to cut you off entirely so simmer down. That's hard to do though. Especially when you get pity-vited to hang out. That's always the worst. A pity-vite followed by endless pursuit leads to call off after call off after call off, because, let's be honest, they're trying to let you down easy and if you think about it a little bit, had you met them outside of the circumstances in which you actually met, you never would have known they existed in the first place. Your blip is over. The good thing is though, if you do relax the pursuit a little bit, you might get to have a fun pop in/pop up later when you've had enough time away to have something interesting to relay to them and that's nothing to sneeze at. Unless you sneeze when someone turns on the light. Then it is something to sneeze at. Something to sneeze at and explain while you run for some toilet paper and your clothes because finding people that fuck with the lights on is almost as hard as not forcing the issue.
It's kind of like coveralls. You either understand their value or you don't. There's a large age divide in understanding the coverall. There's a large age divide and a large occupation divide too. When it comes to occupations the idea of the coverall is pretty obvious. You either have to stay really really clean or you have to get really really dirty. Either way, any sort of regular clothing is not going to cut it, but whatever job you are doing at either end of the spectrum is absolutely essential to the furthering of civilization. You're either working at the very top end of technology and physiology or you're working at the machine level where the rubber meets the road. Either way, if you show up in regular clothes or a suit and tie someone is going to say "what the fuck were you thinking" and/or "go home and change or don't come back at all."
The other area is a little more finicky. The other area is weather related. If it's just that damn cold outside it makes sense to wear coveralls. Plain and simple. The children in snow suits will nod and nearly high five you up until you hit the tweens and teens and young adults. That's when you run into the girl still wearing heels in an inch of snow and the guy in all leather skinny jeans and bubble jacket vest with the flat brimmed sports hat that still has its sticker on it. That's when you have to share the sidewalk with the guy with the vintage belt buckle and man purse shivering at a bus stop and the mom in enormous sunglasses faux studded with diamonds with a stroller. That is, however, also when you run into the gal in her early thirties who stops you and asks you where you bought those coveralls because waiting at the bus stop at 7 A.M. with a windchill of -5 has had the presence of mind to understand a skirt and leggings with knee high leather boots was a bad idea.
The logic gap from age 13 to 23 is a strange one. Everything is very obvious after, I dunno, say 26. After 26 it's just a matter of execution and can do, will do, won't do, can't do, on the books and ready to go, or still thinking it over indefinitely postponed. It does make me laugh sometimes walking home from work in nice thick coveralls perfectly fine, the wind breaking in front of me and not feeling a thing knowing that I score a 0 on style points and 100% on no regrets or thoughts about "if I lived here, I'd be home already" because I know in coveralls I can walk for days. Hell, I could curl up and take a nap, but we know how that usually ends (flashlights in the face and "where do you live"s and "this is a public park, you can't sleep here"s, but those days are behind us).
Growing up is a shame but necessary. I got my first gray hair a few weeks ago. Right in the middle of my chin. A friend of mine said "you're going to be one of those creepy 40 year olds with gray hair all over," I told him it's not true. The preferred term is silver fox. It's a badge of honor. I honestly didn't think I'd live long enough to see a gray hair on my head so it's actually a badge I am happy to wear. I can run with it. Chicks dig salt and pepper fellas right? Even though I don't particularly dig chicks. It's still nice to be prized a little bit. Let's you know you're not a complete dumpster fire. If you're not a shock jock, I'm pretty sure not being branded a dumpster fire is a good thing.
Unlike most people, I've been waiting for gray hair for a very long time. It's welcome. My hair will finally start catching up to the miles I've put on my brain. If someone took me home they'd be calling up lawyers about lemon laws and scam artists even though there is still a heart beating 10 years old inside of me. Flipping through channels you'd be well advised to skip cartoon network because I will start jumping up and down and shouting that we have to stop to watch All Dogs Go to Heaven and Up coming on right after and we can't miss Courage the Cowardly Dog marathon after; Law and Order and the NBA game be damned!
With the kid does come soap dodging. I still don't shower enough. Then again, as you get older, the value of washing tends to increase. Aside from my own OCD showering because... well... because! If you shower six times in one day you've either done way too much coke, done something really bad, are absolutely breaking down mentally and can't stop touching your own skin to save your life (if someone pointed a gun at you and sad the next time you rub your forearm I am going to put a bullet inside your fucking brain and you actually had to think long and hard about whether or not that itch right at the crook of your elbow was worth investigating because technically it's not your forearm and besides you really really have gone way too long without checking to make sure you were still inside the skin wrapped around your muscles, veins, arteries, and bones), or you just really like showering.
If I could live in my shower I probably would, Seinfeld style. It breaks my heart sometimes, making references to things kids have never seen. By kids, I mean early 20 somethings. I can live with it. It still grates my nerves though.
