Nice Chest

Last night I bought an axe and dandelion killer at Home Depot, where I began to approach a woman worker to find out what aisle they were in, but some old dude beat me to her, so I stood by and waited for him to finish with his questions. "Where are the something-or-others," he asked.

"Right down this aisle, halfway, on the left," she replied.

Then he looked at her body and casually remarked, "You have a nice chest."

She didn't bat an eye. I was appalled! Rather, she motioned behind her, and he went about his shopping, the dissolute old cad. Then she turned to me, "Can I help you?"

I wanted to say that I found his comment to be atrocious and that in all my years of customer service I've put up with a lot, but have never heard something so flagrantly disrespectful. Instead I asked for the strongest dandelion killer they had. She joked with me and asked if I wanted to kill the grass too, and I joked back, saying how I hated the dandelions bad enough to do it and, motioning with my axe, said maybe I could use this on them. She assisted me, and, while I tried not to look, I happened to notice that, hey, she really did have a nice chest. But I would never tell her that. Not even with the road to base compliments already paved.

Driving away in my truck it occured to me he asked her for an ice chest.

Giving Up Makes Her Gay

I have a friend that is careening at light speed toward 40. Unlike her peers (and her jeers at men who break down at 40), she claims to enjoy it, saying that she doesn't have to try so hard anymore... "Not in a flannel-shirt-wearing-suddenly-a-dyke kind of way," though.

So, giving up makes women gay, huh? I guess I can see that: comfortable shoes, a sensible/easy maintenance haircut, abandonment of makeup and perhaps some shaving... maybe add a few pounds... you know, grab some cookie dough and just go butch.

I think it's the opposite with men. If we wanna be gay -- really, truly successfully gay -- first we have to get in shape. And not just a couple pushups and situps... like, stellar, toned, magazine cover airbrushed shape. And that means CARDIO out the yang. But it doesn't stop there. Next, we have to accept fashion into our lives. Not just learning to dress better, but knowing what's in style, what's out, what works, what doesn't, and I think there's a prerequisite for learning women's fashion too. At least the shoes. And speaking of shoes, I'm pretty sure part of the minimum standards for going gay requires knowing how to dance.

I'm way too lazy to ever be gay.

Eye, Germius

My doctor said that my eye caught a cold.

My eye. A cold.

How the hell does an eye catch a cold? It's not like I have the sick and infirmed licking my eyeball. I didn't send my eyeball on a trans-Atlantic flight or into a classroom of sniffling third graders. "Well, did anyone sneeze into your eye recently," he asked.

No, doc'. I'm pretty sure I'd remember something like that.

"Am I contagious?"

"Don't worry," he said, "It's not like there's germs floating around outside your eyeball, you know."

I didn't know. But he knows me well enough to know where my mind was going.

Bloody transliteration feature

Sorry about that.

सॉरी अबाउट this

ब्लागस्पाट हस चोसें टू फोर्स मी टू राइट इन हिन्दी चरक्टेर्स, एंड वों'टी अल्लो मी टू दिसबले थे ट्रांस्लाते फुन्च्शन। सो, इफ यू कैन रीड हिन्दी, थें गूढ़ फॉर यू। पेर्सोनाल्ली, इ हवे नो फुच्किंग क्लुए वहत इ'वे जुस्त व्रित्तें.

Sgt. Slaughter

OK: just checked out a health club by my house. I'm all like, "I just wanna see what the rates are for couples, and see if you have another club by my place of work."
He's all, "Your fat. What does the price matter, Fatty?"
"Hey, that's not cool."
"Whatever, Fatty McFatterson. You wanna join, Jiggles, or what?"
"Do you know Crystal?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
"So what'll it be Lard-O?"
"How much for the weekly beratement?"
"That's free, Chubby."
"Do you have a club by my place of work?"
"Does it matter? I mean, c'mon, fatso, we both know that this is your way of making yourself feel like you're doing something about that monstrous landmass that is your ass--"
"That's uncalled for."
"Whatever. What're you gonna do about it?"
"I'll write a scathing letter."
"Oooh."
"Look: if there's a club by my place of work, that'd work better for me, 'cause when I come home I'm too tired to do much of anything."
"Think it has anything to do with that baby seal you're carrying around under your shirt?"
"Dude--"
"That seal is eating your heart. EATING YOUR HEART."
"You're insane."
"You're fat."
"Oh, good one. I think we covered that."
"Hey, know what can cover your ass?"
"What."
"Probably nothing."
"Nice haircut, Sgt. Slaughter."
"Do you iron your pants in the driveway?"
"I'm going now."
"I could tell by the earth tremors and the way you blotted out the sun."
"You're a dick."
"You're fat."
...

"So, $49.95 a month?"
"Yeah, sign here."

Who's Gym?

"Brian, why don't you just join my gym," Jane asked, trying not to implore.
She could have asked when I wasn't naked. "I've been working out," I said as I reached down to pull up my pants.
"Oh."
"Oh what?"
"No. I see. Wait-- yes: I see!"
"What?" I remained doubled-over, fiddling with my sock.
"I think I see a six-pack," she nodded.
"Really?" I stood up, excited, and proudly turned to face her.
"Oops. It's gone," she shook her head, "Must have been rolls of skin."
Grrr. "There's muscle there!"
"Yes, dear. And it's a big one. Hee-heeee..."

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Jane has a crush on a t.v. character. It's cute, really, but also kinda weird 'cause the guy totally looks like her brother. "What the hell is so cute about him?"
"Everything, really. Except maybe his chin. He doesn't have much of a--- What are you doing, Brian?"
"Nossing." I stuck my lower jaw out as far as it could go, perhaps just giving the appearance of a strange underbite.
"Oh, please. You have a chin."
Satisfied with her answer, I retracted my jaw and went back to watching the program.
Jane mumbled, "In fact, you have two."
"Hey," I recoiled, "I heard that."
"Well, when you pull your head back like that, you have six."

Mad Props

I wanna give a shout out to www.innerstep.org for its insightfulness and quest toward everlasting supercharged intergalactic creaminess. Holla at ya theosophical cosmos gurrrl.

While my site is good for the repeated deprecation of varied existential dilemmas and the frailty of the mortal coil (or the expansion of, more appropriately), you should check that one out if you feel like your head's temporarily stuck up your yang.

'Nuff said.

Working Out

Workouts: they're not the same as I remember them. But then, I don't remember ever really working out much until recently discovering I had accidentally become overweight. "Accidentally"... yeah, I kept slipping in the kitchen and falling face first into an ever-replenishing supply of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia. Every time I'd try to get up, I'd slip on the schmear of ice cream across the kitchen floor, SPLAT! Face-first into a bag of Cheetos. I was quite accident prone that way.


My whole life I'd been thin as a rail. I even took weight gainers: every kind of chocolate chalk or strawberry shit whey protein bomb you could imagine. I ate dough for breakfast. I ate steak and potatoes, bobbing in a tidal pool of butter. If it came in Crisco, I'd have thirds. I ate dough and drank the pie filling afterward. Then it was time for lunch.


Nothing ever phased my physique.

Suddenly it was like hitting a wall: my metabolism crumpled into a comatose heap virtually on my birthday. Six months later, I was moderately misshapen. Now I have to SERIOUSLY work out. Before, I'd just do a sit-up or a pushup and be like, "Yeah, I remember how to do them."

