Good news, my money worries are over. For a while there I was having trouble, trying to figure out how to pay for a wedding and a new condo. But lady luck visited my inbox this morning, and it's easy street from here on out, I tell you. Check out my ticket to the good life:
Dearest Beloved One,I am Mrs. Anita Adams Johnson from Ivory Coast. I was married to Late Cheif Adams Johnson who was a contractor with the government of Cote D'Ivoire before he died after few days in the hospital. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $8.700 Million with a Bank in Cote D lvoire. Presently this money is still in the custody of the Bank here in Cote DIvoire.My Doctor told me that it is very likely i will die within the next 3 months due to A Blood cancer {LUCAMIA}. I have decided to donate the money for charity to you since i do not have a child to inherit it and it better i do not die leaving the money here without it reaching the poor and the lessprivilaged ones in the society. As soon as I receive your reply I shall tell my bank to transfer themoney to you.
EMAIL ME ON : kkkanitaadams200@yahoo.co.uk
Mrs. Anita Adams Johnson.
Pretty fucking sweet, am I right? I mean, I'm no expert on Cote D'Ivoire, but this all does sound pretty promising, doesn't it? Intrigued, I spent the morning investigating and I picked up a slew of facts about the good old Ivory Coast:
1. Government contractors and their spouses have adopted several spellings for their homeland, including: Cote D'Ivoire, Cote D Ivoire, and Cote DIvoire. Note that the correct spelling is actually Cote d'Ivoire. Man, I thought us government contractors in the United States were creative when we made up terms like Earned Value Management and Business Processing Engineering. But we've got nothing on the guys in Africa, who make up new names for the places they live!
2. Despite living in a French-speaking country, the people of Ivory Coast have recently begun the very hip trend of giving their children American names. Anita Adams Johnson- doesn't get any more American than that. Oddly, boys are often named for their distant Icelandic relatives, including the late Cheif Adams Johnson, obviously a modern take on the name of his ancestor, Leif Ericson, of Ivory Coast-founding, possible America-discovering (don't tell the Sopranos) fame. Finally, it's good to see the ancient Ivory Coastian tradition of wives adopting the middle and last names of their husbands is still intact.
3. Poor Anita, stricken with such a terrible disease. When I got the cancer the diagnosis was pretty bleak, but not so goddamn bleak that they called it A Blood cancer. That sounds terrible! When your disease is capitalized I think you can pretty much kiss your ass goodbye. And I confess I was unfamiliar with {LUCAMIA}. Are the brackets a part of the word? Or is that the worst spelling of leukemia in history? Maybe it's like Mad Libs for doctors with poor spelling? I google'd it, and this is troubling and funny enough to warrant posting here. Someone posted the following on a translation request website (Proz- who knew such a thing existed?), asking for help figuring out the meaning of:
"That man in your porch is like lucamia on your face."
The response he got:
"that man is as welcome as leukemia (skin lesions) on your face"
Dude wtf? I have leukemia, and I ain't got no skin lesions of my face. But then again I've never had a man in my porch. Doesn't that sound kind of dirty, actually? I honestly don't know what to make of this entire exchange, and this post is getting derailed, but for some reason the whole thing makes me laugh. Where was I?
4. Oh right, Anita is gonna die, and she wants to leave the money to the "the poor and the lessprivilaged." Look, I'm not rich by any means. But if you're picking me out as lessprivilaged than your fellow Ivory Coastians, then a lot of fucking people have been telling me a lot of fucking lies about the standard of living in Africa. Oh well, at least I don't feel so bad about Baby's engagement ring. Next time I see that Leonard DiCaprio I'm gonna tell him to piss up a rope. Blood Diamond my ass.
5. Best part- Anita's email address: kkkanitaadams200@yahoo.co.uk. If I had any doubts about your charitable intent Anita, they melted away the minute I saw you were a member of the Brotherhood. The KKK in Africa. Really, who knew?
Monday, July 09, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Condos at The Whitman: Getting Cheaper, Staying Sucky
We're in the condo market, but it's a goddamn minefield. In case you hadn't noticed, there are 2,308,729,571 units for sale in Northwest DC, and they're all nearly identical. Five or six sell each week. Now I've never taken one of those real estate seminars advertised in infomercials, but it looks like we've got more condos than buyers. And I seem to remember something from Econ classes in college about supply and demand, so I think we're in the driver's seat. I imagine there are deals to be had.
So we've been waiting for the proverbial bubble to burst, and it looks like it's about to. Over the Winter, there was a steady supply of condos coming on to the market as new developments opened. But when Spring arrived, the number for sale skyrocketed. People are bailing out, selling existing units and backing out of contracts on ones under construction, but the developers continue to flood the market with new units. In the meantime, sales agents have grown desperate.
Exhibit A is The Whitman, a gigantic new condo building adjacent to the Convention Center. I've been walking by this building every day for two years now, and I have to admit it's impressive. It does appear to have a bit of character, unlike so many of the cookie-cutter places going up. And you can't beat the location. Unfortunately, that's about all it has going for it.
When it was under construction we were actually pretty excited, and we contacted the sales office to get more information. We weren't surprised- $500,000+, minimum, for a one bedroom loft unit with a den. Plus another $35,000 for parking (not that we need it). What a deal, right? Sadly, that's been the going rate in the neighborhood for a few years, and we've decided we like the area enough that we want to stay within these few blocks. So I contacted them again to get more specifics.
They started flooding me with emails and phone calls for open houses, private showings, special events, and everything else imaginable. The message was always the same: Get them while they're hot! These condos won't last forever! Ignoring the bullshit, I asked pointed questions.
bryc3: "Where are the loft units located in the building?"
The Whitman: "On the ground floor, so you'll have your own private entrance!"
bryc3: "You mean those ones in the front? Those are condos and not retail or something?"
The Whitman: "That's right! You're just steps from all the neighborhood has to offer!"
bryc3: "There are no bars on the windows, they're just french doors."
The Whitman: "Rest assured, the neighborhood is perfectly safe. Shall I send over a contract?"
bryc3: "Safe, sure, got it. Where do you live?"
The Whitman: "Alexandria. Why?"
bryc3: click
Shaw is, to put it delicately, a neighborhood in transition. It certainly isn't Southeast, but it ain't Reston, either. And you would have to be a certified fucking idiot to move into one of those places without bars on the windows. People can, and do, walk right up to those windows from the sidewalk and peer inside. You could rob each of them blind by merely breaking one pane of glass and turning the door handle. You'd be gone with some metrosexual's plasma TV and the keys to his Jetta before he even woke up. And lord only knows how dangerous it would be for a woman in one those places. But in order to keep the prices high, and to project the air of safety, they've refrained from putting bars on the windows. Nice. That's crossing some ethical line in my book. There have been several murders in the immediate neighborhood this year, and there is a long-standing (although hopefully cooling) gang war happening just a few blocks away.
Thankfully, other people seem to have noticed, too. Those units are generally empty, although a few brave souls (read: idiots) have moved in. That hasn't stopped The Whitman's marketing campaign though. They're plowing ahead, continuing to pledge that the units are going fast, and you need to act now! I got this email yesterday:
"The time is at hand when The Whitman will be sold out. Thanks to the overwhelming response to The Whitman's unconventional elegance, this summer is the final opportunity to purchase a one-bedroom/den/two-bath or two-bedroom/two-bath condominium - parking included.
$15,000 Incentive! For a limited time, The Whitman is offering a closeout incentive of $15,000 any way you want it: toward closing costs, toward condo fees, as a discount on the purchase price - whatever (except cash - sorry!)."
Hang on a second, I wanna make sure I've got this straight. The "overwhelming" response you've received (not to mention the "elegance" that comes with broken beer bottles and cigarette butts on the roof) has created a buying frenzy, and you just can't manage the demand. To compensate, you're now throwing in parking that used to cost $35,000, and you're offering to give me $15,000 if I move in? Man, those things must be flying off the shelves!
Why even both lying to me? Why not be honest, and admit you've slashed prices by 10% in attempt to move units that are unsafe and sitting on the market? Oh, right, the whole panic thing. Sorry.
So we've been waiting for the proverbial bubble to burst, and it looks like it's about to. Over the Winter, there was a steady supply of condos coming on to the market as new developments opened. But when Spring arrived, the number for sale skyrocketed. People are bailing out, selling existing units and backing out of contracts on ones under construction, but the developers continue to flood the market with new units. In the meantime, sales agents have grown desperate.
Exhibit A is The Whitman, a gigantic new condo building adjacent to the Convention Center. I've been walking by this building every day for two years now, and I have to admit it's impressive. It does appear to have a bit of character, unlike so many of the cookie-cutter places going up. And you can't beat the location. Unfortunately, that's about all it has going for it.
When it was under construction we were actually pretty excited, and we contacted the sales office to get more information. We weren't surprised- $500,000+, minimum, for a one bedroom loft unit with a den. Plus another $35,000 for parking (not that we need it). What a deal, right? Sadly, that's been the going rate in the neighborhood for a few years, and we've decided we like the area enough that we want to stay within these few blocks. So I contacted them again to get more specifics.
They started flooding me with emails and phone calls for open houses, private showings, special events, and everything else imaginable. The message was always the same: Get them while they're hot! These condos won't last forever! Ignoring the bullshit, I asked pointed questions.
bryc3: "Where are the loft units located in the building?"
The Whitman: "On the ground floor, so you'll have your own private entrance!"
bryc3: "You mean those ones in the front? Those are condos and not retail or something?"
The Whitman: "That's right! You're just steps from all the neighborhood has to offer!"
bryc3: "There are no bars on the windows, they're just french doors."
The Whitman: "Rest assured, the neighborhood is perfectly safe. Shall I send over a contract?"
bryc3: "Safe, sure, got it. Where do you live?"
The Whitman: "Alexandria. Why?"
bryc3: click
Shaw is, to put it delicately, a neighborhood in transition. It certainly isn't Southeast, but it ain't Reston, either. And you would have to be a certified fucking idiot to move into one of those places without bars on the windows. People can, and do, walk right up to those windows from the sidewalk and peer inside. You could rob each of them blind by merely breaking one pane of glass and turning the door handle. You'd be gone with some metrosexual's plasma TV and the keys to his Jetta before he even woke up. And lord only knows how dangerous it would be for a woman in one those places. But in order to keep the prices high, and to project the air of safety, they've refrained from putting bars on the windows. Nice. That's crossing some ethical line in my book. There have been several murders in the immediate neighborhood this year, and there is a long-standing (although hopefully cooling) gang war happening just a few blocks away.
Thankfully, other people seem to have noticed, too. Those units are generally empty, although a few brave souls (read: idiots) have moved in. That hasn't stopped The Whitman's marketing campaign though. They're plowing ahead, continuing to pledge that the units are going fast, and you need to act now! I got this email yesterday:
"The time is at hand when The Whitman will be sold out. Thanks to the overwhelming response to The Whitman's unconventional elegance, this summer is the final opportunity to purchase a one-bedroom/den/two-bath or two-bedroom/two-bath condominium - parking included.
$15,000 Incentive! For a limited time, The Whitman is offering a closeout incentive of $15,000 any way you want it: toward closing costs, toward condo fees, as a discount on the purchase price - whatever (except cash - sorry!)."
Hang on a second, I wanna make sure I've got this straight. The "overwhelming" response you've received (not to mention the "elegance" that comes with broken beer bottles and cigarette butts on the roof) has created a buying frenzy, and you just can't manage the demand. To compensate, you're now throwing in parking that used to cost $35,000, and you're offering to give me $15,000 if I move in? Man, those things must be flying off the shelves!
Why even both lying to me? Why not be honest, and admit you've slashed prices by 10% in attempt to move units that are unsafe and sitting on the market? Oh, right, the whole panic thing. Sorry.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Thanks LeBron, Thanks A Lot
So I hate that LeBron James. Something about him rubs me the wrong way, and I assure you it has nothing to do with his team knocking my Wizards out of the playoffs the last two years. I just think he's a dorknob.
My feelings are unlikely to change soon, as I've just read that he's fathered a baby delivered this morning named:
Bryce Maximus James
I don't know where to begin. A childhood of torture for having a sissy name has left me scarred and bitter. Why couldn't my mother have thought to name me Maximus? Think how much more masculine I would have become! I'm willing to bet that Maximus will never be taunted with the name Bryciepooh. Although to be honest, Maxiwuss has potential.
Bryce is cursed name. On the one hand, you meet women who say, "Oh, I love that name!" Let's face it, you're not going to hear a woman say, "His name is Mike/John/Dave, isn't that just the coolest name ever?!" So that's pretty cool. But those women become the mothers who name their kids Adrian or Perry or Brantley, and then the poor bastard gets the shit kicked out of him every day until he mercifully graduates from high school, assuming he doesn't Columbine first.
That *ahem* benefit doesn't begin to counter the most pressing problem. Every single man who meets a guy named Bryce will immediately think he's a douche. I could extend the blood-stained hand I've just used to bludgeon the dead deer I'm carrying home to feed my wolves, and the guy is still going to think I'm a fairy.