I did realize I was soap dodging the other day. After I realized my shower fetish was getting out of control I decided to shower as little as possible and went to visit a friend. I sat down right beside their fan boosted space heater. Terrible idea, I know, but there was nowhere else to sit. Let's just say, I got comfortable sitting on the floor beside it and spread my legs a little bit to sit cross legged. The temperature wasn't particularly high or particularly low, but the fan was boosting airflow continuously and, yeah, it felt great blowing through my paints and airing out my junk because I'd been at work all day and it's nice to get a breeze going when your sack is stuck to your thigh.
I thought I smelled alright. Ten minutes in, the girl sitting next to me asks me if I want to turn the heater off. The heater is in passive mode so my answer is no. The temperature is fine. Ten minutes later she asks me again and this time we make eye contact and her eyes have that "something is not going well" slit to them. So I put two and two together and made four. Whatever funk I thought was contained has been let loose like the dogs of war all up on her face. It was the nicest way anyone has told me I reeked in a long time.
I respected that, switched to a kneeling pose to pin down the crotch sweat dragon, and turned off the blower. It's one of those simple things you can do to help other people feel more comfortable without other people being too shame faced. It's kind of like masturbating in that way. If you ever masturbate to a particular person, they don't want to hear about so don't say anything about it. The sentiment will be appreciated, but there's no reason to go as far as treading on graces and enjoying company. Be easy, be tactful, and they'll respect you for it. The thing is you won't know they respect you because you'll never bring it up, but understand that given the alternative to not knowing... yeah, they'll respect you for it and take the complement. Play it out in your head. Run the dialogues and the dialog trees and superimpose their characteristics on those dialogs to guide the decision forks and you'll always end up at the same conclusion: take more showers, take more time, die happy, and in the meantime don't eat shitty food and keep memories in tow better than a cat can.
3/16/10
...and a shave
the showering thing ive gotten used to. i can accept that as necessary enough. i mean i dont like it when i stink either. it gets annoying. i suspect mostly because im used to being clean at this point in my life and if i did just smell bad all day i would eventually stop noticing, but thats not the point. the point is there is a definite reason for showering. it hurts our olfactory nerves when people dont.
the shitting thing ive gotten used to as well. i can accept that as necessary too. in fact ive come to enjoy flushing my body of, well, shit on a regular basis. better to do it than not do it and wish to god you could. you know. those lonely mornings. youre about to be late for work. you know youve got a 45 minute car or train ride ahead of you. do you do it. do you take the chance. you do. and you regret it. because all you made was a rabbit turd but the pressure is still there isnt it. oh yes it is. youre not going anywhere for the next 15, maybe even 20, minutes. you are going to be late. bet you wish you ate that bran muffin instead of cold triple cheese pizza for breakfast yesterday. bet you wish you had vegetables with your dinner instead of another slice of double thick cream pie. but yeah. ive gotten used to enjoying regular shits.
the shaving thing i have not gotten used to. why does america hate people that dont shave. why do i have to be either A) famous B) infamous C) a pro athlete D) an award winner or E) ridiculously rich to wear a beard??? that makes no god damn sense. who am i hurting by wearing a beard? why is it that the guy with the beard has a worse chance of being hired, befriended, or whatever if he has a beard. i love my beard. i would never stop wearing my beard ever if it wasnt ripped off of my face but ridiculous policies. my beard is awesome. its comfortable, its clean, its groomed. men have hair on their faces! okay america!!! i cant fucking help it!!! i am a guy!!! i grow hair on my body. its part of being manly and awesome. when did that stop being the case. when did it become more manly to shampoo with delicate fragrances and wax your fucking back. what the @#$%@ i hate you america. i hate you so much for that reason. me having a beard doesnt affect how i do my job or how i interact with other people. it doesnt catch food or strain my soups. all it does is make my life a little brighter and you have to fucking take it away from me. hate you. whatever. there's one part of my body that i shave consistently and that is my pubes. the one place where hair is gross cuz it well if you're a guy and you sweat AT ALL and your prick isnt the size of a thimble you know what kind of strange smells and general unpleasantness can accumulate down there. but whatever. fine. ill shave my face. ill fall in line. cuz at the end of the day a job pays me money and my beard doesnt (yet, but if anyone wants to do some old school hairy manly man bangs hot chick with afro pubes on a shag rug with lava lamps in the background and a "huge" 24 inch color tube set in the foreground while her boyfriend calls her on her curly cord rotary phone and it rings and rings cuz answering machines werent within the budget cuz they were fucking expensive back then... we'll see who has the last laugh).