And when you get older, workouts change. Or at least the pain does. It shifts. There seems to be a 48 hour delay on the soreness. I think for the first 24 hours your body is like, "What the fuck, man?" It's just an assessment period, a period of shock. Then, two days later, when the damage has been fully analyzed, the affected muscles retaliate: first by becoming listless and useless, like rebellious two year olds being dragged across the floor of a Target: "No. No no no no no. I don't want to." They refuse to cooperate, and when my brain pulls rank on them they begrudgingly function after issuing one provision: We're going to cause you great pain. It may last for hours, or it may last for days, but for what you've done to us you can be sure of one thing -- we are going to cause you great pain.

Fresh Pot

It's Sunday morning and that usually means one key thing with me: unlimited coffee. Not that I drink a lot of coffee -- I don't. I'll drink a couple cups, but half goes cold before I'm done, so it requires refill. This is a luxury I do not have at work.

I mean, what kind of self-absorbed bastard takes the last cup of coffee without making a fresh pot? I thought there was an unwritten rule among office coffee drinkers – don’t leave less than a decent-sized cup in the pot without making a fresh pot. Yet I have to deal with the shmucks that think it’s OK to stroll into the kitchen, empty a whole pot into their Starbucks coffee vat, and dart back out as though having coffee provided for them is their God-given right.

I have my eye on a couple of the accounting folk who obviously have misconceptions about their working environment. There are one or two (and I’m not naming names here) that swoop in and grab the last cup, and then flee, leaving behind nothing but coffee splotches, a cloud of non-dairy creamer dust and about enough coffee to fill a shot glass. And she magically appears, looking like a human water balloon in clothing that’s supposed to fit loosely on someone – not her – with her coffee and cream skin straining against taught poly-blends, allowing a sometimes unfortunate elliptical view of a crumb-laden undershirt peering out between open near-bursting seams, held fast only by the unearthly gumption of supernaturally strong buttons.

Oh, yes: she’s the first in line with her lurking, quiet-and-comfortable-though-horribly-unstylish rubber-soled shoes of unnamable Play-Doh color, to make some brilliant, pithy comment like, "Fresh pot," or, “Hi Brian. Making coffee, heh-heh?”

Yes, I’m making coffee you oversized lurker bitch. You know why? Because low-brow, Philistine bastards like you tend to bump their way through life without a hint of regard for those around them. Bump-bump you go – stumbling through your egocentric existence until another selfish fuck with a truck brings it to a mercifully quick close in the middle of Self-Center Street. Then you float over your bloated corpse at your funeral – for which you stuck the only remaining moron that cared about you with the bill – and you float... all floaty and incredibly unusually light, thinking, “Why is there no one here? Why didn’t anyone come to my funeral… boo-hoo… Why didn’t people like me… sob-sob…?” It’s because you never made a fresh pot, bitch. It’s because taking the last cup was your way of life. So you think about that while you freeze in hell in the blackened indifference of God and those you thought HAD to love you, you bungling ignoramous, and,
“Yes. It’s a fresh pot.”

___________________________

___________________________

IMAGE COURTESY OF http://www.goobeetsa.com/. CHECK HIM OUT ON BLOGSPOT, TOO -- ANOTHER TWISTED BRIAN!

Coyotes

I woke at 4:01 a.m. to coyotes howling, and the subsequent barking of all the neighborhood dogs. All but mine. Bob doesn't bark.

But I wonder if he gets nervous about coyotes. I'll have to remember to ask him.

I don't normally get nervous about coyotes... but one of them sounded like a werewolf. And that makes me nervous, 'cause if werewolves exist then vampires probably do too.

Not that I'm scared of vampires. I just don't want one to be turned into one before I get back into shape. I'd hate to spend eternity this fat.

Baking Contest

Last night, well, an hour ago, I dreamed that I was buttering a slice of fresh baked bread to submit in a baking contest. I turned around to cut one more slice to add, and Jane took a big bite out of the first one. "What're you doing?"
She laughed.
"It's not funny."
"Oh no," she teased, "The whole morning is ruined!"
"I have to submit that," I whined.
"So, I only took a bite."
"You have chicken pox." She did.
"Oh. Well, big deal. Relax."

WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?

Let's Redesign Wyoming

Excuse me, good people of Wyoming: Due to your inability to make significant contributions to urban America, and in part because of your penchant for watery beer and sheep (often in some dreadful combination), we are going to have to ask you to pack your pickup trucks and head north to Canada or south to Mexico. We’d ask you to stay, but we’d like the value of the land to increase. Further, in the interim, we’ll be paving your former state to make room Woolly World – the world’s largest theme park and the only theme park ever dedicated to the memory of the livestock you’ve defiled. We've just finished designing such exciting rides as Lusty Lambykins, Screw Ewe, and our wildest ride yet: The Raunchy Ram. For the few of you that we will allow to remain behind we have both rodeo clown and maintenance jobs available for you in 2010 at the completion of the park design. Please try to stay out of the way of the construction crew. Thank you.

For the Recorder

The recorder: the cheapest instrument a parent can buy. Also, the lamest. It almost ended my musical career before it began.

My parents didn’t like my leanings toward pop and rock music when I was a wee lad. To get me to focus on my academics, and to further discourage me from a musical lifestyle, they made a pretense of support by purchasing a recorder and enrolling me in recorder lessons.

That mamby-pamby baroque clarinet-like plastic tooting device was a chastity belt for my adolescent life. I wish my parents had been more musically inclined, so that it could have been cultivated in the home, as opposed to driven from it. Just because I didn’t like recorder lessons didn’t mean that I didn’t want to try something else, you know? I just didn’t think that playing "When the Saints Go Marching In" over and over again was of any use to me later in life.

High school boys are plagued by a variety of ailments, but by far, the worst, is their virginity. And that bloody plastic tooter was a padlock on mine. I whined for a real instrument, a sexy instrument, an instrument that would make all the girls lose their minds and their pants, in no particular order. Since I couldn’t sing, and since everyone else in the world played guitar, it was inevitable that I settled on drums.

Boulder Girls

I can always tell when a girl from Boulder is flirting with me, by how she casually flips and playfully twirls her armpit hair during conversation.

Allegravating Dream

I took an allergy pill last night. Allegra, I think.

All night long, I dreamed of sheets flapping in high wind.

All
night
long.

I've never awoken so bored.



I probably shouldn't have a dream log. It's not really working out thus far.

Who Wants to Live Forever?

We fear everything in America. It’s the fault of the media, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, government leaders, and worst of all – it’s our own fault, because we’re a consumer society full of consumers that are hooked on consumption, and most of us will buy whatever they’re selling.

For example, what’s the most benign substance you can think of? What’s the most plentiful, simple, and crucial resource in our twitchy, throbbing carbon-based lives? It’s water. You know what I used to do as a kid when I was thirsty and wanted a glass of water? I’d go to the sink and pour a glass out of the tap. But some time ago some marketing genius in Pepsico or Coca-Cola company decided to market bottled water.

The worst part is that I don’t blame the marketing minds that first decided to dip a plastic bottle into a cool mountain stream just brimming with deer and elk pee, scoop up 12 ounces and try to sell it like prime mountain real estate. I blame the first shmoo that decided to buy it – but mostly if he or she had kids. Because we’re responsible for setting a good example for our kids. And now half of them are afraid to drink our water anymore. Billions of dollars are spent nationwide each year to recycle this most precious resource, and clean it through advanced chlorination, radiation and distillation processes. Aren’t we cleaning it enough? Now we have to have our individual hermetically sealed bottles of Evian and Aquafina and we carry them around like sippie cups.
"Oh, I have to stay hydrated."