And finally, we all know that Bryce is absolutely a gay name. LeBron's take on homosexuality is remarkably mature, so that probably shouldn't be a big deal, right?
"You take showers together, you're on the bus, you talk about things. With teammates, you have to be trustworthy. If you're gay and you're not admitting that you are, you're not trustworthy. It's the locker room code; it's a trust factor.'' -Akron Beacon Journal
Uh oh.
My feelings are unlikely to change soon, as I've just read that he's fathered a baby delivered this morning named:
Bryce Maximus James
I don't know where to begin. A childhood of torture for having a sissy name has left me scarred and bitter. Why couldn't my mother have thought to name me Maximus? Think how much more masculine I would have become! I'm willing to bet that Maximus will never be taunted with the name Bryciepooh. Although to be honest, Maxiwuss has potential.
Bryce is cursed name. On the one hand, you meet women who say, "Oh, I love that name!" Let's face it, you're not going to hear a woman say, "His name is Mike/John/Dave, isn't that just the coolest name ever?!" So that's pretty cool. But those women become the mothers who name their kids Adrian or Perry or Brantley, and then the poor bastard gets the shit kicked out of him every day until he mercifully graduates from high school, assuming he doesn't Columbine first.
That *ahem* benefit doesn't begin to counter the most pressing problem. Every single man who meets a guy named Bryce will immediately think he's a douche. I could extend the blood-stained hand I've just used to bludgeon the dead deer I'm carrying home to feed my wolves, and the guy is still going to think I'm a fairy.
And finally, we all know that Bryce is absolutely a gay name. LeBron's take on homosexuality is remarkably mature, so that probably shouldn't be a big deal, right?
"You take showers together, you're on the bus, you talk about things. With teammates, you have to be trustworthy. If you're gay and you're not admitting that you are, you're not trustworthy. It's the locker room code; it's a trust factor.'' -Akron Beacon Journal
Uh oh.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Today Show: "Webkinz Carry Smallpox"
Unfortunately that's not true.
So I'm watching the Today Show this morning because it's my personal Two Minutes Hate. They were running a segment on something called Webkinz- the latest kids toy in the vein of Cabbage Patch Kids and Beanie Babies. Ignore, for a moment, that as is the case with nearly all of these crazes, the people who are most excited are poorly adjusted adults. Webkinz are different from typical stuffed animals, because somehow the internet is involved. Apparently kids go online and take care of the pets, decorate their houses, and attract sexual predators. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but the segment featured a lot of pasty little seven-year-old kids clicking their mouses on the computers in their bedrooms.
Kids are going batshit crazy for these things, and what's a parent to do? You just can't find them anywhere, the stores sell out too fast! The segment focuses on young girls who have dozens of them in their bedroom, and they love them all ever so much. And if you're into the Children of the Corn, you can't help but feel for these poor little girls who want, nay, FUCKING NEED, more Webkinz. For God's sake, won't someone think of the children!?
So, like:
1) We're on the verge of any number of world wars, and the entire earth is turning to shit by the second. If your biggest concern is that you can't find Webkinz for your spoiled children, you need to re-evaulate your priorities. If you feel compelled to save the children from this tragedy, and you believe the correct avenue for doing this is bitching about Webkinz on the Today Show, then you simply have to kill yourself.
2) We only have a 'shortage' of Webkinz because you bought ninety of them for your rotten children the last time they were in stock. As you drove your SUV from toy store to toy store throughout the suburbs, did you ever once consider the poor kids who would go without as you snapped up every one you could find, all along knowing it still wouldn't be enough to satiate your own materialistic children?
3) Your seven year old son (Cole, Maddox, Banana Republic, whatever his name is) who loves Webkinz? Gay.
4) Tomorrow's Today Show will almost certainly contain a segment on childhood obesity. Parents and researchers will wag their fingers and blame Oreos and commercials. They'll petition the school board and get cookies removed from the cafeteria. And the kids who actually, I dunno, go outside and run around sometimes will be punished while your kids become fatties as they sit in front of computers playing with their virtual pets.
5) Everyone at Ganz, the company who makes Webkinz, should be fired today. The company has stated that demand has been crushing, and they've been unable to come up with a strategy to manufacture what has become the hottest toy for American girls, ages 4 to 8. You're lying or retarded. What idiot doesn't know that the best way to make toys for American girls, ages 4 to 8, is to pay Vietnamese girls, ages 4 to 8, to make them?
So I'm watching the Today Show this morning because it's my personal Two Minutes Hate. They were running a segment on something called Webkinz- the latest kids toy in the vein of Cabbage Patch Kids and Beanie Babies. Ignore, for a moment, that as is the case with nearly all of these crazes, the people who are most excited are poorly adjusted adults. Webkinz are different from typical stuffed animals, because somehow the internet is involved. Apparently kids go online and take care of the pets, decorate their houses, and attract sexual predators. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but the segment featured a lot of pasty little seven-year-old kids clicking their mouses on the computers in their bedrooms.
Kids are going batshit crazy for these things, and what's a parent to do? You just can't find them anywhere, the stores sell out too fast! The segment focuses on young girls who have dozens of them in their bedroom, and they love them all ever so much. And if you're into the Children of the Corn, you can't help but feel for these poor little girls who want, nay, FUCKING NEED, more Webkinz. For God's sake, won't someone think of the children!?
So, like:
1) We're on the verge of any number of world wars, and the entire earth is turning to shit by the second. If your biggest concern is that you can't find Webkinz for your spoiled children, you need to re-evaulate your priorities. If you feel compelled to save the children from this tragedy, and you believe the correct avenue for doing this is bitching about Webkinz on the Today Show, then you simply have to kill yourself.
2) We only have a 'shortage' of Webkinz because you bought ninety of them for your rotten children the last time they were in stock. As you drove your SUV from toy store to toy store throughout the suburbs, did you ever once consider the poor kids who would go without as you snapped up every one you could find, all along knowing it still wouldn't be enough to satiate your own materialistic children?
3) Your seven year old son (Cole, Maddox, Banana Republic, whatever his name is) who loves Webkinz? Gay.
4) Tomorrow's Today Show will almost certainly contain a segment on childhood obesity. Parents and researchers will wag their fingers and blame Oreos and commercials. They'll petition the school board and get cookies removed from the cafeteria. And the kids who actually, I dunno, go outside and run around sometimes will be punished while your kids become fatties as they sit in front of computers playing with their virtual pets.
5) Everyone at Ganz, the company who makes Webkinz, should be fired today. The company has stated that demand has been crushing, and they've been unable to come up with a strategy to manufacture what has become the hottest toy for American girls, ages 4 to 8. You're lying or retarded. What idiot doesn't know that the best way to make toys for American girls, ages 4 to 8, is to pay Vietnamese girls, ages 4 to 8, to make them?
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
"She's Going To Ruin My Life Again, Just Like She Did When She Was Born"
We had a pretty eventful weekend. A very us kind of weekend.
First a short story about me. I went to play cards with my brother and his friends in the suburbs on Saturday night, which afforded me the opportunity to get stinking drunk. At some point later in the evening I decided to bum cigarettes from one of the guys there, even though I've decided several times over the last few months that I'm never going to smoke again. I've never been much of a habitual smoker anyway- I'm the annoying guy who never gets truly addicted but still smokes when he goes out. But I don't even do that any more, as nearly everyone I know has quit. Still, once I get drunk and someone is smoking, all bets are off. We smoked a couple of cigarettes before we ran out of matches. No biggie, as the place we were at had a gas stove. I've probably lit a thousand cigarettes in just this way over the course of my life, but through some miracle of misfortune I manged to singe both eyelashes in my right eye this time around. Awesome. How I didn't just go ahead and melt my contact lens onto my cornea will remain a mystery until the end of time.
But the big news of the weekend actually came the night before, on Friday. Baby's middle sister lives in LA, and she's been living with this guy for years. She had been getting frustrated that he'd yet to ask her to marry him, and she told us over Christmas that she was fixing to give him the ultimatum. To his credit, he's a nice guy and he lives for her. But he's not exactly the most romantic guy, and I get the feeling he's not so in tune with the ladies. He may have just even realized that it was high time for him to shit or get off the pot, as my scholarly mother always says.
So on Friday night he finally asked her. Well, that's not entirely true. He never actually asked her, he just gave her the ring. What can I say, the dude has game. Of course she said yes. Well, I guess she said yes. She took the ring, so that probably signifies yes. Anyway, they're getting married.
You would think, if you're a man and you're not retarded, that Baby would have been thrilled that her younger sister, who has so desperately wanted to get married for so long, was finally going to be a bride. I expected Baby to hang up the phone and tell me how excited she was that she was going to get to plan their weddings together and exchange 476 emails a day while they conduct research to find ice sculptors who can capture the essence of what they feel THE! MOST! SPECIAL! DAY! of their lives is truly all about.
No, not so much. Turns out Baby was bitter, and I'm a lot more retarded than I originally thought.
She nearly burst into tears, and she said, "She's going to ruin my life again, just like she did when she was born!" Because now Middle Baby is going to get all the attention, all the affection, all the focus. Baby has always resented this about Middle Baby- she's very much the "me too" sister to Baby's very grown up, mature example. Baby remembers actual conversations from nearly 30 years ago where Middle Baby was begging for attention, and she still holds grudges about them. That's not to say that Baby doesn't heart Middle Baby, because they're BFF. But she's definitely not stoked that she's had all her thunder stolen.
I've replayed that scene in my mind a million times, and as much as I love Baby there is no way I ever could have guessed that she'd react that way. Oh well though, it's probably just an isolated incident. And the chances of some strange reaction to the wedding planning process happening again in the TWENTY MONTHS between now and the actual day we get hitched are slim, right?
First a short story about me. I went to play cards with my brother and his friends in the suburbs on Saturday night, which afforded me the opportunity to get stinking drunk. At some point later in the evening I decided to bum cigarettes from one of the guys there, even though I've decided several times over the last few months that I'm never going to smoke again. I've never been much of a habitual smoker anyway- I'm the annoying guy who never gets truly addicted but still smokes when he goes out. But I don't even do that any more, as nearly everyone I know has quit. Still, once I get drunk and someone is smoking, all bets are off. We smoked a couple of cigarettes before we ran out of matches. No biggie, as the place we were at had a gas stove. I've probably lit a thousand cigarettes in just this way over the course of my life, but through some miracle of misfortune I manged to singe both eyelashes in my right eye this time around. Awesome. How I didn't just go ahead and melt my contact lens onto my cornea will remain a mystery until the end of time.
But the big news of the weekend actually came the night before, on Friday. Baby's middle sister lives in LA, and she's been living with this guy for years. She had been getting frustrated that he'd yet to ask her to marry him, and she told us over Christmas that she was fixing to give him the ultimatum. To his credit, he's a nice guy and he lives for her. But he's not exactly the most romantic guy, and I get the feeling he's not so in tune with the ladies. He may have just even realized that it was high time for him to shit or get off the pot, as my scholarly mother always says.
So on Friday night he finally asked her. Well, that's not entirely true. He never actually asked her, he just gave her the ring. What can I say, the dude has game. Of course she said yes. Well, I guess she said yes. She took the ring, so that probably signifies yes. Anyway, they're getting married.
You would think, if you're a man and you're not retarded, that Baby would have been thrilled that her younger sister, who has so desperately wanted to get married for so long, was finally going to be a bride. I expected Baby to hang up the phone and tell me how excited she was that she was going to get to plan their weddings together and exchange 476 emails a day while they conduct research to find ice sculptors who can capture the essence of what they feel THE! MOST! SPECIAL! DAY! of their lives is truly all about.
No, not so much. Turns out Baby was bitter, and I'm a lot more retarded than I originally thought.
She nearly burst into tears, and she said, "She's going to ruin my life again, just like she did when she was born!" Because now Middle Baby is going to get all the attention, all the affection, all the focus. Baby has always resented this about Middle Baby- she's very much the "me too" sister to Baby's very grown up, mature example. Baby remembers actual conversations from nearly 30 years ago where Middle Baby was begging for attention, and she still holds grudges about them. That's not to say that Baby doesn't heart Middle Baby, because they're BFF. But she's definitely not stoked that she's had all her thunder stolen.
I've replayed that scene in my mind a million times, and as much as I love Baby there is no way I ever could have guessed that she'd react that way. Oh well though, it's probably just an isolated incident. And the chances of some strange reaction to the wedding planning process happening again in the TWENTY MONTHS between now and the actual day we get hitched are slim, right?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The Bad Touch
I'm a consultant. My company has a lucrative contract with a large Federal agency. We're helping them design a large IT system. We're not actually building the system, mind you. We're just helping them figure out how to pay for it and then build it. The Federal government is awash with many of the most grossly incompetent, unmotivated idiots you'll ever meet, so there are lots of opportunities for companies like mine to help them figure things out. And let me tell you, business is booming.