///Air - "Radian" that song you refused to listen to because it sounded like one of those dumb atmospheric "electronica" techno whatever tracks mushroom eating idiots who swear by pink floyd love to listen to when their high or whatever, except you forgot to turn it off and two and a half minutes in the atmosphere broke into some kind of jazz that you love to listen but never told anyone about because you thought they would criticize you for criticizing its functional synonym in a different medium but now you can understand why somebody might like that other stuff you hate but it doesnt really matter cuz youre still going to pretend to hate it anyway for appearances sake.
the shitting thing ive gotten used to as well. i can accept that as necessary too. in fact ive come to enjoy flushing my body of, well, shit on a regular basis. better to do it than not do it and wish to god you could. you know. those lonely mornings. youre about to be late for work. you know youve got a 45 minute car or train ride ahead of you. do you do it. do you take the chance. you do. and you regret it. because all you made was a rabbit turd but the pressure is still there isnt it. oh yes it is. youre not going anywhere for the next 15, maybe even 20, minutes. you are going to be late. bet you wish you ate that bran muffin instead of cold triple cheese pizza for breakfast yesterday. bet you wish you had vegetables with your dinner instead of another slice of double thick cream pie. but yeah. ive gotten used to enjoying regular shits.
the shaving thing i have not gotten used to. why does america hate people that dont shave. why do i have to be either A) famous B) infamous C) a pro athlete D) an award winner or E) ridiculously rich to wear a beard??? that makes no god damn sense. who am i hurting by wearing a beard? why is it that the guy with the beard has a worse chance of being hired, befriended, or whatever if he has a beard. i love my beard. i would never stop wearing my beard ever if it wasnt ripped off of my face but ridiculous policies. my beard is awesome. its comfortable, its clean, its groomed. men have hair on their faces! okay america!!! i cant fucking help it!!! i am a guy!!! i grow hair on my body. its part of being manly and awesome. when did that stop being the case. when did it become more manly to shampoo with delicate fragrances and wax your fucking back. what the @#$%@ i hate you america. i hate you so much for that reason. me having a beard doesnt affect how i do my job or how i interact with other people. it doesnt catch food or strain my soups. all it does is make my life a little brighter and you have to fucking take it away from me. hate you. whatever. there's one part of my body that i shave consistently and that is my pubes. the one place where hair is gross cuz it well if you're a guy and you sweat AT ALL and your prick isnt the size of a thimble you know what kind of strange smells and general unpleasantness can accumulate down there. but whatever. fine. ill shave my face. ill fall in line. cuz at the end of the day a job pays me money and my beard doesnt (yet, but if anyone wants to do some old school hairy manly man bangs hot chick with afro pubes on a shag rug with lava lamps in the background and a "huge" 24 inch color tube set in the foreground while her boyfriend calls her on her curly cord rotary phone and it rings and rings cuz answering machines werent within the budget cuz they were fucking expensive back then... we'll see who has the last laugh).
///Air - "Radian" that song you refused to listen to because it sounded like one of those dumb atmospheric "electronica" techno whatever tracks mushroom eating idiots who swear by pink floyd love to listen to when their high or whatever, except you forgot to turn it off and two and a half minutes in the atmosphere broke into some kind of jazz that you love to listen but never told anyone about because you thought they would criticize you for criticizing its functional synonym in a different medium but now you can understand why somebody might like that other stuff you hate but it doesnt really matter cuz youre still going to pretend to hate it anyway for appearances sake.
6/12/06
bearded ladies dont shave 06/12/06
Subject : Bearded Ladies Dont Shave
Posted Date: : Jun 12, 2006 8:00 AM
and neither do i. i mean, come on! im a guy. im entitled to my patchy beard, by virtue of having testicles and a wang. if a bearded lady is entitled to keep her beard and not even get a sideways comment like... "why dont you shave" (obviously she is okay with her facial hair) then why should i?
so there. bleh. on another note... i hate my nose in one of my pictures so im deleting it. even bearded ladies have their bad photo days.
Posted Date: : Jun 12, 2006 8:00 AM
and neither do i. i mean, come on! im a guy. im entitled to my patchy beard, by virtue of having testicles and a wang. if a bearded lady is entitled to keep her beard and not even get a sideways comment like... "why dont you shave" (obviously she is okay with her facial hair) then why should i?
so there. bleh. on another note... i hate my nose in one of my pictures so im deleting it. even bearded ladies have their bad photo days.
1/4/06
what happens when you... 1/04/06
Subject : what happens when you dont masterbate
Posted Date: : Jan 4, 2006 1:56 AM
everything feels better. seriously. things only get better when you stop jerking your leathery hand over your penis. if you must, make sure you lube. all it takes is one evening of infirmity and lubelessness to ruin the paint job and texture of your "saddle" making it less super fun for all riders you may be involved with. and we all know how much we enjoy SUPER fun.
so remember... dont do it unless you must and if you must, use a toy if available or use your hand if no specially designed devices are readily available. im just trying to look out for you! and if there is no lube then be the bigger man and just let the shift nob go. driving without lube is like jerking without transmission fluid. somethings gonna break down and your gonna get nowhere.
Posted Date: : Jan 4, 2006 1:56 AM
everything feels better. seriously. things only get better when you stop jerking your leathery hand over your penis. if you must, make sure you lube. all it takes is one evening of infirmity and lubelessness to ruin the paint job and texture of your "saddle" making it less super fun for all riders you may be involved with. and we all know how much we enjoy SUPER fun.
so remember... dont do it unless you must and if you must, use a toy if available or use your hand if no specially designed devices are readily available. im just trying to look out for you! and if there is no lube then be the bigger man and just let the shift nob go. driving without lube is like jerking without transmission fluid. somethings gonna break down and your gonna get nowhere.
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