Drink more water, they’ve been saying for years. And now it’s not just the latest AMA observation that maybe water is important to life – no, it’s a full-on marketing campaign, with catchy yet slightly terrifying slogans like "Water for Life." Drink it or die. What’s wrong? Constipation? Oh, you should drink more water. What’s that? A brain tumor? Have you been drinking enough water? Oh… your leg’s off? Drink more water.

Now doctors are saying that some of us are drinking too much water and it’s flushing the vitamins and minerals from our system before we’ve had a chance to process them. Good! I’m glad. Not only is the quest for better health making us sicker, it’s rotting our teeth. That’s right: since 1945 fluoride has been injected into the water supply of major American cities. By 1992, nearly 60% of Americans were drinking fluoridated water. Good for us. However, by 2004, only a dozen years later, the production and sale of bottled water reached 6.8 billion gallons in America. That’s an estimated consumption level of 23.8 gallons per person. So now all those kiddies sucking on their triple-distilled or mountain spring water are getting cavities in their orthodontically corrected and bleached smiles.

I think that’s FUNNY!

Americans can be sold on anything. We’re so gullible, and the more rich you are and the more trendy you fashion yourself, the more gullible you are my friend. Who remembers a little joint in swank downtown Denver called the Oxygen Bar? That’s right: thousands of twenty- and thirty-somethings got all dressed up and drove their Beemers without signaling to be among the MENSA masses that decided it was brilliant to pay the price of a single malt scotch to huff off of a tube of air. A tube of air! But not just any air: flavored air. (I got some flavored air for you.) You know what I did at the oxygen bar? I bellied up to the bar, whipped out a Camel cigarette and a slightly dampened pack of matches and started trying to strike up a little more than a conversation. But that’s me.

We’re the number one world superpower, yet our citizens belie a nation on crutches. We have too much money and too much access to too many products. We take a pill for every ailment. "I take my St. Johnswort when I need a lift." "Oh, well I take ginseng." "I take melatonin to help me sleep." "Well, I take kava kava root in my tea." "Well I take…"

Blah! SHUTUP!

We’ve become a nation of Elvises. One pill makes you go up, one makes you go down. Don’t like what you see in the Looking Glass? Take another pill, Alice.

What’s the common theme? We want to live forever and be happy. Cripes, I want to be happy, but not all the time. At times I think I’m pro-tragedy. You need some ugliness in your life to recognize the beauty. When I sit in a Starbucks with my adult sippie cup and see these sixteen year old princes and princesses roll up in their brand new Mercedes that daddy or mommy bought them I have to wonder what they know about struggling and difficulty and the human condition. (Which is why I jump them in the bathroom and take their I-Pod. It’s because I care. I’m merely assisting their growth process.)

And who wants to live forever? Well, maybe Mercedes wants to live forever. But personally I’d like to think that there’s an end to washing the dishes and taking out the trash – ending with someone spinning a twist tie over my head and dropping me in the proper repository. I get tired of situps and shaving and cooking and cleaning. Sometimes I don’t even want to chew. Better living through pharmaceuticals isn’t my way. And there’s always a trade-off.

Our bodies were designed by our DNA so intricately, so perfectly that anything we throw into the mix is unnecessary. It’s unnecessary, and we’re doing it more and more, trying to micromanage the most natural process on earth: the cycle of life and death. They should stop advertising medications on television. I think it’s tantamount to advertising cigarettes. Our nation is hooked on shortcuts and snake oils. "Ooh, I have a stuffy nose. I’d better get a prescription." "Oh no, I’m up five pounds -- I’d better buy some diet pills." "I don’t feel great... I wonder what’s wrong with me?"

GOT THAT GENERAL MALAISE FEELING? TRY GUAIFECES! TIRED OF FEELING TIRED? SLEEPING TOO LONG? SLEEPING TOO LITTLE? DO YOU FIND YOURSELF EATING AT RESTAURANTS AND SHIVERING WHEN YOU STEP OUT OF THE SHOWER? DOES ALCOHOL MAKE YOU DIZZY? DO YOU MISPLACE OR LOSE YOUR DRESS SOCKS ON A REGULAR BASIS? TRY GUAIFECES! DOES SMOKING MAKE YOU COUGH? DO BEANS GIVE YOU GAS? DOES YOUR CHEWING GUM GO STALE ON THE BEDPOST OVERNIGHT? ASK YOUR DOCTOR IF GUAIFECES IS RIGHT FOR YOU, AND START LIVING THE GOOD LIFE AGAIN!

(Side-effects may include dizziness, dry mouth, irritability, sleeplessness, migraine headaches, minor bloodclots, seizures, anal leakage, sexual dysfunction -- including but not limited to impotence or permanent, irreversible erection. In less than 75% of case studies, brain tumors were noted, as were inexplicable and often public homoerotic behavior. Less than 63.47% experienced suicide. Guaifeces is not for use in combination with MAO inhibitors, proteins, starches, grains, water or milk. More than 1.29567% of our case studies experienced swelling of the reproductive glands, and less than 56.3409% experienced mild leprosy that directly attacked the reproductive organs. Do not use Guaifeces if you drink alcohol. Do not use Guaifeces if you are sexually active. Do not use Guaifeces if you are Christian. Only one study resulted in the full-term gestation and birth of the anti-christ.)

GUAIFECES: THERE’S A BETTER WAY TO LIVE!

Pharmaceutical companies and the media have made cowards and hypochondriacs out of the majority of our nation. This is why I bought a motorcycle: to enjoy life from moment to moment, and allow the chance for it to end quickly and not by my own hands. I can’t handle the guilt associated with poisoning myself to save myself. If I took a medication to save my pancreas and in turn gave myself high blood pressure and a heart attack, I couldn’t handle it. I don’t want to be pissed off at myself for some sickly slow suicide. I’d rather be pissed at some frappacino sipping, cell-phone blabbing soccer mom that didn’t bother to look or signal before careening into the left lane and smearing me across eighty feet of asphalt. That’s fine. I’ll come back as her newest spoiled brat and make her life a living hell of late nights and rock music and motorcycles just like the one she smashed sixteen years prior – and I’ll do it all over again.

’Cause I’m probably always gonna be pissed at something or someone, and that’s alright: it helps me get things done. I rather enjoy life, when it’s on my terms. Because when it’s not on your terms, then you’re a prisoner. I think we were put on this world to love and procreate and do things we dig. If you lose those freedoms, or worse – if you give them up in the name of extending your life, then you’re simply lengthening a life sentence of mediocrity spiraling into a self-imposed hell, until there’s nothing left of you but a pair of cloudy eyes, an erratically thumping heart and a soft brain that can’t remember what it was put there for in the first place.

That’s what I think.