Most of my coworkers have some specialty. Some are programmers and some are accountants. I, however, have no specialty. I'm a generalist. They hired me by design, I believe. They need someone to talk to the client, and that someone is me. I have people skills, damn it, and I often find myself in the role of shaking hands and making promises and telling Government people that everything is going to be okay if they'll just butt out for a while.
So my job is to make friends with everyone, and I'm pretty good at it.
Today I was on site, getting ready for a status meeting with Joe, one of my favorite Government people. He's a self-proclaimed Maryland redneck. He drives a Mustang, and he recently told me how excited he was to be taking his wife to see Rascal Flats for her birthday. The guy really couldn't be less like me, but I'm actually very fond of him. Joe is one of the few Government people I've met who takes the idea of civil service seriously, and he works his ass off. You see that a lot in the Government- a phenomenon my boss calls work magnets. If 90% of the Federal workforce is a waste of oxygen, the other 10% must be doing all the work. Joe just attracts everyone else's assignments like a magnet, and he does the work of ten bureaucrats. Plus he drops the F bomb a lot and calls Asian people Orientals. That always makes me laugh.
I was standing outside Joe's cube, organizing the materials for the meeting. He walks up and stands next to me and puts his hand on my back, between my shoulder blades. That's a little inappropriate, but I'm willing to overlook it because he's Joe and that's just kinda how he do. He's standing way too close, and I'm easing back ever so slightly, probably imperceptibly. But because Joe is a close talker, he's got a sub-conscious awareness of that kind of thing so he presses more firmly on my back and leans closer to me. He's just making small talk at this point, asking how I'm doing and kidding me around a bit. I realize I'm probably being silly, so I just loosen up and let him violate my personal space. I like Joe, and having Joe like me is integral to not only my personal success but, to a smaller extent, the success of the company. I can take one for the team and let him grope me for a while.
But then it gets much, much worse. He slowly starts to slide his hand down my back, til it comes to rest on my belt. He's got his hand open, so half his fingers are below my belt, dangerously close to my buttcrack. The rest of his hand is on the small of my back. It's exactly where you put your hand when you're slow dancing with your girl. It's also exactly where you touch a 31 year old consultant to make him feel like a whore.
There is nothing I can do at that point. I have to finish the conversation and let him cop his feel. Mercifully he doesn't get any closer to my no no parts, but I'm afraid my lack of action implies complicity. This is bound to happen again, and I probably won't say anything next time, either. My review is coming up in July, and I have a wedding to pay for. The things I'll do for love.
Most of my coworkers have some specialty. Some are programmers and some are accountants. I, however, have no specialty. I'm a generalist. They hired me by design, I believe. They need someone to talk to the client, and that someone is me. I have people skills, damn it, and I often find myself in the role of shaking hands and making promises and telling Government people that everything is going to be okay if they'll just butt out for a while.
So my job is to make friends with everyone, and I'm pretty good at it.
Today I was on site, getting ready for a status meeting with Joe, one of my favorite Government people. He's a self-proclaimed Maryland redneck. He drives a Mustang, and he recently told me how excited he was to be taking his wife to see Rascal Flats for her birthday. The guy really couldn't be less like me, but I'm actually very fond of him. Joe is one of the few Government people I've met who takes the idea of civil service seriously, and he works his ass off. You see that a lot in the Government- a phenomenon my boss calls work magnets. If 90% of the Federal workforce is a waste of oxygen, the other 10% must be doing all the work. Joe just attracts everyone else's assignments like a magnet, and he does the work of ten bureaucrats. Plus he drops the F bomb a lot and calls Asian people Orientals. That always makes me laugh.
I was standing outside Joe's cube, organizing the materials for the meeting. He walks up and stands next to me and puts his hand on my back, between my shoulder blades. That's a little inappropriate, but I'm willing to overlook it because he's Joe and that's just kinda how he do. He's standing way too close, and I'm easing back ever so slightly, probably imperceptibly. But because Joe is a close talker, he's got a sub-conscious awareness of that kind of thing so he presses more firmly on my back and leans closer to me. He's just making small talk at this point, asking how I'm doing and kidding me around a bit. I realize I'm probably being silly, so I just loosen up and let him violate my personal space. I like Joe, and having Joe like me is integral to not only my personal success but, to a smaller extent, the success of the company. I can take one for the team and let him grope me for a while.
But then it gets much, much worse. He slowly starts to slide his hand down my back, til it comes to rest on my belt. He's got his hand open, so half his fingers are below my belt, dangerously close to my buttcrack. The rest of his hand is on the small of my back. It's exactly where you put your hand when you're slow dancing with your girl. It's also exactly where you touch a 31 year old consultant to make him feel like a whore.
There is nothing I can do at that point. I have to finish the conversation and let him cop his feel. Mercifully he doesn't get any closer to my no no parts, but I'm afraid my lack of action implies complicity. This is bound to happen again, and I probably won't say anything next time, either. My review is coming up in July, and I have a wedding to pay for. The things I'll do for love.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Everyone Is Talking About The Ban, But They Should Be Talking About Race
Background: Seventeen year old Taleshia Ford was shot and killed at 1919 nightclub (also known as Smarta) early last Saturday in Northwest Washington, DC. The media jumped on the story, wondering what, exactly, was an underage girl doing at a nightclub in the first place? Opportunistic DC Council member Jim Graham of Ward 2, home of the nightclub, pledged to introduce legislation that would ban minors from nightclubs serving alcohol.
On the night Ford was killed we were at a club called DC9, located directly across the street from 1919. On our way there, around 11 or so, we passed a number of groups of young black men who were very intimidating. The minute I noticed I was alarmed I was immediately mad at myself. I felt terrible because I knew that had these kids been white, I probably would have felt differently. But at the same time I knew that the color of their skin probably had little to do with why I felt uncomfortable. These weren't my neighbors, or the people I ride the Green line with every day. These kids were thugs, or were at the very least trying to look like thugs. I forgave myself. If I passed a group of white kids in soccer uniforms at 3am I probably wouldn't worry about it. If I passed a group of skinheads at 3am I'd probably be nervous. It's got nothing to do with the color of their skin, and everything to do with the image people try to project. Later that night, someone from outside the club, perhaps one of the people we passed, would get into a scuffle with a bouncer at 1919 and Ford, an innocent bystander, would be killed when a gun went off by mistake.
People like Jim Graham have every right to wonder what on earth a seventeen year old girl is doing in a nightclub where adults are drinking alcohol. Although there is no evidence to suggest that minors or alcohol had anything to do with the shooting, you can certainly see why concerned citizens would want to stop the potentially volatile mix of adults, alcohol, and underage kids. That makes perfect sense. Ford was there that night to see a go-go band perform, and she was there with older family members and had the blessing of her parents. They knew she was there, she wasn't misbehaving. And now she's dead. So shouldn't we make a law keeping kids out of bars, for Christ's sake?
Just a few days before Ford was killed, a thousand or so kids were at a Fall Out Boy show at the 9:30 club, just around the corner from 1919. I was there, too. Although the crowd was overwhelmingly underage, there were a sizable number of us ordering drinks at the bar. No one was shot. In fact, in the hundreds of all ages shows I've seen at places like the Black Cat or the 9:30, I can't remember a single incident that can possibly compare with what happened at 1919 last weekend. Plenty of fist fights, a fair share of broken bones and bloody noses, but certainly no dead bodies. These shows are safe, these clubs are safe, these kids are safe.
The music community is up in arms about the possible ban. The usual local music luminaries (people I've admired for years for not just their musical ability, but their dedicate to the scene and the politics that affect our community) are speaking out. People are writing letters, signing petitions, calling for sanity. I've even written Jack Evans, my council member. The ban is just bad policy- it's a knee jerk reaction that will do almost nothing to help protect our kids, and it will certainly hurt local businesses if they're forced to kick kids out of their clubs.
But I can't help thinking about race, the elephant in the room in this discussion. One thousand screaming teenage kids from the suburbs hardly presents a security risk for the veteran, trained staff at the 9:30 club. It's their bread and butter. But can the same be said for a club that, say, caters to go-go fans in Southeast? It's taboo to raise that question, it's probably racist to even consider it, but shouldn't we?
Southeast is the capital of go go music in DC, but it's also the murder capital of the city. The music, of course, has nothing to do with it. The violence that plagues that area of the city is the product of dozens of social problems, ranging from lousy schools to inferior policing to an almost complete lack of opportunities for the young people in the poorest neighborhoods. Generations of kids from Southeast have embraced go go music, and they've brought their other problems with them. Go go has long been synonymous with violence, at least in the eyes of the local media, because the biggest fans of the genre are so often mired in the other problems facing kids from Southeast.
I'm conflicted on this issue, and I can't help but see the role of race in the discussion. If you'd been at the Fall Out Boy show at the 9:30 last week, you'd see the obvious errors in the ban. But if you'd been outside 1919 that night, you'd understand why folks might want these kids off the streets and out of bars. I was in both places, and frankly I don't know what to make of it. If a bar opened two blocks from me that featured all ages punk shows and swarms of suburban punk rock kids I'd be thrilled. If a bar opened two blocks in the other direction that featured all ages go go shows and swarms of tough looking kids like the ones outside 1919 last week, I might move. Does that make me a racist? And why aren't we discussing the obvious racial differences here?
On the night Ford was killed we were at a club called DC9, located directly across the street from 1919. On our way there, around 11 or so, we passed a number of groups of young black men who were very intimidating. The minute I noticed I was alarmed I was immediately mad at myself. I felt terrible because I knew that had these kids been white, I probably would have felt differently. But at the same time I knew that the color of their skin probably had little to do with why I felt uncomfortable. These weren't my neighbors, or the people I ride the Green line with every day. These kids were thugs, or were at the very least trying to look like thugs. I forgave myself. If I passed a group of white kids in soccer uniforms at 3am I probably wouldn't worry about it. If I passed a group of skinheads at 3am I'd probably be nervous. It's got nothing to do with the color of their skin, and everything to do with the image people try to project. Later that night, someone from outside the club, perhaps one of the people we passed, would get into a scuffle with a bouncer at 1919 and Ford, an innocent bystander, would be killed when a gun went off by mistake.
People like Jim Graham have every right to wonder what on earth a seventeen year old girl is doing in a nightclub where adults are drinking alcohol. Although there is no evidence to suggest that minors or alcohol had anything to do with the shooting, you can certainly see why concerned citizens would want to stop the potentially volatile mix of adults, alcohol, and underage kids. That makes perfect sense. Ford was there that night to see a go-go band perform, and she was there with older family members and had the blessing of her parents. They knew she was there, she wasn't misbehaving. And now she's dead. So shouldn't we make a law keeping kids out of bars, for Christ's sake?
Just a few days before Ford was killed, a thousand or so kids were at a Fall Out Boy show at the 9:30 club, just around the corner from 1919. I was there, too. Although the crowd was overwhelmingly underage, there were a sizable number of us ordering drinks at the bar. No one was shot. In fact, in the hundreds of all ages shows I've seen at places like the Black Cat or the 9:30, I can't remember a single incident that can possibly compare with what happened at 1919 last weekend. Plenty of fist fights, a fair share of broken bones and bloody noses, but certainly no dead bodies. These shows are safe, these clubs are safe, these kids are safe.
The music community is up in arms about the possible ban. The usual local music luminaries (people I've admired for years for not just their musical ability, but their dedicate to the scene and the politics that affect our community) are speaking out. People are writing letters, signing petitions, calling for sanity. I've even written Jack Evans, my council member. The ban is just bad policy- it's a knee jerk reaction that will do almost nothing to help protect our kids, and it will certainly hurt local businesses if they're forced to kick kids out of their clubs.
But I can't help thinking about race, the elephant in the room in this discussion. One thousand screaming teenage kids from the suburbs hardly presents a security risk for the veteran, trained staff at the 9:30 club. It's their bread and butter. But can the same be said for a club that, say, caters to go-go fans in Southeast? It's taboo to raise that question, it's probably racist to even consider it, but shouldn't we?
Southeast is the capital of go go music in DC, but it's also the murder capital of the city. The music, of course, has nothing to do with it. The violence that plagues that area of the city is the product of dozens of social problems, ranging from lousy schools to inferior policing to an almost complete lack of opportunities for the young people in the poorest neighborhoods. Generations of kids from Southeast have embraced go go music, and they've brought their other problems with them. Go go has long been synonymous with violence, at least in the eyes of the local media, because the biggest fans of the genre are so often mired in the other problems facing kids from Southeast.
I'm conflicted on this issue, and I can't help but see the role of race in the discussion. If you'd been at the Fall Out Boy show at the 9:30 last week, you'd see the obvious errors in the ban. But if you'd been outside 1919 that night, you'd understand why folks might want these kids off the streets and out of bars. I was in both places, and frankly I don't know what to make of it. If a bar opened two blocks from me that featured all ages punk shows and swarms of suburban punk rock kids I'd be thrilled. If a bar opened two blocks in the other direction that featured all ages go go shows and swarms of tough looking kids like the ones outside 1919 last week, I might move. Does that make me a racist? And why aren't we discussing the obvious racial differences here?