The Rules

Bachelorhood: Perhaps I am living a lie. Maybe on the inside I am mourning its loss, while outwardly I maintain that I am still not married. “Oh, you’re married,” they say. Love that. I’ve been with Jane longer than most marriages last. Sure, it gets strained at times, but I’m trying to look on the bright side. As a man, there are certain privileges to being in a relationship. Smaller advantages include emotional support after “battle” or “loss.” Battle includes work. Loss includes an unfavorable outcome in a broadcast sports game or at the poker table. Larger advantages include the tax break you may get for being of the married condition. The really big advantages, the ones no one told me about are the crossover secrets. For example, I have a potpourri connection. You see, men can’t buy potpourri or quality scented candles in the store without risking injury. Cashiers keep small batons (something like Tazers or cattle prods) underneath the counter. If we’re suspect heterosexuals caught buying potpourri or scented candles, the cashier is allowed to stun us into submission. Upon the second offense, we may be taken into the back room and pistol-whipped. God help you if you like Cottenelle’s scented pastels. You know what men are allowed to buy? Glade – stankin’ urinal cake in a box. Pretty much any air freshener we are allowed to have must either be one generation removed from a urinal cake, must require electrical outlets to operate, or must be in a spray can labeled “disinfectant.” Bet you never knew that. It’s true. The same principles and punishments apply to other household accoutrements: flowers & vases, soap you can see through, children… all the stuff we’re not allowed to have without you, the woman.

Another thing we can’t have without you: Mistresses.

By nature, men are polygamous. Women are monogamous. Women must rule this society, since monogamous relationships terminating in marriage are still the standard. It’s unfair. Women want their men to change before they’ve even met them. Relationships form on the premise that they will either end unfavorably, or end in marriage. Unfavorably or unfavorably, from the male perspective. I can’t help it if I want to sleep with every woman I’m attracted to. I don’t do it, though. Why? Because women made the rules of this society. Yet, men are still, by a hair, the figureheads. Puppets, really. Women have made us to feel like uncivilized wretches that would sleep in our own excrement if not for them. Basically, women have won the battle of the sexes – over, by the time it started. No matter what the average successful man does in his youth, sooner or later some woman is going to tie him down and fuck him up. The only guys that haven’t lost the battle of the sexes have switched sides. They must be the double agents. Sure, some heterosexual men may attest that they prefer monogamy.

Check their closets – probably full of gay porn.

You know how women feel about shopping? About fudge? About pampering themselves? Yeah, that’s how guys feel about sex with multiple partners. It’s a validating, enjoyable experience, and we’d rather be doing it ALL THE TIME.

I’m willing to concede that the majority of divorces are caused by men, or at least initiated in some form by men. You see, men have to repress their alpha male urges to sow their seed throughout the land. Eve gave us the apple, and we became Johnny freakin’ Appleseed. Repressed, this bottled polygamist tendency manifests itself in other, ugly behaviors. We might become too critical, we may become slovenly, we may start to drink or eat too much, we may turn to team sports and violence or a combination of any or all of these. We develop little habits that annoy the hell out of you as a gender. You tell your girlfriends, “I never knew he _____,” or, “He didn’t _________ when we were dating.” We didn’t ________ before we dated you, either. It’s all behavior that materialized in some form during the course of the second date, when it looked like there’d be even more dates. From the first moment it appeared the relationship would be moving forward (read: after sex), we subconsciously sabotage it. So, just as you thought, “it” is our fault – whatever “it” is (‘cause frankly we weren’t listening). “It” is always our fault.

So, you’re right, and you win.

I am, of course, totally kidding.

That said, I’m going out, and I’ll be back when I get back, OK?

I mean, if that’s alright with you, dear.

Hedging Bets

I have to say there is a God. Formerly, after nine years of Catholic schooling, I was stuck with this image of a stately old gentleman with long flowing silver hair and a beard, a bright white gown of sorts, maybe a staff, definitely a throne… you know, your basic King James illustrated version of God. Now I don’t know. Maybe he looks like me. Definitely has the silver hair thing going on. But I have to say there is a God. I’m covering my bets, I guess. I mean, what if I go through life saying there isn’t a God, then I die, and there IS a God? He’s not gonna appreciate my former stance too much. Imagine all the atheists that are just gonna be fucked if they’re wrong.

On Track for Death

Jane just called me. She just got off the phone with her friend, Joanna, who is dating a permanent bachelor – much like Jane would describe me. So, in essence, Jane just finished discussing marriage to me with herself. Joanna feels as many women (Jane) do: marriage is a must, so that they, as a couple can move forward with their lives.

“Forward,” I asked, “To where?” When I started dating Jane so many years ago, all our friends (marrying off like flies) kept asking, “When are you getting engaged?” Then, it was, “When are you going to get married?” Next, it’ll be, “When are you having kids?”

“Hey, I have a question for you. Now that you’re married with children, when are you going to die?”

Moving forward, bah. Marriage is the end of the line. Dating stalls death. It’s like working yourself out of a job, I think.

Wanderlust

I listened to a guy named Lyle sing about riding his pony on his boat. I think I know what he means… it has something to do with portable satisfaction, perhaps presented as a romantic longing to ride off into the sunset. I’ve been oppressed by rain and snow and blowing winds that don’t whisk me off toward a balmy horizon, and mostly by my traitorous metabolism. A sunny beach on Costa Rica could be symbolic of happiness for me, but mostly, happiness is currently symbolized by an unattainable 32” waist. Sometimes I feel so far removed from happiness that I don’t even know in what form it comes anymore.

Dissatisfaction stirs many things within me. It’s not all bad, as it can drive me to do better. But when I get better, it’s still there. Sometimes dissatisfaction comes to me as wanderlust. I get it in my head that I have to leave, that I’ve taken a horrible wrong turn somewhere. How did I wind up with this creaky mortgage and a leaky car with a fiancé and a rickety pickety fence? When did I ever want any of this? How can I go on night after night, not learning what it is to sleep in the Mexican rain with the mountain night air thick and green around me? What are the grits like in Georgia? I could do dishes to pay for my breakfast. I want to have coffee in Seattle with strangers and tell them all about my pen-pal friends I never met, and when they leave, pick up a book and not read it, but listen instead to the lapping of waves outside, as they wash away any memory of where it is that I wanted to go next. Then I could hitch down to Malibu and spend a day in the sand and at sunset kiss a girl that I would remember for her scent of coconut on her skin and her silky golden hair that draped over bronzed shoulders. Maybe later I could backtrack to Alaska and kill a wolf in the blinding snow. I want to spear fish on the sun-baked beach of an island that can only be pronounced in its native language, then dance around the fire before sleeping under a million stars. I want to earn my voyage through Indonesia as a crewman aboard a 30-foot fishing skiff. I want to drive my motorcycle through the Rocky Mountains from Durango, CO to Banff, Canada. I want to go bass fishing in the land of 1,000 lakes and chase the dawn from North Dakota, where I’d work for a week as a ranch hand. I want to meet my brother for hush puppies and a beer down in the Carolinas, rent a car to Florida, and sail to Jamaica where I’d climb a waterfall and drink something potent from half a coconut. I’d burn everything buy my boots and favorite jeans, then leave for Arizona and spend a week backpacking in the Superstition Mountains, looking for gold. I’d hitchhike to New Mexico and buy a beater bike for two weeks’ wages as a line cook and take off through the desert, up the Western Slope of the Rockies, then sit on top of the continental Divide, facing the sunrise, trying to decide if I should slide back down into Denver. Maybe instead of returning, I’d go west to L.A. and hook up with a struggling band in need of a drummer. I could drop them for a Chicago-based blues band and drop on down to Mississippi to explore some of those blues roots. Then, almost ready to return, I’d remember that I’ve never had a fresh Maine lobster. As long as I’m in Maine, I could stay until Indian summer and ride with some trucker back to my hometown in NY for a slice of pizza at Tony’s and a dish of gnocchi at Cortese. I’d live with my stepmother for a month and pick up odd jobs to get airfare and then, maybe then, I could get married under the summer evergreens and start a family.