Monday, January 22, 2007
Brief Updates: Now With More Fiancé
The people who read this blog who are most likely to care about the details of the weekend were probably there to witness it, so I won't bore anyone with sappy romance. But Baby and I got engaged over the weekend. She was completely surprised and, from what I can tell, very happy. I owe a lot to you guys for helping me out. Thank you all.
To make a long story short, I asked her to marry me just outside our apartment, after running errands on Friday evening. When we opened the door to our place, Baby found her closest girlfriends there to surprise her. It was very sweet.
People have been asking about a date for the wedding, and we haven't set one yet. We're almost positive it will be Fall 2008, but I guess there is an outside possibility it will be Spring 2008. We have to buy an overpriced condo first. I need to remind myself to blog about that search. Hilarity abounds.
We went out to DC9 after our little engagement party on Friday. When we left at 1am everything was still calm, but soon afterward a seventeen-year-old girl was shot and killed in the go-go club across the street. That can't be a good omen. Idiots on the DC Council are considering a ban on underage kids at nightclubs serving alcohol. I'm furious about that, and I'll definitely blog about it soon.
But perhaps my favorite part of the weekend came on Saturday. We were sitting around, working off hangovers. I was reading some internets about the snow, and I turned to Baby and said, "Looks like we're going to get one to two inches in DC."
She deadpans, with perfect timing, "Big deal, I get that all the time in DC."
I love this woman.
To make a long story short, I asked her to marry me just outside our apartment, after running errands on Friday evening. When we opened the door to our place, Baby found her closest girlfriends there to surprise her. It was very sweet.
People have been asking about a date for the wedding, and we haven't set one yet. We're almost positive it will be Fall 2008, but I guess there is an outside possibility it will be Spring 2008. We have to buy an overpriced condo first. I need to remind myself to blog about that search. Hilarity abounds.
We went out to DC9 after our little engagement party on Friday. When we left at 1am everything was still calm, but soon afterward a seventeen-year-old girl was shot and killed in the go-go club across the street. That can't be a good omen. Idiots on the DC Council are considering a ban on underage kids at nightclubs serving alcohol. I'm furious about that, and I'll definitely blog about it soon.
But perhaps my favorite part of the weekend came on Saturday. We were sitting around, working off hangovers. I was reading some internets about the snow, and I turned to Baby and said, "Looks like we're going to get one to two inches in DC."
She deadpans, with perfect timing, "Big deal, I get that all the time in DC."
I love this woman.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Boy Was I Stupid
I was a very curious little kid. I would ask a ton of questions, trying to figure things out. Then once I did, I would store that little fact away until I needed to produce it for Jeopardy or something. Is that the way all kids do it? I don't know. But that's what I did. And although I have since corrected the problem, I have to admit today that there were times when I was a little kid that I was wrong about stuff. Thank god that's over with.
A couple of examples:
I was about seven years old or so when I learned enough cursive to read the name "Seth Thomas" on all the clocks in my elementary school. We had these big, clunky clocks that were always breaking and needing to be fixed. Every time it would happen, my teacher would call the janitor, a guy with the unfortunate name of Mr. Thomas. So I would see Mr. Thomas fixing a clock that said "Seth Thomas" on it, and I just assumed that Mr. Thomas had made the clocks. And I always thought it was pretty cool when I would see a Seth Thomas clock somewhere outside my school, and I'd be happy for our humble janitor. I probably told the story about my Seth Thomas a half dozen times before junior high school, when my English teacher pointed out that unless the fat guy up on the ladder fixing the clock was a hundred and eighty years old, he probably wasn't the Seth Thomas. No worries though, as I wasn't at all concerned about embarrassing myself in front of my classmates when I was thirteen years old.
When I was a kid I was totally gay for The Cat from Outer Space. I can't even remember what the movie is about now (although I assume there are cats and outer space in it), but I'll never forget what my parents told me the night we got home from the movie. Although we didn't live particularly close to the airport, I heard what sounded like a huge airplane flying over our building. So I ran out to the patio outside our apartment to check it out, and I remember seeing a very weird looking thing flying through the sky. Now, of course it was just an airplane, but my parents told me it was the spaceship from the movie. Even though I was only about four years old, this sounded like a load of bullshit to me. Nevertheless, my parents managed to convince me that it wasn't a real spaceship, but rather a special airplane they'd used in the movie. This sounded a little more realistic, so I bought it. For years afterward, we're talking probably into my teens, I would tell the story about the time the special airplane from The Cat from Outer Space flew over my house. I can't remember when I was exposed for being an idiot, as the disappointment was akin to learning that Santa wasn't real and I've blocked it all. To think my parents wondered why I needed therapy when I was a teenager. They systematically destroyed my innocence. And the worst part is that they were probably too fucking stoned to remember doing it.
While we're on the subject of my parents, let me tell you about our dog Brandy. Wait, while I'm on the subject of my dog Brandy let me tell you about my ex-girlfriend's dog Brandy. When I was about twelve we used to have this sorta white cocker spaniel named Brandy, and my girlfriend when I was like sixteen had the exact same dog with the exact same name. One day I was supposed to drive her to school, but I was running late. So she decided to take the bus. She opened the door to leave and her Brandy ran out the door and totally got run over by the school bus, her fucking school bus. Dagger. Worst part is that when I got to school and I heard the news, I said, "You have to admit it is kinda funny." For some reason she didn't think so. I didn't always used to be so awesome with the ladies.
Anyway we had this dog Brandy that never got run over by the school bus. But she did pee on everything. Seriously everything- she peed every time you touched her. No one ever wanted to walk her or anything, and she was basically neglected. At their wits end, my parents decided to give her away and told us she'd gone to live on a farm with one of my dad's co-workers. I can't prove it, and they won't confess to it, but I'm 99% sure that "farm" means "sausage factory."
My favorite stupid kid story doesn't even involve me though, it belongs to Baby.
When she was a kid her grandmother had a ton of paintings in her house. This is a concept that is totally foreign to me, by the way, as my family never thought to actually put anything on our walls when I was growing up. But Baby loved her grandmother's paintings, and the stories behind each one. Her grandmother would tell her that the people in the paintings were members of her family, and the story sounded reasonable to sweet, seven year old Baby, despite the fact that the paintings were obviously prints of famous artwork. Fast forward a couple of decades, and a grown up Baby is on a date and goes back to some guy's apartment. Imagine her surprise when she's checking out his place and she finds a painting of her grandfather! Imagine his surprise when Baby, probably drunk, starts freaking out and screaming, wanting to know just where the fuck he got a picture of her grandfather and what the hell was going on!? How'd you like to be Baby, and have some guy you barely know explain to you that Rembrandt probably didn't paint your grandfather? And to think I get embarrassed when I do something like pee on myself. Poor guy didn't even get laid. That turned out to be okay though, as Baby got to save herself for me.
Man, thank god I don't believe everything people tell me anymore.
A couple of examples:
I was about seven years old or so when I learned enough cursive to read the name "Seth Thomas" on all the clocks in my elementary school. We had these big, clunky clocks that were always breaking and needing to be fixed. Every time it would happen, my teacher would call the janitor, a guy with the unfortunate name of Mr. Thomas. So I would see Mr. Thomas fixing a clock that said "Seth Thomas" on it, and I just assumed that Mr. Thomas had made the clocks. And I always thought it was pretty cool when I would see a Seth Thomas clock somewhere outside my school, and I'd be happy for our humble janitor. I probably told the story about my Seth Thomas a half dozen times before junior high school, when my English teacher pointed out that unless the fat guy up on the ladder fixing the clock was a hundred and eighty years old, he probably wasn't the Seth Thomas. No worries though, as I wasn't at all concerned about embarrassing myself in front of my classmates when I was thirteen years old.
When I was a kid I was totally gay for The Cat from Outer Space. I can't even remember what the movie is about now (although I assume there are cats and outer space in it), but I'll never forget what my parents told me the night we got home from the movie. Although we didn't live particularly close to the airport, I heard what sounded like a huge airplane flying over our building. So I ran out to the patio outside our apartment to check it out, and I remember seeing a very weird looking thing flying through the sky. Now, of course it was just an airplane, but my parents told me it was the spaceship from the movie. Even though I was only about four years old, this sounded like a load of bullshit to me. Nevertheless, my parents managed to convince me that it wasn't a real spaceship, but rather a special airplane they'd used in the movie. This sounded a little more realistic, so I bought it. For years afterward, we're talking probably into my teens, I would tell the story about the time the special airplane from The Cat from Outer Space flew over my house. I can't remember when I was exposed for being an idiot, as the disappointment was akin to learning that Santa wasn't real and I've blocked it all. To think my parents wondered why I needed therapy when I was a teenager. They systematically destroyed my innocence. And the worst part is that they were probably too fucking stoned to remember doing it.
While we're on the subject of my parents, let me tell you about our dog Brandy. Wait, while I'm on the subject of my dog Brandy let me tell you about my ex-girlfriend's dog Brandy. When I was about twelve we used to have this sorta white cocker spaniel named Brandy, and my girlfriend when I was like sixteen had the exact same dog with the exact same name. One day I was supposed to drive her to school, but I was running late. So she decided to take the bus. She opened the door to leave and her Brandy ran out the door and totally got run over by the school bus, her fucking school bus. Dagger. Worst part is that when I got to school and I heard the news, I said, "You have to admit it is kinda funny." For some reason she didn't think so. I didn't always used to be so awesome with the ladies.
Anyway we had this dog Brandy that never got run over by the school bus. But she did pee on everything. Seriously everything- she peed every time you touched her. No one ever wanted to walk her or anything, and she was basically neglected. At their wits end, my parents decided to give her away and told us she'd gone to live on a farm with one of my dad's co-workers. I can't prove it, and they won't confess to it, but I'm 99% sure that "farm" means "sausage factory."
My favorite stupid kid story doesn't even involve me though, it belongs to Baby.
When she was a kid her grandmother had a ton of paintings in her house. This is a concept that is totally foreign to me, by the way, as my family never thought to actually put anything on our walls when I was growing up. But Baby loved her grandmother's paintings, and the stories behind each one. Her grandmother would tell her that the people in the paintings were members of her family, and the story sounded reasonable to sweet, seven year old Baby, despite the fact that the paintings were obviously prints of famous artwork. Fast forward a couple of decades, and a grown up Baby is on a date and goes back to some guy's apartment. Imagine her surprise when she's checking out his place and she finds a painting of her grandfather! Imagine his surprise when Baby, probably drunk, starts freaking out and screaming, wanting to know just where the fuck he got a picture of her grandfather and what the hell was going on!? How'd you like to be Baby, and have some guy you barely know explain to you that Rembrandt probably didn't paint your grandfather? And to think I get embarrassed when I do something like pee on myself. Poor guy didn't even get laid. That turned out to be okay though, as Baby got to save herself for me.
Man, thank god I don't believe everything people tell me anymore.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Puberty, Revisted
I've been sick, on and off, for a few weeks now. Some kind of terrible cold thing that won't quite turn into something that will kill me, but won't go away, either. I woke up yesterday morning to find I had lost my voice. Sweet. So that got me thinking about some funny talking things, for example:
Baby likes to talk, but hates talking to strangers. She's the kind of person who will just let the phone ring and ring and ring if she doesn't recognize the number on the caller ID. So it's usually my job to handle those things. I use the authority of the role to my advantage, and I get to make awesome threats like, "Shut up or I'll make you answer the door when the pizza guy gets here."
At least once a day I find myself disclosing something breathtakingly personal to a complete stranger, and saying to myself, "Why the hell am I telling this person THAT?" I then reconstruct the conversation in my head to figure out how I managed to meander over to this particular anecdote about me failing to perform sexually and/or peeing on myself and I realize that at this point, there is no way I'm going to not look like a crackpot, so I might as well just finish telling it because hell, at least it makes ME laugh.
More than one person has told me that despite my desperate longings to the contrary, I actually have a terrible singing voice. We're talking awful. I can manage at least a comical falsetto, but that's about the extent of my musical ability. When I was a kid and I would lose my voice, I would secretly wish that when it came back, I would emerge from my laryngitis cocoon a golden-throated crooner. Alas, not so much.
Baby likes to talk, but hates talking to strangers. She's the kind of person who will just let the phone ring and ring and ring if she doesn't recognize the number on the caller ID. So it's usually my job to handle those things. I use the authority of the role to my advantage, and I get to make awesome threats like, "Shut up or I'll make you answer the door when the pizza guy gets here."
At least once a day I find myself disclosing something breathtakingly personal to a complete stranger, and saying to myself, "Why the hell am I telling this person THAT?" I then reconstruct the conversation in my head to figure out how I managed to meander over to this particular anecdote about me failing to perform sexually and/or peeing on myself and I realize that at this point, there is no way I'm going to not look like a crackpot, so I might as well just finish telling it because hell, at least it makes ME laugh.