Basically, I’m continually trying to keep from flipping out and driving across the country. Sometimes it just seems so appealing to load up my backpack, throw a leg over the bike and split. I think of the places I could see, the people I’d meet. Sometimes I’d just like to drift into a little town in the middle of nowhere and get caught-up with some blue-eyed enchantress fresh out of college, sit in with a couple of local musicians, maybe work a few days in a factory there, or sweep some floors, serve some drinks, sleep in a tent, maybe fish a day or two and lose myself under the shifted stars that blanket me in my whirlwind, my spiraling submission to fate. In one town I’d have long hair and a beard. In the next I’d be clean cut. I could drift for a year, and just write every morning and every night, keeping a journal of my new life… start over.

But I have Jane, and this job. Maybe I’ve already done my drifting. Someday when I get a few weeks vacation in a row, I’m gonna pack one bag and hit the road. I’m gonna drive from coast to coast and just freak out on all the cats I’ll meet and do things I’ve never heard of and just be every moment, living each for what they are, and then that summer night’s breeze will remind me of that night in Texas and Hey, doesn’t she look like that wild girl from Idaho, and wouldn’t it be cool to go back to Oregon sometime and try ALL the beers?

This could be a crisis.

Yes, it’s feeling like a crisis.

Foray into Children's Books

I may take a crack at writing children’s books. My brother told me that the last piece I wrote was “too dark” for kids. Yet, he reads them Grimm’s Fairy Tales, stories of monsters and evil magic. So, I’ll give it another shot. Let me know which, for the parents out there, is a more appealing title/subject matter:

“Every Locked Cabinet Has a Key”
“Sometimes ‘No’ Means ‘Later’”
“Smoking Made Johnny Cool”
“The Brother or Sister You Almost Had”
“Don’t Play with Uncle Chester”
…and, my personal favorite,
“Booze is Where Babies Come From”

Non-dreams

3 a.m.

I woke up last night... yesterday morning? Cannot be late for work. A drink of water. 3:31 a.m. Go to sleep, damn you. Stop pressuring me. Go to sleep. Believe me, I want to.

For the next 3 hours I tried to sleep. Yet, I dreamed of trying to sleep... for three hours. This was my dream.

My dream log sucks.

Don't read my dream log.

Walkabout

I was out walking downtown last night. Apparently, I'm a bad person because I don't have a cell phone.

Jane said she'd meet me at Gov's Pub, then buy me dinner at Benny's Cantina, which is cool, because if I order a healthy meal like chicken and rice with beans and lettuce and tomatoes and someone in the kitchen decides to smother it with cheese and green chili, it's not my fault.

But I didn't get my accidentally delicious meal. I went to Gov's, no Jane. There were two guys checking I.D.'s at the front door, so I reached for my wallet. He just closed his eyes, wrinkled his nose and shook his head as if to say, "Don't bother, mister." I went to Benny's, no Jane. I went to her office, Jane's car; I knocked on her office door, nobody. I went back to Gov's, and the other security guy just waved me in, without looking at my I.D. Still, no Jane inside. I walked back to Benny's and all these people were like "Weren't you just here?" Yeah, I wanted to hang out with the pretty people, but you're still here. Maybe if I come back in another fifteen minutes?

I went to Rathschild's bar. The guy at the door said, "Hey man, look, I'm supposed to check ID's, but clearly you're old enough." I started to walk past him and he stammered, "It's just that it's my job. Do you have an ID?"
I pulled out my wallet and held it up without opening it, "Yes."
"OK man. Cool."

An elderly waitress approached me. "I've had a really bad day," I started.
"You look like you could use a healthy shot of Jagermeister," she offered, which was funny because healthy and Jagermeister are two words I'd never heard together. She came back with an overpour. "Listen," I asked, "Not to sound insecure, and I'm gonna tip you 20% no matter what you say, but do I look old to you?"
"Oh, honey, no. You're a good looking man, such a healthy glow to your cheeks, too."
"Thanks." I felt stupid for asking.
"Hey, look," she leaned in closer, "I'd date you and I don't typically date older men."
"Older? Than what?"
"I'm only 39," she winked, as though she'd made my day.

I left and walked to Armida's where Jane sometimes goes to watch a coworker of hers sing karaoke. He always sings Maggie May. A few doors prior I encountered a homeless woman. I pulled a buck's worth of change from my pocket, "I don't have much," I offered. "Oh, thank you sir." After a two minute tour of Armida's and, as you guessed, no Jane, I left, passing the woman once again. She hit me up, "Young man, could you spare any money? I'm just trying to get a hotel room for the--"
"Ma'am, I just gave you money two minutes ago."
"Oh," she nodded, "Sorry. Sometimes it's hard to remember. I think it's the alcohol."
You think? Honestly, I couldn't believe she admitted that after taking my money. I mean, isn't there a code among panhandlers that they're supposed to make us think like they're not using it for drugs and alcohol? I don't know what I think they're going to do, maybe use the extra cash to leverage a strategic takeover of an occupied refrigerator box or something... I just don't want to know that they're using it for booze. That's what I could have used it for, damnit.

Why not just anonymously buy the city a round of drinks?

RealitV

I have the hugest T.V. The on button is the size of a door knob. It blows high-def away in terms of clarity, but it only gets two channels, the Nature Channel and one I call the People Channel.

It's way too big for my place. I keep it outside.

I have a smaller one inside. It gets one channel and one show: Lifetime. The plot's thin, and it's lacking in character development.

Beats nothin', I guess.

Cows

I'm so sick of salad. I've eaten more salads this past week than I have in the past year.

That's three now.

I used to like cows. Cows were always cool, standing around, eating grass. I would think, "Man, I admire you, Miss Cow. You are so cool. You make cream, and butter and cheese, and just basically hang out. I would like to bring you home and introduce you to my friend, Mr. Baked Potato."

Now I can't drive past a green field of grazing cows without thinking, "Steak salad."

And that's depressing.

Partly because the fork required would be way too big for me to hold.

Freakin' Frondescence

That was one fucked-up lunch today. This whole "eating healthy" nonsense has gotta go. I am lucky enough to have Jane occasionally make my lunch, and when she so chooses, she can be an excellent cook. Her sense of sensible ingredients for a healthy a dish is surpassed only by what I suppose to be underlying sadistic nature involving ritual beatings and mutilation of small animals. I jest. She loves small animals, and sometimes feeds them to me. But I'm starting to get the feeling that she's trying to tell me something. Granted, I may not be the svelte god I was only last year, but that's no reason to poison me. I mean, the only potential carb in that whole lunch bag was a super single bed of cous-cous. What the hell kind of food is cous-cous? You have to eat like a thousand to realize you've eaten any. She gave me a fork, and those little dust speck cous-cous bastards kept rolling right off between the tongs.

She told me last night that she picked some prepared lamb up from the market and was going to cook it for me and let me take it for lunch. I'm thinking, "Alright! Lamb Chop for lunch!" Yeah? Well, "have I got a story for you." Atop the bed of mushy pinheads was the motley contents of a lamb kabob - one lamb kabob; forty-thousand robust chunks of pepper and onion, each the size of Rhode Island, all gang-banging one defenseless little cube of lamb. To add insult to injury, the lamb had been repeatedly rolled in rosemary. I fucking hate rosemary. I mean, what kind of pine-needly bullshit is rosemary? If it's not getting stuck in my teeth, then it's lancing the back of my throat like a first year Guatemalan med student trying to perform a tonsilectomy with a knitting needle.