More than one person has told me that despite my desperate longings to the contrary, I actually have a terrible singing voice. We're talking awful. I can manage at least a comical falsetto, but that's about the extent of my musical ability. When I was a kid and I would lose my voice, I would secretly wish that when it came back, I would emerge from my laryngitis cocoon a golden-throated crooner. Alas, not so much.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Ban On Smoking: Check. Ban On Fun: Pending
You're excited that the DC smoking ban goes into effect next week, making it illegal to smoke cigarettes in bars, nightclubs, restaurants, and pretty much everywhere else. You're an idiot.
I understand that smoking stinks. I get that you hate the way it smells in your clothes, in your hair, in your inflated sense of self importance. You'd go out more often, but you just can't stand all the young people with their chain smoking indifference to the obviously catastrophic health consequences associated with even being near a lit cigarette. You smoked until you were damn near thirty years old, but the important part is that right now you currently do not smoke, so therefore you have every right to demand that everyone else quit at once.
By your reasoning, cigarettes may as well be loaded guns pointed at the poor, innocent bar patrons who are simply trying to get their hands on yet another alcohol-loaded drink that is obviously not nearly as dangerous (well, except for the whole domestic violence, drunk driving, ruined liver thing) as something so terrible as a smoke. If we take a moment to ignore the bodies you've left in your wake as you puffed away until last call from the moment you entered college til the minute you bought your condo, we'll surely see what a victim you've become, trapped in your house while the young people are out enjoying themselves.
But what about the poor bartenders who are forced to work in that environment? Won't someone think of them? Someone as conscientious and aware as you, lawyer/analyst/researcher/human resources coordinator, someone with the foresight and compassion to make decisions for other members of the workforce relegated to such lowly jobs as taking your cash for your booze. Surely those poor souls didn't have the mental capacity to understand that, oh my god, people are actually fucking smoking at these bars where I've decided to work! Why didn't I think of that!? Thank you, dear upper-middle class patron saint of the service industry, for fixing the wrongs of the world. Perhaps you can help me get health insurance? Wait, where are you going? Come back!
So, you've gotten your wish. Starting next week, you'll be able to rejoin the cool kids again. You'll be free to restrict the rights of strangers, rights you yourself once enjoyed with absolutely no regard for people in your current position, just to further your own, selfish goal of extending your own health-conscience, miserable life a few precious days. Won't it be great? Bars full of late thirty-somethings dying to reclaim the night from those awful hipster kids who've been polluting the air these long years. Once we get Prohibition up and running again, this town might actually start to be fun again.
I, for one, can't wait.
I understand that smoking stinks. I get that you hate the way it smells in your clothes, in your hair, in your inflated sense of self importance. You'd go out more often, but you just can't stand all the young people with their chain smoking indifference to the obviously catastrophic health consequences associated with even being near a lit cigarette. You smoked until you were damn near thirty years old, but the important part is that right now you currently do not smoke, so therefore you have every right to demand that everyone else quit at once.
By your reasoning, cigarettes may as well be loaded guns pointed at the poor, innocent bar patrons who are simply trying to get their hands on yet another alcohol-loaded drink that is obviously not nearly as dangerous (well, except for the whole domestic violence, drunk driving, ruined liver thing) as something so terrible as a smoke. If we take a moment to ignore the bodies you've left in your wake as you puffed away until last call from the moment you entered college til the minute you bought your condo, we'll surely see what a victim you've become, trapped in your house while the young people are out enjoying themselves.
But what about the poor bartenders who are forced to work in that environment? Won't someone think of them? Someone as conscientious and aware as you, lawyer/analyst/researcher/human resources coordinator, someone with the foresight and compassion to make decisions for other members of the workforce relegated to such lowly jobs as taking your cash for your booze. Surely those poor souls didn't have the mental capacity to understand that, oh my god, people are actually fucking smoking at these bars where I've decided to work! Why didn't I think of that!? Thank you, dear upper-middle class patron saint of the service industry, for fixing the wrongs of the world. Perhaps you can help me get health insurance? Wait, where are you going? Come back!
So, you've gotten your wish. Starting next week, you'll be able to rejoin the cool kids again. You'll be free to restrict the rights of strangers, rights you yourself once enjoyed with absolutely no regard for people in your current position, just to further your own, selfish goal of extending your own health-conscience, miserable life a few precious days. Won't it be great? Bars full of late thirty-somethings dying to reclaim the night from those awful hipster kids who've been polluting the air these long years. Once we get Prohibition up and running again, this town might actually start to be fun again.
I, for one, can't wait.
Friday, December 22, 2006
I Won The Lottery!
Well, not all of the lottery. I won four dollars. That's pretty cool, I guess.
If you know me, you understand that bad luck tends to hit me in unexpected, devastating ways. One minute everything is fine, and the next minute everything is bleeding or something needs to be cut out of me or that bitch done run off and left or somebody shoots someone. It happens so often that, perhaps naively, I have full faith that eventually karma will balance the universe and I will be met with tremendously good fortune.
So I was excited a few years ago when my mother called me to tell me she had a dream I won the lottery. She was convinced that it was only a matter of time until I'd be obscenely rich, and it seemed like such a nice idea that I completely fell for it. I started diligently buying lottery tickets in the big jackpots, looking forward to drawings and the inevitable tipping of the great big scale called Destiny. It didn't work out though, and I learned a valuable lesson.
Winning the lottery is hard.
I'm a math dork, I understand the impossible odds. But that's not what I'm talking about. The actual process of going to buy a lottery ticket is more difficult than you'd think. I'm the guy who can't remember to take his clothes out of the dryer, even as the buzzer goes off. So remembering to buy a lottery ticket every Wednesday and Friday is a giant pain in the ass. When you add in the pressure of knowing that you're supposed to win the lottery, you can understand the tremendous guilt I feel when I forget to buy a ticket.
Baby has made it even worse. When I confessed about the lottery obsession, I also explained that I didn't have any lucky numbers that were going to be the key to my success- I just used the random-generated ones. She got surprisingly angry about that, and she set herself to figuring out what my lucky numbers should be. She came up with a combination of our birthdays and ages and the year we started dating, and I allowed her to convince me that those numbers would be the ones. And for a while, I was relieved.
But the first time I forgot to buy a ticket I realized I had made a terrible mistake. I was honestly terrified to check the numbers the following day. Of course our numbers would hit, and of course I wouldn't have bought a ticket. This is me we're talking about, after all. If anyone is going to fail to win the lottery when they're supposed to hit the jackpot, it's going to be me. So now I'm forever cursed to play the lottery to avoid fulfilling my own shitty destiny. Awesome.
If you know me, you understand that bad luck tends to hit me in unexpected, devastating ways. One minute everything is fine, and the next minute everything is bleeding or something needs to be cut out of me or that bitch done run off and left or somebody shoots someone. It happens so often that, perhaps naively, I have full faith that eventually karma will balance the universe and I will be met with tremendously good fortune.
So I was excited a few years ago when my mother called me to tell me she had a dream I won the lottery. She was convinced that it was only a matter of time until I'd be obscenely rich, and it seemed like such a nice idea that I completely fell for it. I started diligently buying lottery tickets in the big jackpots, looking forward to drawings and the inevitable tipping of the great big scale called Destiny. It didn't work out though, and I learned a valuable lesson.
Winning the lottery is hard.
I'm a math dork, I understand the impossible odds. But that's not what I'm talking about. The actual process of going to buy a lottery ticket is more difficult than you'd think. I'm the guy who can't remember to take his clothes out of the dryer, even as the buzzer goes off. So remembering to buy a lottery ticket every Wednesday and Friday is a giant pain in the ass. When you add in the pressure of knowing that you're supposed to win the lottery, you can understand the tremendous guilt I feel when I forget to buy a ticket.
Baby has made it even worse. When I confessed about the lottery obsession, I also explained that I didn't have any lucky numbers that were going to be the key to my success- I just used the random-generated ones. She got surprisingly angry about that, and she set herself to figuring out what my lucky numbers should be. She came up with a combination of our birthdays and ages and the year we started dating, and I allowed her to convince me that those numbers would be the ones. And for a while, I was relieved.
But the first time I forgot to buy a ticket I realized I had made a terrible mistake. I was honestly terrified to check the numbers the following day. Of course our numbers would hit, and of course I wouldn't have bought a ticket. This is me we're talking about, after all. If anyone is going to fail to win the lottery when they're supposed to hit the jackpot, it's going to be me. So now I'm forever cursed to play the lottery to avoid fulfilling my own shitty destiny. Awesome.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Everybody Does It, Don't They?
I have this good idea. How do I know it's a good idea? Cause Baby thinks it's stupid.
I'm going to explain the idea, and I'm going to ask your advice. I would really appreciate feedback. You can simply answer if you do it or not, or you can comment on the merits of the idea and its chances for success. If you're ashamed to admit you do it, you can post anonymously. But I'd like to know what you think before I try it. I'll tell you what it is in a minute, but to fully explain it you'll need some background.
I love a trainwreck. I honestly do. I enjoy awkward situations, even if I'm miserable while they're happening. Even if they make my skin crawl after the fact.
Specifically, I love my past. It is full to bursting with an incomprehensible amount of embarrassing episodes and miserable failures. The kind of shit that decades of therapy cannot overcome. It's a miracle I haven't killed myself, it's that bad. But that doesn't stop me from coveting situations where I can revisit those misfortunes. Weddings, reunions, trips to the mall in my hometown, you name it. I go to those things looking for the last person on earth I'd want to see. Cause who the hell knows what will happen? It will be weird, it will be uncomfortable, and for some reason I don't begin to understand I will find it endlessly amusing.
Baby thinks that part is stupid, too, incidentally. But that's not the reason I think it's a good idea.
I can see what people searched for to find my blog. Blogspot must have some sweetheart deal with Google, because for some reason if you google "Gay Porn" you get my blog post about getting my neighbor's porn. Or at least, so I've heard. Phew, close one. So anyway yeah, for some reason this blog gets placed very well in search engines. I can sit and read the report each week and laugh and laugh at what people searched for to find me. At least once or twice a week I get some variation of "How much Ativan does it take to kill yourself?" I'm sorry, I don't have the answer for that one. But I can tell you that the answer is "a shit ton" because a handful won't do it. Trust me.
While we're at it, Baby thinks what people google'd to find my blog isn't funny, either. That email report comes each Friday morning at about 6:30am, and she's just not in the mood to laugh at that time of day. She has no sense of humor. But again, that's not the reason I think it's a good idea.
So I've been sitting around trying to think of ways to use this Google angle to drive traffic to the blog. I could make fake posts claiming to have pictures of naked celebrities, but that's sort of cheating. People looking for that stuff will just immediately click away from the site. Something tells me that if you're into that stuff, you won't find me all that funny. I want people to happen across this and actually find something interesting to read. And this line of thinking is what led me to come up with my Good Idea.
You know how you're bored at work and you google yourself to see what comes up? You do, don't you? Cause Baby swears normal people don't do that. She will admit that maybe she has done it once or twice, but she insists that she doesn't do it regularly, and she's certainly never sat around googling kids she knew twenty five years ago to see whatever happened to them. But I do it all the time, and I'm sure other people do it, too. So here is the idea:
I'm thinking of making a blog post that is just a long list of the first and last name of everyone I can think of from my past. Friends, enemies, people I barely knew, kids I got high with, teachers, bosses, girls I had regrettable sex with, everybody. I would try, where possible, to group them with similar people. That way, they would see their name and other people they might remember, and they'd be hooked. They'd figure out who I was (how many people know more than one person named Bryce?), and maybe they'd laugh. Or maybe they'd try to kill me. It's certainly possible. But I'm protected by the internets, so they can't really do anything. And as Lady Tiara pointed out to me, it's not like I'd be saying anything about them, I would just include their name.
So I'm wondering, do you ever google yourself? And do you think this idea is stupid? Cause I think it's awesome. And by awesome I mean potentially very fucking dangerous. But maybe also probably funny. Yet mostly scary.
December 15, 2006 update:
I'm still on the fence about this. Lady Tiara raises a good point about people being Googled for job interviews. That's not something I had thought about. And a friend recently pointed out that you pretty much always Google anyone you're considering dating these days. I'll need to do some more thinking on it.
I'm going to explain the idea, and I'm going to ask your advice. I would really appreciate feedback. You can simply answer if you do it or not, or you can comment on the merits of the idea and its chances for success. If you're ashamed to admit you do it, you can post anonymously. But I'd like to know what you think before I try it. I'll tell you what it is in a minute, but to fully explain it you'll need some background.
I love a trainwreck. I honestly do. I enjoy awkward situations, even if I'm miserable while they're happening. Even if they make my skin crawl after the fact.
Specifically, I love my past. It is full to bursting with an incomprehensible amount of embarrassing episodes and miserable failures. The kind of shit that decades of therapy cannot overcome. It's a miracle I haven't killed myself, it's that bad. But that doesn't stop me from coveting situations where I can revisit those misfortunes. Weddings, reunions, trips to the mall in my hometown, you name it. I go to those things looking for the last person on earth I'd want to see. Cause who the hell knows what will happen? It will be weird, it will be uncomfortable, and for some reason I don't begin to understand I will find it endlessly amusing.
Baby thinks that part is stupid, too, incidentally. But that's not the reason I think it's a good idea.
I can see what people searched for to find my blog. Blogspot must have some sweetheart deal with Google, because for some reason if you google "Gay Porn" you get my blog post about getting my neighbor's porn. Or at least, so I've heard. Phew, close one. So anyway yeah, for some reason this blog gets placed very well in search engines. I can sit and read the report each week and laugh and laugh at what people searched for to find me. At least once or twice a week I get some variation of "How much Ativan does it take to kill yourself?" I'm sorry, I don't have the answer for that one. But I can tell you that the answer is "a shit ton" because a handful won't do it. Trust me.
While we're at it, Baby thinks what people google'd to find my blog isn't funny, either. That email report comes each Friday morning at about 6:30am, and she's just not in the mood to laugh at that time of day. She has no sense of humor. But again, that's not the reason I think it's a good idea.
So I've been sitting around trying to think of ways to use this Google angle to drive traffic to the blog. I could make fake posts claiming to have pictures of naked celebrities, but that's sort of cheating. People looking for that stuff will just immediately click away from the site. Something tells me that if you're into that stuff, you won't find me all that funny. I want people to happen across this and actually find something interesting to read. And this line of thinking is what led me to come up with my Good Idea.
You know how you're bored at work and you google yourself to see what comes up? You do, don't you? Cause Baby swears normal people don't do that. She will admit that maybe she has done it once or twice, but she insists that she doesn't do it regularly, and she's certainly never sat around googling kids she knew twenty five years ago to see whatever happened to them. But I do it all the time, and I'm sure other people do it, too. So here is the idea:
I'm thinking of making a blog post that is just a long list of the first and last name of everyone I can think of from my past. Friends, enemies, people I barely knew, kids I got high with, teachers, bosses, girls I had regrettable sex with, everybody. I would try, where possible, to group them with similar people. That way, they would see their name and other people they might remember, and they'd be hooked. They'd figure out who I was (how many people know more than one person named Bryce?), and maybe they'd laugh. Or maybe they'd try to kill me. It's certainly possible. But I'm protected by the internets, so they can't really do anything. And as Lady Tiara pointed out to me, it's not like I'd be saying anything about them, I would just include their name.
So I'm wondering, do you ever google yourself? And do you think this idea is stupid? Cause I think it's awesome. And by awesome I mean potentially very fucking dangerous. But maybe also probably funny. Yet mostly scary.
December 15, 2006 update:
I'm still on the fence about this. Lady Tiara raises a good point about people being Googled for job interviews. That's not something I had thought about. And a friend recently pointed out that you pretty much always Google anyone you're considering dating these days. I'll need to do some more thinking on it.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Pick A Winner
So I got an email from my boss this morning at 6:45am, asking me to attend a 9am meeting I didn't even know about with our client. I had to haul ass to get ready, but I was excited because I was being called in to talk about something I had worked hard on. I wanted to look good, so I put on my best big boy clothes (including my big boy shoes!) and got just about as dolled up as I could get. Baby even commented that I looked put together, so I was feeling good about myself.
I stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of our building, and made for the Metro. On my way I pass an older apartment building that seems to be home to a lot of young people, mostly hipster gay guys and lots of very cute woman. Sure enough, there is a very pretty girl walking my way. She gets within maybe fifteen feet before she makes eye contact. Then, in the very next instant, she sticks her finger, knuckle deep, into her nose. This wasn't some ill-fated clandestine effort to take care of a creeper or anything. She was digging, vigorously.
Gross, right?
But wait, there are greater implications here. Picking your nose in public is generally frowned upon, right? And people don't do it because they don't want to look bad in front of other people, right? And I don't know about you, but my feelings about those sorts of things are typically magnified when I'm in the presence of attractive people. It's largely subconcious, but I'm sure I try to carry myself a little better when I'm around good looking or otherwise desirable people. I think we have this tendency (especially if you're as insecure as I am) where we want to demonstrate that we, too, are attractive.
This woman, who was more attractive than me on pretty much any scale you could create, felt that I'm so goddamn banged up that she doesn't even need to disguise the fact that she has some class of booger problem. Oh him? I don't care if that guy sees me picking my nose. I was devastated.
I stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of our building, and made for the Metro. On my way I pass an older apartment building that seems to be home to a lot of young people, mostly hipster gay guys and lots of very cute woman. Sure enough, there is a very pretty girl walking my way. She gets within maybe fifteen feet before she makes eye contact. Then, in the very next instant, she sticks her finger, knuckle deep, into her nose. This wasn't some ill-fated clandestine effort to take care of a creeper or anything. She was digging, vigorously.
Gross, right?
But wait, there are greater implications here. Picking your nose in public is generally frowned upon, right? And people don't do it because they don't want to look bad in front of other people, right? And I don't know about you, but my feelings about those sorts of things are typically magnified when I'm in the presence of attractive people. It's largely subconcious, but I'm sure I try to carry myself a little better when I'm around good looking or otherwise desirable people. I think we have this tendency (especially if you're as insecure as I am) where we want to demonstrate that we, too, are attractive.
This woman, who was more attractive than me on pretty much any scale you could create, felt that I'm so goddamn banged up that she doesn't even need to disguise the fact that she has some class of booger problem. Oh him? I don't care if that guy sees me picking my nose. I was devastated.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
If Peeing Your Pants Is Cool, Consider Me Miles Davis
I really hate it when something embarrassing happens to me, and there is no one around to share it with. It ruins the joke for me. I nearly ran to my desk to tell Baby about this, but she didn't pick up the phone. So you get to hear it, hot off the press.
I was just standing at the urinal, minding my own business and thinking about something work-related. I was jolted back to reality when I realized the sound of me peeing had changed dramatically. This is never a good sign. I looked down to see I was peeing on my unbuckled belt. Worse yet, the pee was splashing back onto my goddamn pants! Unbelievably, whatever 'stain defender' fabric these pants are made of repels liquid. Including, apparently, human urine. So I just brushed those drops of pee pee right away. How great is that? Where was this technology when I was in grade school?
I was just standing at the urinal, minding my own business and thinking about something work-related. I was jolted back to reality when I realized the sound of me peeing had changed dramatically. This is never a good sign. I looked down to see I was peeing on my unbuckled belt. Worse yet, the pee was splashing back onto my goddamn pants! Unbelievably, whatever 'stain defender' fabric these pants are made of repels liquid. Including, apparently, human urine. So I just brushed those drops of pee pee right away. How great is that? Where was this technology when I was in grade school?
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
To: AllStaffDC Subject: Advice Priority: High
I present, in no particular order, advice to my co-workers.
-Everyone, and I repeat everyone, can see you adjusting your crotch. I am a man, and I understand that, at times, it itches or is otherwise uncomfortable. Yet in all my thirty one years I have never encountered a situation where I simply needed to move my penis and or balls in a public place. I understand that you're hoping no one will notice. They will. Just leave it alone. Go back to your office and tend to it there. None of us need to see that.
-The carpet in the hallway is not interesting and does not warrant such careful scrutiny. You might consider actually making eye contact with me when I pass you in the hallway. Smiling is also nice, although certainly not necessary. But be aware that because I know you are uncomfortable in those awkward hallway situations, I will be making a point to not only meet your eyes but actually speak to you, loudly. I enjoy making you nervous. I think that kind of thing is funny because I'm an asshole.
-The human body is truly amazing, but I promise you that we do not find yours all that awesome. As such, you might want to spend a bit less time picking at that thing on your neck in our next meeting. It's been what, three weeks in a row now? I'm sure you feel that, sooner or later, you're going to unravel the mystery behind whatever the hell that thing is. But I know that it's going to get infected any day, and I'm going to have to do your work while you're in the hospital. It's not getting any better, and it's all banged up because you won't stop fucking with it. Go to a doctor and get some medicine for it. And if it's some kind of weird compulsion that's making you do it, go to a doctor and get medicine for that.
-You're too shy to use the urinal in the restroom, so you pee in the stall. You probably do that to avoid being embarrassed. But, in case you didn't know, men who use urinals think men who are afraid of urinals are pussies. Don't believe me? Ask around.
-If you don't drink, stop coming to happy hour. You're unhappy cause you're surrounded by drunken idiots, and we're unhappy cause you're making us look like drunken idiots. You're ruining everything.
-The cute new girl does not like you. Or you. Or you. Or you. She's being nice to you because she's new and that's what you do. She's only been at her new job for a week, she's certainly not going to start dating anyone in the office yet. Give up, you're embarrassing yourself.
-That email you sent out last week with information about window washing, while attempting to be informative, only served to make the 85% of the people in the company without window offices hate the 15% with window offices even more.
-I will now be spending 2% of my pre-tax salary on prescription co-pays because we've 'adjusted' our 'benefits' for 2007. No, I am not interested in buying your kid's fucking girl scout cookies.
-Everyone, and I repeat everyone, can see you adjusting your crotch. I am a man, and I understand that, at times, it itches or is otherwise uncomfortable. Yet in all my thirty one years I have never encountered a situation where I simply needed to move my penis and or balls in a public place. I understand that you're hoping no one will notice. They will. Just leave it alone. Go back to your office and tend to it there. None of us need to see that.
-The carpet in the hallway is not interesting and does not warrant such careful scrutiny. You might consider actually making eye contact with me when I pass you in the hallway. Smiling is also nice, although certainly not necessary. But be aware that because I know you are uncomfortable in those awkward hallway situations, I will be making a point to not only meet your eyes but actually speak to you, loudly. I enjoy making you nervous. I think that kind of thing is funny because I'm an asshole.
-The human body is truly amazing, but I promise you that we do not find yours all that awesome. As such, you might want to spend a bit less time picking at that thing on your neck in our next meeting. It's been what, three weeks in a row now? I'm sure you feel that, sooner or later, you're going to unravel the mystery behind whatever the hell that thing is. But I know that it's going to get infected any day, and I'm going to have to do your work while you're in the hospital. It's not getting any better, and it's all banged up because you won't stop fucking with it. Go to a doctor and get some medicine for it. And if it's some kind of weird compulsion that's making you do it, go to a doctor and get medicine for that.
-You're too shy to use the urinal in the restroom, so you pee in the stall. You probably do that to avoid being embarrassed. But, in case you didn't know, men who use urinals think men who are afraid of urinals are pussies. Don't believe me? Ask around.
-If you don't drink, stop coming to happy hour. You're unhappy cause you're surrounded by drunken idiots, and we're unhappy cause you're making us look like drunken idiots. You're ruining everything.
-The cute new girl does not like you. Or you. Or you. Or you. She's being nice to you because she's new and that's what you do. She's only been at her new job for a week, she's certainly not going to start dating anyone in the office yet. Give up, you're embarrassing yourself.
-That email you sent out last week with information about window washing, while attempting to be informative, only served to make the 85% of the people in the company without window offices hate the 15% with window offices even more.
-I will now be spending 2% of my pre-tax salary on prescription co-pays because we've 'adjusted' our 'benefits' for 2007. No, I am not interested in buying your kid's fucking girl scout cookies.
Friday, November 17, 2006
I'm On Your Internets, Stealing Your Funniez
As a rule, I generally don't post links to other internets. But I simply cannot look at this page without laughing. Maybe it's the gamer dork in me, or the overall internet dork. But I dunno, I usually pee a little bit in my underpants when I look at these. No worries, SFW.
Nothing good or all that funny to report, but I figured I'd provide some updates.
The teeth problem continues to spiral out of control. I went back for my follow-up visit, where I was supposed to have my crown fitted. When I got there, the receptionist let me know that I was running out of my insurance allowance and I was going to have to start paying out of pocket. This threw me for a loop, because the dentist had told me the procedure would cost twelve hundred bucks and I have a fifteen hundred dollar yearly dental allowance. Well, he misled me, and probably deliberately. My insurance company paid twelve hundred bucks for the root canal procedure. The crown and the fitting were going to cost another sixteen hundred. I fucking lost it. I was completely duped. I'm in your teeths, stealing your moneys. Worst part- what can I do now? I have a temporary crown that will last, at most, a couple of months. At some point I'm going to have to have it fixed, and I'm going to have to pay for it out of pocket. I did get a bit of satisfaction by telling the receptionist to piss off and storming out of the office. I'll find some other place to get it done. And while I'm at it, here are some things for the Google fairies:
Dr. Carlos Abreu
1712 Eye Street NW
Washington, DC 20006
Dr. Carlos Abreu is a bad dentist. He caused me great pain and lied to me about the charges for my procedure.
You like that? I'm on the internet, stealing your patientz. Fuck you in your heart until you die.