"Roughage," she says. Oh, it's rough alright. If I want that kind of roughage I'll finish the damned salad you packed for me.

I don't know what was up with that salad, but it was like trying to shove a juniper bush in my mouth. I stuck my fork in there and pulled out a rosebush or something. I didn't even have a knife to cut it with. She should have packed me a fork, a napkin, a machete and a weedwacker for that damned salad. Whatever happened to the days when a salad meant iceburg lettuce, carrots, an easily avoided tomato chunk, a buttload of croutons and parmesan cheese? Now I'm trying to choke down some kind of ground cover from the Black Forest. Next I'll be gnawing on roots and chasing it with a cup of dirt, "Minerals, don't you know." Can't I just have some fried chicken and a Flintstones chewable?

Fortunately, she hasn't found out about my affair. That's right, I'm getting some action on the side with a hot little number at work. It may be naughty, but she's got the best slot in the world. I know she puts out for others, but I'm pretty sure she saves Slot G for me. For only 55 cents I can get an ounce of Tato Skins anytime I like. Sometimes she likes to mix it up, get a little kinky, and she'll turn me onto some Cheese Nips instead.

It's good to inject a little variety into the routine.

King of the Beasts

I didn't mean to give the wrong impression about Jane. We have a solid thing. A thick, heavy, solid thing. Well, she has me, anyway. And I believe she loves me, wholly, mind body and soul. It's just that I'm not sure she loves the extra 50 lbs. of Crisco I've injected into the body part since we met.

I may just be using food as a substitute for sleeping with multiple partners. At least that kind of juggling was a form of exercise I didn't mind.

If she dumps me, I don't know what I'll do. I'll totally have to get in shape, because the singles market is vicious, and those nightclubs... well, I don't know why they call them meat markets. If they truly were, then pound for pound, I'd be a helluva catch.

I suppose I could always travel to the more recessed portions of West Virginia and start my own game show: "Who Wants To Marry a Brian Blair?" First prize will be me and a canned ham. Runners-up will receive a week's supply of squeeze cheese. All contestants must be 16 years of age, stacked, and willing to bring a cute girlfriend on the honeymoon. That's just awful of me, isn't it? I am of course, kidding.

I would never give away my squeeze cheese.

With my addictive personality I guess I just have to find some happy mediums in my behavior. (Hmmm... "medium" was a long time ago. I may have to look for some happy extra larges.) The first time I quit smoking, I turned to excessive drinking. When I quit excessive drinking, I turned to compulsive shopping for compact discs. When I shook that habit I started compulsively buying albums. When I ran out of good music to buy, I turned to punk rock. When my punk rock collection neared completion, I became an eating machine. I knew I had a problem when I woke up, hung over, my Sex Pistols record skipping on the stereo and I automatically did my morning stretch to the nightstand for the aspirin -- but slathered them with mayonnaise first.

That was rock bottom. I resolved to abuse myself no more. Well, I still drink... and there's that private time in the bathroom... but no more Fatman! I returned to the store that sold me my sea of denim and bought running shoes.

I know I'm a jolly sort, lately, but that damned salesgirl didn't have to laugh all the way through the purchase.
"You find it humorous that I am buying running sneakers," I asked her.
"No sir. (Giggle-giggle) It's just that spandex went out of style, like, 20 years ago."
I signed for the purchase and collected my bag. "I'm not wearing spandex," I indignantly replied, "These are sweat pants." I huffed out of the store. I could hear the laughter well-up as I reached the door. Someone chuckled, "I've never seen cotton do THAT before."

I went home, put on my new sneakers and started my new exercise regime at 6 p.m., making sure to stretch real well before running. I finished my new exercise regime at 6:09 p.m., staggering back into my house, sucking wind. My lungs were on fire and I could feel each individual tooth vibrating in my head. I wobbled to the fridge on rubber legs and poured a water, steadying it with two shaking hands as I gulped it down, half the glass running down my neck, into my sweatshirt, cooling my heaving man boobs. The liquid's weight was too great for my weakened legs and they collapsed under me. So I traversed the room via the kitchen cabinet handles, monkey bar fashion, finishing the circuit at the liquor cabinet, where I poured one vodka for the pain, then one to forget.

There has to be an easier way. I mean, I'm pretty sure my strength is the same it ever was, but the load keeps getting heavier. Shouldn't this inherently have made me stronger? Speaking of loads, I was quite dismayed when I started jogging and realized that the persistent tugging motion I was feeling was the rise and fall of Abner as I staggered down the street like a wounded wildebeest. It wasn't nearly as interesting as watching a buxom jogger bounce by. At least if my breast were a little larger I would have kept running for the sheer entertainment value.

I can't believe all this flesh is mine. The up and down of the gut was really embarrassing, too -- not to mention a bit painful. With every crushing step into the pavement, the impact would jar my nards, causing them to bounce upward in time, as Abner was thrusting back down upon them. After one block I became the human Ker-Banger -- my stomach pile driving my testicles in sadistic rhythm. That was a lot of stress to put on my knees as well. At any moment I expected my shinbones to splinter, piercing through my knees in a spray of butter and gravy.

These new sneakers are clearly flawed.

So, I've done the running thing for the past week, but the pain didn't cease. It did, in fact, increase. It feels as though I'm driving my spine through my brain like a barbecue skewer through a cherry tomato. So I've taken to running at night, in the dark. The daytime finger pointing, staring and laughter was just too reminiscent of showering in the high school locker room after gym class.

Sometimes, when running at night, I've pretended I was a ninja, rapidly stalking my unsuspecting enemy. But the thunderous steps beneath my bull-like legs have ruined the fantasy, so now I pretend I'm a Tyrannosaurus Rex, crashing through prehistoric jungles rabidly in search of my next prey. What would I eat as a T-Rex? Hmm... Mozzarella sticks, chicken nuggets, baked potatoes with cheese, and two quarter pound burgers with everything. (T-Rex's don't eat junk food, lardass.) Shut up! I'm a T-Rex! I'll eat YOU!

Holly, Jolly, Jiggly

I really am trying to lose weight. I used to think that it was solely up to me whether or not Jane and I got married, but now, as they say in poker, I have "no hand."

A friend told me something unnerving recently: She said that, even though I've gained much weight ("a preposterous amount of weight," I believe was her terminology), my disposition has been far cheerier than since she's known me. She put forth the suggestion that overeating may be making me happy. She also politely asked that I don't diet, because she actually enjoys being around me now. She is a kind, honest, straightforward person, so I took the words into careful consideration, tenderly wrapped my arm around her shoulder, gave a light squeeze, and told her to fuck off. I mean, the nerve! How could she be so calloused when I'm only days away from losing sight of my wee-wee when sitting.