Now that that's out of the way, I nearly wrote a separate post about what happened when I got home from that visit, but it seemed so ridiculous that I was afraid it would sound fake. Anyway, here goes:
The other day I heard a weird scratching sound in my bathroom. It sounded like it was coming from inside the walls. I figured that couldn't be good. I kept waiting for a wolverine or something to pop out. Needless to say, the cats were VERY interested. For the next few days, I kept finding them hanging out in there, sniffing at the walls. I figure it must have been a rat or something, probably trying to get in from outside with the changing weather. But thankfully there is no place for whatever it was to actually get inside, and the scratching has stopped. The cats still hang out in there, though. On that day I came home from my last dentist visit, I knew Jezebel had been in there. How did I know? My fucking toothbrush was on the floor in the corner. I swear I'm not making that up. She must have climbed on the sink and knocked it onto the floor (I've since started putting it in the holder again). So while I'm at the dentist, plotting to blow up the building, my arch nemesis is at home with her fecal matter-packed claws and her zoo ass-licking mouth all over my fucking toothbrush. I'm in your bathroom, pwning your oral hygienez. Sounds fake right? How bad is it when your life is so shitty people don't even believe it when you tell them about it? I got such problem!
---
My dad (Daddy #2) is turning 50 in a couple of weeks, and we're trying to plan a little get-together for him. He's not the kind of guy who likes a lot of fanfare, and he's been openly threatening to boycott the party if he gets wind of it. So we've decided to take him out to dinner, planning to surprise him. He's suspicious, so we've had to resort to some complicated measures to make all the plans. None of them, however, has been as complicated as teaching his girlfriend about how to use internets. I just got this email from her, re-posted here in the same format in which she sent it to me:
Hey Bryce,
Called Ruth Chris tonight I booked it for 14 people but we have to have 2 tables at 7:45 I think its alittle late for your dad also called arties they wont do
large parties on Sat nights thought about costal flats or Mikes in Spring field what do you think Ley me know I work all day tomorrow call
me on my cell if you can I know we need to get it booked with the holidays etc cell is 703 XXX-XXXX There just alot of us... Think about it ask (Baby)
too.
So apparently my father is dating a retarded character from a Faulkner book. I can't even begin to imagine how I'm supposed to process this. I'm in your email, ignoring your rules of punctuationz. Here is the scary part- she tries really hard to make me like her, much like my mom's boyfriend. She goes out of her way to be sweet. I figure she must know that she's functionally illiterate, so she probably agonized a bit over this before she actually sent it out. That means THIS was the product of her editing. Yikes.
Nothing good or all that funny to report, but I figured I'd provide some updates.
The teeth problem continues to spiral out of control. I went back for my follow-up visit, where I was supposed to have my crown fitted. When I got there, the receptionist let me know that I was running out of my insurance allowance and I was going to have to start paying out of pocket. This threw me for a loop, because the dentist had told me the procedure would cost twelve hundred bucks and I have a fifteen hundred dollar yearly dental allowance. Well, he misled me, and probably deliberately. My insurance company paid twelve hundred bucks for the root canal procedure. The crown and the fitting were going to cost another sixteen hundred. I fucking lost it. I was completely duped. I'm in your teeths, stealing your moneys. Worst part- what can I do now? I have a temporary crown that will last, at most, a couple of months. At some point I'm going to have to have it fixed, and I'm going to have to pay for it out of pocket. I did get a bit of satisfaction by telling the receptionist to piss off and storming out of the office. I'll find some other place to get it done. And while I'm at it, here are some things for the Google fairies:
Dr. Carlos Abreu
1712 Eye Street NW
Washington, DC 20006
Dr. Carlos Abreu is a bad dentist. He caused me great pain and lied to me about the charges for my procedure.
You like that? I'm on the internet, stealing your patientz. Fuck you in your heart until you die.
Now that that's out of the way, I nearly wrote a separate post about what happened when I got home from that visit, but it seemed so ridiculous that I was afraid it would sound fake. Anyway, here goes:
The other day I heard a weird scratching sound in my bathroom. It sounded like it was coming from inside the walls. I figured that couldn't be good. I kept waiting for a wolverine or something to pop out. Needless to say, the cats were VERY interested. For the next few days, I kept finding them hanging out in there, sniffing at the walls. I figure it must have been a rat or something, probably trying to get in from outside with the changing weather. But thankfully there is no place for whatever it was to actually get inside, and the scratching has stopped. The cats still hang out in there, though. On that day I came home from my last dentist visit, I knew Jezebel had been in there. How did I know? My fucking toothbrush was on the floor in the corner. I swear I'm not making that up. She must have climbed on the sink and knocked it onto the floor (I've since started putting it in the holder again). So while I'm at the dentist, plotting to blow up the building, my arch nemesis is at home with her fecal matter-packed claws and her zoo ass-licking mouth all over my fucking toothbrush. I'm in your bathroom, pwning your oral hygienez. Sounds fake right? How bad is it when your life is so shitty people don't even believe it when you tell them about it? I got such problem!
---
My dad (Daddy #2) is turning 50 in a couple of weeks, and we're trying to plan a little get-together for him. He's not the kind of guy who likes a lot of fanfare, and he's been openly threatening to boycott the party if he gets wind of it. So we've decided to take him out to dinner, planning to surprise him. He's suspicious, so we've had to resort to some complicated measures to make all the plans. None of them, however, has been as complicated as teaching his girlfriend about how to use internets. I just got this email from her, re-posted here in the same format in which she sent it to me:
Hey Bryce,
Called Ruth Chris tonight I booked it for 14 people but we have to have 2 tables at 7:45 I think its alittle late for your dad also called arties they wont do
large parties on Sat nights thought about costal flats or Mikes in Spring field what do you think Ley me know I work all day tomorrow call
me on my cell if you can I know we need to get it booked with the holidays etc cell is 703 XXX-XXXX There just alot of us... Think about it ask (Baby)
too.
So apparently my father is dating a retarded character from a Faulkner book. I can't even begin to imagine how I'm supposed to process this. I'm in your email, ignoring your rules of punctuationz. Here is the scary part- she tries really hard to make me like her, much like my mom's boyfriend. She goes out of her way to be sweet. I figure she must know that she's functionally illiterate, so she probably agonized a bit over this before she actually sent it out. That means THIS was the product of her editing. Yikes.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Potential Felonies, Snooping, Broken Marriages, Gay Porn- Yeah, We Got That
Baby and I rented the first place we looked at when we were apartment shopping last winter. We loved the space and the location, and we didn't really want to bother with a long search. Our landlord seemed nice enough, too. When he first showed us the apartment, the previous tenants hadn't moved all their stuff out yet. The furniture was all gone, but the leftover crap that nobody ever wants to pack was scattered around. Our landlord didn't seem very happy about this, and he made a few remarks that led us to believe they were problem tenants. He didn't provide any additional details and we didn't ask- we liked the place too much and we didn't want to pry.
Over time, though, it became obvious that something had been going on with these tenants. Ever nosy, I brought the subject up with my neighbors whenever I got the chance. To their credit, nobody told me anything all that revealing, although I got the feeling they were pretty weird. But when we kept getting their mail delivered, we knew something was wrong.
For the first few months we dutifully saved everything they got. We would periodically ask our landlord about it, and he would tell us to just throw it all away. We complied, but we felt strange about throwing away important mail- credit card bills, official-looking correspondence, all manner of things. At first we figured they'd requested a forwarding order and it hadn't been processed yet. This is perfectly reasonable- I bet African villages have better mail service than DC. But after about six months we realized these people had absolutely no intention of ever letting anyone know they'd moved. So I did what any person would have done in my position. I started opening all of their mail.
OK so maybe that wasn't the most mature thing to do. But I really wanted to know what was going on. Plus the guy was getting a letter at least every two weeks from Playboy, and how could I keep throwing those away? The mail had really become a nuisance at this point anyway. The woman had signed up for all sorts of grassroots political mailing lists, and she was getting propaganda every day as the election was getting close. They were also getting the same catalogs we did, so we really didn't need four copies of the Ikea catalog cramming our little apartment mailbox. Plus I'm a dick and I'm nosy. Sue me.
The letters from Playboy turned out to be offers to renew the guy's expired subscription. They were desperate- they were offering to let him sign back up and didn't want any money up front. I'm not fucking stupid, I checked that little box and put that one in the mail immediately. It was a trick though. They sent me (him) one issue then wanted more money. I didn't even get the College Girls DVD they advertised. Why does bad stuff always happen to me?
The other mail was more interesting, though. We learned the tenants weren't too keen on paying their bills. Hopefully you've never been six months behind on your credit card bills, but if you have been, you know they send you a very threatening bill at least once a week. And let me be the first to warn you- the IRS is not stoked if you don't pay your taxes and they decide you owe them money. And they're even more pissed when you owe them twenty thousand dollars. I don't know who these people are, but their credit is ruined and they've got a lot of explaining to do.
So I started wondering why these people would stop paying their bills. I came to the only rational conclusion: they got some horrible disease, undoubtedly from living in our apartment, and they lost their jobs and went broke. Our landlord didn't tell us about it, obviously, because he is trying to cover everything up. A poltergeist may have even been involved. You see where I'm going with this, right? He moved the headstones but he left the bodies. How could I be so stupid?! We had to get out of there, now!
Thankfully Baby isn't crazy. She explained that life is not, in fact, television. There was most likely a much simpler explanation, and it probably didn't involve the supernatural or some class of plague. So I called my landlord and told him I was concerned about the threatening letters (I certainly didn't tell him I was opening them, I said they "looked" threatening. And he actually bought that shit. I may never pay the rent on time again). I asked him bluntly what had happened, and he explained that they'd gotten a divorce and moved away. Stupid Baby, always right about everything. Their marriage fell apart because they were having financial problems, the neighbors didn't say anything cause they'd probably heard them fighting all the time. It all makes perfect sense, and I have to admit I was a bit disappointed.
This didn't, of course, stop me from opening their mail. I needed to know why, precisely, they had gotten a divorce. I wasn't about to give up on my mystery simply because it had actually been solved. Pretending is fun. And hello, I'd already gotten a free Playboy magazine out of the deal.
So last night I came home from work and checked the mail, and there was a big fat manila envelope in the box. Big surprise, it wasn't addressed to us. It was suspiciously plain, bearing only the simple message "Free gift offer inside." Needless to say I almost ran to our apartment to open it.
Again, disappointment. OK yeah, sure, it was filled with porn. But goddamnit, it was gay porn. An entire catalog, filled with pictures of men doing things to men that I didn't even know men did to men. Hell, I didn't know women did that kind of thing to men. So I rubbed one out. I mean threw it away! Phew, close one. Anyway no really, I threw it away. And I kinda buried it in the kitchen trash just in case anyone might see it. I wouldn't want anyone to find out I was looking at a gay porn catalog. Anyone besides, I dunno, the entire Internet.
But then it dawns on me, "My god those gay dudes are in good shape." And THEN it dawns on me- "Dude, their marriage fell apart because she found out he was gay!"
Proud of my sleuth skills that would put Encyclopedia Brown (a known gay porn aficionado) to shame, I opened a beer. I notice I've yet to throw the empty manila envelope away, so I pick it up and realize I've made a terrible mistake. The envelope wasn't addressed to the no wife-having, no money-having, no tax-paying, no straight porn-wanking ex tenant. It was addressed to the guy in the apartment next to me, and put in my mailbox by mistake.
Dagger!
So now what the hell am I supposed to do? Knock on his door? Explain that I'm concerned he might be missing out on whatever his free gift is? Slide it under his door? What if he happens to be standing there right as I do it? How weird will it look if I he catches me slinking away after I've obviously looked at his porn? Especially considering it's gay, and he's met Baby and knows I'm straight. I thought about it, and even if it were straight porn I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable knocking on his door. I've written about the weird midget porn that kept showing up at my place. I damn sure wouldn't want my neighbor dropping by to let me know he'd accidentally happened upon that. What should I do? I mean besides fetch it from the trash and explain to Baby that I need to keep it in my bathroom until I decide what to do.
Over time, though, it became obvious that something had been going on with these tenants. Ever nosy, I brought the subject up with my neighbors whenever I got the chance. To their credit, nobody told me anything all that revealing, although I got the feeling they were pretty weird. But when we kept getting their mail delivered, we knew something was wrong.
For the first few months we dutifully saved everything they got. We would periodically ask our landlord about it, and he would tell us to just throw it all away. We complied, but we felt strange about throwing away important mail- credit card bills, official-looking correspondence, all manner of things. At first we figured they'd requested a forwarding order and it hadn't been processed yet. This is perfectly reasonable- I bet African villages have better mail service than DC. But after about six months we realized these people had absolutely no intention of ever letting anyone know they'd moved. So I did what any person would have done in my position. I started opening all of their mail.
OK so maybe that wasn't the most mature thing to do. But I really wanted to know what was going on. Plus the guy was getting a letter at least every two weeks from Playboy, and how could I keep throwing those away? The mail had really become a nuisance at this point anyway. The woman had signed up for all sorts of grassroots political mailing lists, and she was getting propaganda every day as the election was getting close. They were also getting the same catalogs we did, so we really didn't need four copies of the Ikea catalog cramming our little apartment mailbox. Plus I'm a dick and I'm nosy. Sue me.