Maybe she's right, though. I used to be pretty cranky. Now I'm just jiggly. Perhaps I've subconsciously decided to be Santa Claus this Christmas. Maybe I'm just destined to be a big, jolly fat guy! There's no shame in that, right? Everyone loves the jolly fat guy at the party. I can develop a hearty laugh, rosy cheeks and nose, and become a connoisseur of fine foods and wines. I'll throw fabulous parties for no reason and people will all want me at their holiday functions because I'll light up the room when I walk in and I'll always bring the best champagne. I'll dress humorously ostentatiously and say charming, witty things that make people feel good about themselves and life. I will tell fascinating tales of my travels abroad and of the faux pas of the upper crust with whom I hobnob. Men and women alike will hang on my every word and think of me as a lifelong friend only moments after they have made my acquaintance. Every party's success will be gauged by whether or not I attended. People will fly me to their estates for weekends of mimosas and croquet and everyone will think I'm some sort of Duke or Baron, though I will not have started the rumor. Baron von Blair. Hmm... has a nice ring to it, eh? Baron Bri. Big Bri, the Baron. Baron von Beefy...

And all I have to do is keep eating.

Turning Addictions into Superpowers

Some people just have addictive personalities. For me it started with cigarettes, music, then drugs, women, alcohol, sex, drugs, rock n' roll... the American way. Your all-American Toxic Boy. Then, slowly, I quit. First, the drugs, then the cigarettes, then the rock n' roll (immediately followed by a cessation of dating multiple partners). Then I picked up Jane, then the cigarettes again. But I fully intend to quit. Cigarettes, not Jane. And then we'll get married and I'll be free of all the addictions, 'cause, well, bye-bye sex. Or so I'm told.

I'd better hang onto the alcohol for awhile.

These cigarettes, though, they're a bitch. Cigarettes, not Jane. I successfully quit for five years. I set up a rewards program: every week without a cigarette, I'd buy myself a new CD. Turned out to be every day. Now I have a small record shop in my basement.

But then the food addiction kicked-in, oh-so-subtly. I liked it better when I was solely addicted to buying music. Maybe I could get addicted to buying new pants. It's certainly easier than doing a situp. Or maybe I could be a fat-assed superhero, roaming the seedy city streets after dark. My super power could be my ability to inhale anything not nailed down within a 50-yard radius, and my special weapon could be a studded belt that launched a spray of metal spikes every time I squatted down. I could sit on my enemies and squeeze them into submission. In times of serious trouble, Max could release a noxious gas that seizes the nerve center of any living organizm within 100 feet. I could give myself a catchy superhero name, like "Fatman," and come up with a catchy phrase like, "Eat me, punk." And the only thing that could stop Fatman would be Brussel sprouts -- my kryptonite. I can work out the details later, I suppose.

Personal Growth

It doesn't help that when I cook, I cook for a small army. I had my mom and stepfather over recently and made a five-course meal: cheese & crackers with dried fruit, shrimp cocktail, baked potato-cheese soup, lobster tail and NY strip steak with twice-baked potatoes that were each the size of a baby's head. We were so stuffed we couldn't even get to the blackberry cobbler and Haagen-Dasz. Well, they couldn't. It wasn't really my fault that I couldn't stop myself. I am rendered powerless by anything in a fruit glaze.

I used to be a dazzlingly handsome lad with an untamed sense of adventure and the physique of a Q-Tip. I never thought I'd get this big. It's been like one long cheese-filled nightmare. I'll never forget the awakening, either:

It was two days after that Sunday dinner that I discovered dimples in my legs. I was horrified. It was such an undeserved discovery. I was finishing off the last of the Marie Callendar's blackberry cobbler and Haagen-Dasz vanilla ice cream, laying on the couch, watching a DVD rental of my 5th favorite t.v. show, when I looked down at my left leg -- bent and pinned under my right one -- to wipe up a little ice cream that had dribbled off the side of my tray.

There they were: two indentations on the inside of my leg! It looked like a scar from a bad dog bite or something. I couldn't figure out for sure what these were, so I asked Jane. She told me its something fat people have.
"Oh my God," I shouted, "You're kidding. Tell me you're kidding!"
She rolled her eyes, amused at my panic, "Don't worry about it. Those aren't nearly as bad as the ones all over your ass."

I ran to the mirror, dropped my drawers and turned to see my profile. She was right. It looked as though I had suffered a series of shark attacks on my hindquarters. I orbited another quarter turn to try and get the full-on view. I had to put a second mirror next to the first. I took off my shirt and witnessed the full reality of my metamorphosis into the Pillsbury Dough Boy. I was so unnerved that I immediately developed hiccups, which fortunately kept me from polishing off Jane's portion of dessert. I went back to the living room with a glass of water to soothe the indigestion and continued hiccupping between small sobs. I jiggled and Jane began to giggle.
"What the hell are you--HICCUP!--laughing at?" I demanded.
"I'm sorry honey, it's just that when you do that--"
"HICCUP!"
"Hee-hee... when you do that it looks like someone adjusting the venetian blinds-- hee-hee-hee-heeee..."

Max

But first, meet Abner.

Some people name their private parts (pee-pees, hoo-hoos, hooters, what-have-you). Me, I've named my gut and butt: Abner Dunlop and Max. Well, Maximillion, really, the fat bastard son of Glutius Maximus... but just Max for short -- like Madonna, or Cher, or Sting or Bono. My rump will be just as widely known one day. It's not really psychosis that brought me to naming them. I pretty much HAD to name them. It'd be like if you gave birth to Siamese twins and just called them Bob. In a way, it was like giving birth, only without all the blood and screaming. Maybe more like gestation. Granted, they're not even a year old, but they're already eating all my food and ruining my wardrobe. I had to buy all new jeans and slacks because my waist size has shot up 3". Further, my "old" jeans are permanently creased at the waistand, folded in half between the hips and the fly because Abner, my fleshy friend, has run rampant over what used to be a swimmer's waist. I guess it still is a swimmer's waist -- swimming in gelatinous undulations of lard.

Don't get me started on the sebaceous sea monster that is Max.

Still, God bless Cheetos. I've even taking to eating them with a fork. In the quantity I consume at one sitting, it takes two to three hand washings to get that orange crap off my fingers. And with the fork I at least look more dignified when sucking down my preservatives and nitrates.

It was those three waist sizes ago that I destroyed my absolute favorite pair of bluejeans. I squeezed into them, somewhat shocked that they had shrunk in my dresser drawer (a phenomenon I blissfully attributed to an unusually humid week), and when I bent over THE METAL BUTTON ON THE JEANS BROKE IN HALF! Half flew off my body, spiraling away with a warbling whizz like a bullet tumbling from an M16, and the other half remained jaggedly embedded in the denim.

I was shocked, stunned. It certainly was motivational for me, though. The next day, for the first time in about a year, I got off my butt, put on my sneakers, embraced a beautiful sunny day outside, and went straight back to the store to return those jeans for full credit.

Malaise Medley

My lunch today (again): 1 can o' tuna, 8 water crackers, 1 spherical fruit-like substance, 1 lite Kraft cheese single, 6 oz. fat-free black cherry yogurt, 1 slice of wheat bread (for toasting), 75 fluid oz. spring water and unlimited servings of Louisianna Hot Sauce and crushed red pepper.

Mmmm... oh yeah. Delicious. There's nothing like canned fish to brighten the day. Unless it's that fruity thing I bit into that emptied a waterfall of juice onto my crotch. Now I'm stuck in my office until it dries, damnit.

The toaster's broken and there was a cherry stem in my crappy little 6 oz fat free yogurt -- my indulgence for the day. I'm seconds away from giving into Slot G. I hear the machine calling me. There be Tato Skins in there. I know there are: I watched intently as the vending machine guy load in each 1 oz. baggie of saturated perfection at 9:05 this morning. At least until he caught me staring.

He probably doesn't even truly know what a "pervert" is.

Shit. No cash. It's a shame to be surrounded by all these valuable office supplies and have no one to sell them to. Too bad: 55 cents for a Swingline stapler is a hell of a deal.

One of my coworkers always has money with her. She won't lend it to me though. I made the mistake of telling her that I went on a diet, and now every day its, "How's the diet going, Brian? How many pounds, Brian? Still goin' strong, Brian? Don't you miss fatty foods, Brian," to which I'd like to reply by pouncing on her meaty haunches, clawing my way up to the sausage rolls on the back of her neck and chewing one of the cheeks off her face.

I really don't want to cannibalize her... much. She means well -- which is exactly why she won't lend me 55 cents. I could throw her off by asking for five bucks or more, but it's conspicuously close to the lunch hour.

The water cooler is right outside her office. I refill my bottle on the way to the lunchroom, lunchbag in hand. Every damned time it's the same question, "How much weight have you lost now, Brian?" I immediately feel guilty because I know I'm on my way to stuff my face full of rice cakes or something similarily revolting, so I always tell her, "Lost another pound!"
"Great work, Brian!" Thanks to a primary education in the Colorado school system, her math skills leave something to be desired. By my calculations, I've lost a pound per day for the last six weeks, sometimes two pounds in a day if I keep bumping into her... a sum total that leaves me somewhere around the body weight of an eighth grade girl.
"How much weight have you lost now, Brian?"
"Well, I lost a pound in the staff meeting, and another pound while talking to you just now!"

My pants are dry. I should go.

Rapidly Rappelling Down from Physical Peak

I used to be too skinny, now I'm too fat. When was I ever "just right?" Probably for the same 20 minutes in which I hit my sexual prime. I was probably cleaning the house or something, and Lo! I hit my optimum weight and sexual peak... swept away like dust off the baseboards.

J'ever notice that three out of the four letters in "diet" spell DIE? Something inherently wrong there. I try to stick to tuna, crackers, yogurt, assorted fish, popcorn and other tasteless treats sprayed with I Can't Believe It's Not Urine. That shit tastes like extract of crawfish or something... just not butter.

My waist isn't changing much, though. Disheartening. I complain that my arms and chest are getting smaller and my waist is staying the same, but Jane looks at my arms and says, "They're just more firm. You're getting cut, that's all." It's unnerving how she can look me straight-faced and lie like that. Makes me worry. Anyway, I know from cut. Cut means that the muscles are defined, casting shadows on the firm flesh below. I gotta step into my closet and turn off the light to cast a shadow on these arms.

I'm just achin' to get home and fix me a nice bowl of slightly brown mixed greens and watery tomatoes. Know what I mean?

Title

I really wanted to write something creative here, but it's been a long day and my head is asleep. You know how when your leg goes to sleep and it feels like its a tube of sand? Like that. Plus, nothing really interesting happened to me today.

Well, I started a blog... but you knew that. And so far: hmmm... not so interesting.

I guess we have to just keep feeding the brain and hoping creativity will blossom. But we have to have a plan. Do you have a plan? Having a plan is paramount. My plan is to get a plan. But that's my plan -- you have to find your own, you plan-snatching bastards.

Praise for Afternoon Sessions

Afternoon Sessions
B. Blair & the Jazz Thugs

I believe that what B. Blair has accomplished in the Jazz Thugs’ Afternoon Sessions will affect the whole character of jazz music profoundly and pervasively, but I am certain that this opinion is nowhere near as singular as the style and finesse attained in Afternoon Sessions.

Jazz today is suffering a malaise, a curtain of negativity which fresh artists -- commended for their attempts – have draped over the genre through atonal musings and cliché progressions. Blair has torn through this black barrier to deliver an ornate package of complexity, feeling and soul – truly meritorious for a suburban white boy. Brought to us under the influence of greats such as Davis, Parker, Coleman, Gillespie and Blakey, Blair is sculpting works of art upon a solid yet comparatively simple platform.

Beyond the Afternoon Sessions’ songs and the surge of emotion they elicit, one accomplishment rises above the rest: This music will make girls take off their panties. I don’t mean that figuratively. I mean that if you play this CD, any girls within listening range will remove their undergarments and begin to rub their legs together like lovesick crickets in heat. Says Blair,

“I got into music for one reason and one reason only: Sex. I was as surprised as everyone else when it turned out that I could play… For years I did the rock and roll thing, and it paid off. Hell, I’ve slept with more women than most men have ever seen. Now I feel it’s my turn to give something back, especially to all those guys whose girlfriends I shtupped. That’s what Sessions is all about: Sex. But not for me. I’ll just be there in the background, coming through your speakers, watching, smiling…”

This disc has been specifically designed as a sexual aid. The aphrodisiac quality of which Blair speaks truly comes through in tunes such as “Best if Used by THIS Date” and “Spank Me Harder Daddy”.

“I want you to get some. Just because you got the girl back to your place doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing. Let me help.”

Blair’s unique approach to modern music has often rewarded him with harsh criticism from feminists and bleeding heart liberals alike. Accused of repetitive objectification of women and the corruption of soft youthful morals, Blair continually offers his seasoned reply,
“So?”

Afternoon Sessions is sure to revive the fertility of jazz creation in the new millennium. Blair’s probing, thrusting and often sodomistic style of playing will awaken the senses of jazz critics and virgins alike. A lineage of back-of-the-tour-bus-hard-banging-rock, cunning funk and spiritual/existential jazz culminates in this one powerhouse album. Blair’s choice of accompaniment could not have been better calculated. Sensitivity, compassion and comfort are established with the adept musical foreplay of Jazz Thugs Tyler Newcastle and Lonely Boy, luring the listener into “Paper Trick” like Bo Peep into a dark wood after her lost lamb. Once inside, Bo Peep loses more than her lamb when the wolves in sheep’s clothing devour her in a tormented crescendo of wailing and moaning as Steve Swampfoot, Newcastle and Blair strip away every last sense of convention and dignity, leaving listeners so satisfied that they’ll be standing in line to wash and iron the Thugs’ khakis.

NOTE: This CD also works on gay men.

-- Cliff Stryker, Editor, National Jazz Review

Do-Over

This blog (ugh, I hate the term "blog," it's just so... blog) is a place of happiness and light and creamy goodness and bunnies which frolic sometimes in fields of flowers. But there is no harp music. (I won't have it. It's gay, and not happy gay.) If you wish, envision harpsichord, which is more in accord with my personal taste.

This is a do-over. There's another place, a black blog which grows darker and darker and quite frankly gives me the creeps. Sure, I made it. Sometimes I give myself the creeps. So, we're gonna hang out over here instead, 'K? This place will be our happy place, our sanctuary to bibble-babble and play, our Shangrila-di-da. There will be much giggling, tittering, doodling and snotting of the nose. If possible, milk should pass through nostrils. Don't use root beer: it hurts.

This is a space built for my friend. It is adjacent to, under the same ownership as, and connected by an esplinade to the surprisingly affordable co-op that is my heart. Loud parties and wild behavior are encouraged.

Serious introspection is strictly prohibited. Any violators of this code will be hunted down, coated in something sticky and fed to the aforementioned Left Hand Black.

You got a problem with that?

I didn't think so.

Now, onward with the jocularity. March!