The letters from Playboy turned out to be offers to renew the guy's expired subscription. They were desperate- they were offering to let him sign back up and didn't want any money up front. I'm not fucking stupid, I checked that little box and put that one in the mail immediately. It was a trick though. They sent me (him) one issue then wanted more money. I didn't even get the College Girls DVD they advertised. Why does bad stuff always happen to me?
The other mail was more interesting, though. We learned the tenants weren't too keen on paying their bills. Hopefully you've never been six months behind on your credit card bills, but if you have been, you know they send you a very threatening bill at least once a week. And let me be the first to warn you- the IRS is not stoked if you don't pay your taxes and they decide you owe them money. And they're even more pissed when you owe them twenty thousand dollars. I don't know who these people are, but their credit is ruined and they've got a lot of explaining to do.
So I started wondering why these people would stop paying their bills. I came to the only rational conclusion: they got some horrible disease, undoubtedly from living in our apartment, and they lost their jobs and went broke. Our landlord didn't tell us about it, obviously, because he is trying to cover everything up. A poltergeist may have even been involved. You see where I'm going with this, right? He moved the headstones but he left the bodies. How could I be so stupid?! We had to get out of there, now!
Thankfully Baby isn't crazy. She explained that life is not, in fact, television. There was most likely a much simpler explanation, and it probably didn't involve the supernatural or some class of plague. So I called my landlord and told him I was concerned about the threatening letters (I certainly didn't tell him I was opening them, I said they "looked" threatening. And he actually bought that shit. I may never pay the rent on time again). I asked him bluntly what had happened, and he explained that they'd gotten a divorce and moved away. Stupid Baby, always right about everything. Their marriage fell apart because they were having financial problems, the neighbors didn't say anything cause they'd probably heard them fighting all the time. It all makes perfect sense, and I have to admit I was a bit disappointed.
This didn't, of course, stop me from opening their mail. I needed to know why, precisely, they had gotten a divorce. I wasn't about to give up on my mystery simply because it had actually been solved. Pretending is fun. And hello, I'd already gotten a free Playboy magazine out of the deal.
So last night I came home from work and checked the mail, and there was a big fat manila envelope in the box. Big surprise, it wasn't addressed to us. It was suspiciously plain, bearing only the simple message "Free gift offer inside." Needless to say I almost ran to our apartment to open it.
Again, disappointment. OK yeah, sure, it was filled with porn. But goddamnit, it was gay porn. An entire catalog, filled with pictures of men doing things to men that I didn't even know men did to men. Hell, I didn't know women did that kind of thing to men. So I rubbed one out. I mean threw it away! Phew, close one. Anyway no really, I threw it away. And I kinda buried it in the kitchen trash just in case anyone might see it. I wouldn't want anyone to find out I was looking at a gay porn catalog. Anyone besides, I dunno, the entire Internet.
But then it dawns on me, "My god those gay dudes are in good shape." And THEN it dawns on me- "Dude, their marriage fell apart because she found out he was gay!"
Proud of my sleuth skills that would put Encyclopedia Brown (a known gay porn aficionado) to shame, I opened a beer. I notice I've yet to throw the empty manila envelope away, so I pick it up and realize I've made a terrible mistake. The envelope wasn't addressed to the no wife-having, no money-having, no tax-paying, no straight porn-wanking ex tenant. It was addressed to the guy in the apartment next to me, and put in my mailbox by mistake.
Dagger!
So now what the hell am I supposed to do? Knock on his door? Explain that I'm concerned he might be missing out on whatever his free gift is? Slide it under his door? What if he happens to be standing there right as I do it? How weird will it look if I he catches me slinking away after I've obviously looked at his porn? Especially considering it's gay, and he's met Baby and knows I'm straight. I thought about it, and even if it were straight porn I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable knocking on his door. I've written about the weird midget porn that kept showing up at my place. I damn sure wouldn't want my neighbor dropping by to let me know he'd accidentally happened upon that. What should I do? I mean besides fetch it from the trash and explain to Baby that I need to keep it in my bathroom until I decide what to do.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Dentists Do, In Fact, Exist. And They Are So Not Awesome.
My kid brother (who is twenty seven, but for reasons I will one day blog about will always be called 'kid') got married two weekends ago. We went, it was nice, blah blah blah. While I was mingling with the guests and doing the usher thing someone handed me a piece of gum. I don't chew gum, but hey, I was drunk. I put it in my mouth and then forgot it was there, so I spent the entire ceremony chewing it, then chiding myself to stop chewing it, then drunkenly forgetting I was supposed to be remembering to stop chewing, then hating myself for being a lush. Finally it was over, and we walked over to get our pictures taken. In that process, the gum sucked one of the fillings out of my head.
Uh oh.
I hate the dentist. But big deal, everybody hates the dentist. Let me explain: I hate the dentist so much I have convinced myself that he does not exist. I live in a complete state of denial about the entire field of oral medicine. I diligently brush my teeth twice a day (and sometimes more often), and I've even been known to floss several times a week. I actually enjoy it. Of course, it helps that I tell myself that I'm doing it to ward off the dentist, who has taken on a bogeyman stature in my terrified mind.
It's not that I'm afraid of the pain, because I'm not. I know from pain. I could write a book comparing the various emergency rooms in the DC area. I've had actual medical procedures where they give you something to bite on to help with the pain. I'm serious. The kind of thing where the doctor says, "Look, this is going to really hurt and that's fucked up and I'm sorry. I forgive you in advance for all the terrible things you're about to shout at me, but don't worry because you will pass out before the pain actually does in fact kill you. Are you ready?"
But anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. All you need to know now is that I hate the dentist but the lost filling meant I had to go.
Of course I put off going right away though. Throughout the week I kept running my tongue over the hole in my molar where the filling used to be, and I kept telling myself that because there was no pain, I would probably be okay. In fact, I was doing just that on Friday when I jarred what appeared to be an even bigger piece of the tooth or filling or whatever loose, and I realized I had to see the dentist immediately. I frantically called all the dentists I could find with downtown offices until someone agreed to see me, and I jumped in a cab and went straight over. In retrospect, this was a bad idea.
Normally when I go to the dentist I load up on Ativan or Xanax just to make it through the ordeal. Again, it's not the pain I'm concerned about. It's the actual sitting in the chair, the anticipation and the concern and the wondering. The knowledge that once you commit, you're in it for the long haul. You don't get up with a tooth half-filled and say, "I can't handle it anymore today Doc, let's finish up tomorrow." You're pretty much stuck, and it always gets worse before it gets better. But on this day, I didn't have time to prepare and I didn't have any drugs.
I make it in to see the dentist, and he tells me I need a root canal. Soon. There is a bit of a language barrier. More specifically, an accent barrier. But we manage to communicate across the cultural divide, as he has apparently been observing my worst nightmares and taking exceptionally fucking detailed notes. He shows me the xray that shows how dangerously close to the root the cavity is, and how it's about to start really hurting. He explains that he can fill it, but he may hit the nerve and that would be bad. I did not go to dental school, but I'm guessing that if the dentist says 'bad' what he means is 'fucking agony.' I agree to have it done, and he begins to get ready.
Me: "Wait wait wait wait. You mean today, right now?"
Dentist: "Yes"
Me: "Oh my god! What kind of drugs can you give me?"
Dentist: "Just the novocaine"
Me: "Are you kidding?! Can I go get drunk first?"
Dentist: "Is joke?"
Me: "No really"
But no, despite what you may have seen in the movies, the dentist won't let you get hammered before he works on you. So I had no choice but to sit there and tough it out like a man. I laid back in the chair, they gave me a bib and a pair of goggles. A fucking pair of goggles?! When did they start doing that? They put the topical stuff on my gums to numb them before the novocaine shots. And then, in a move of unprecedented cowardice, I jumped up from the chair and called the whole thing off. I stopped them before they even started it. I just couldn't do it. No drugs? Not even an iPod to block out the sound of the drill? You've got to be kidding me. No chance.
The dentist, to his credit, tried to use psychology on me. He sat me down and started talking about the procedure. The intricate details of scrubbing out the roots and nerves in the holes in my skull and filling them with metal. I'm guessing that was to de-mystify the operation and therefore give me confidence. And in a way, it worked. It made me 100% confident that I couldn't do it. I tried to talk myself down from the ledge, but there was no use. I had found my happy place, and it was anywhere but the dentist.
I'm sure they made bets after I left about whether I would come back for my 8am appointment the following Monday. But they lost, because I did. I took an entire handful of Ativan, a dose of Immodium (you think I'm kidding- I'm not) and my iPod. I was a zombie by the time I got there (and I walked through downtown in rush hour traffic, to boot), but I made it to the chair and just tuned out. He did his thing, and I hated every second of it.
The worst part about a root canal is that there are so many worst parts that you can't pick which one to hate the most. Ten thousands shots in your mouth, keeping your mouth open for three hours, the inexplicable parade of torture instruments you see the dentist and his assistant pass back and forth in front of your face each time you're stupid enough open your eyes. And oh yeah, let's not forget the noise, inside your head, of an instrument actually drilling into the bones of your skull. Have you thrown up yet? Wait until you find out what drilled bone smells like.
Three hours later, the dentist starts packing it up. And I swear to god, he says to me, "I have some bad news." Did you ever have the acute feeling that you wished you were dead? I'm not talking about your high school goth phase where nobody understands you but Robert Smith, and you'll teach those jocks and assholes and they'll all be really sorry when they're at your funeral and they read your suicide note and you blame them for everything. No, I'm talking the sudden, overwhelming urge to kill yourself rather than endure what's about to happen in the next ten seconds. What, pray tell, is the bad news?
"I not finish, you come back tomorrow."
God, are you listening? It's not fucking funny anymore. I'm over it. If this is the way it's going to be, I'm checking out. If you thought the suicide note to the jocks was bad, wait til you hear what I've got to say to you. Clear your calendar.
(mouth full of gauze, head full of Ativan, soul full of generations of suffering condensed into three hours)
"Why?"
"Your tooth, it is problems."
You don't fucking say.
Turns out your average molar has three roots. This particular tooth has four. That means more work, more drilling, another morning at the dentist. The procedure has also become complicated because I have begun bleeding too much. Again, I'm no dentist, but I'm not exactly shocked that there has been some blood loss. He explains that he has filled the holes in my head with gauze, used pinball machine parts, and whatever else he had on hand. But if I come back tomorrow and be a good boy, he will try to finish. He actually said try, and he actually smiled when he said it. So, utterly despondent, I gather my stuff and walk home.
This time, the earliest I could get an appointment was 10:30am. Ever the optimist (that is so funny if you know her), Baby had the nerve to say, "Well, at least you can sleep in." Cause, you know, it's easy to sleep when you know you've got a root canal scheduled in the morning. But I took a potentially lethal dose of Ativan (how many milligrams are in a handful, anyway?) and walked back over to the dentist and finished the job.
What happened over the course of those two and a half hours during the second stint is somewhat of a blur. Crazy as it sounds, the combination of extreme anxiety, Ativan, and a veritable shit ton of novocaine knocked me out. Maybe my body just couldn't handle it anymore and I had no choice but to just lay there and take it like a bitch. I remember the dentist saying, "This part maybe is hurting" and then putting his hand on my forehead. I then remember crying out like a little girl before going limp. After that I just didn't fucking care anymore.
When he was finished, he told me about the necessary follow-up appointments and the concerns he had about the tooth immediately behind the one he just worked on. Apparently it's similar to the bad one, and it may need a root canal of its own. Consider this the first chapter of my suicide note. Are you there god? It's me, bryc3...
Uh oh.
I hate the dentist. But big deal, everybody hates the dentist. Let me explain: I hate the dentist so much I have convinced myself that he does not exist. I live in a complete state of denial about the entire field of oral medicine. I diligently brush my teeth twice a day (and sometimes more often), and I've even been known to floss several times a week. I actually enjoy it. Of course, it helps that I tell myself that I'm doing it to ward off the dentist, who has taken on a bogeyman stature in my terrified mind.
It's not that I'm afraid of the pain, because I'm not. I know from pain. I could write a book comparing the various emergency rooms in the DC area. I've had actual medical procedures where they give you something to bite on to help with the pain. I'm serious. The kind of thing where the doctor says, "Look, this is going to really hurt and that's fucked up and I'm sorry. I forgive you in advance for all the terrible things you're about to shout at me, but don't worry because you will pass out before the pain actually does in fact kill you. Are you ready?"
But anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. All you need to know now is that I hate the dentist but the lost filling meant I had to go.
Of course I put off going right away though. Throughout the week I kept running my tongue over the hole in my molar where the filling used to be, and I kept telling myself that because there was no pain, I would probably be okay. In fact, I was doing just that on Friday when I jarred what appeared to be an even bigger piece of the tooth or filling or whatever loose, and I realized I had to see the dentist immediately. I frantically called all the dentists I could find with downtown offices until someone agreed to see me, and I jumped in a cab and went straight over. In retrospect, this was a bad idea.
Normally when I go to the dentist I load up on Ativan or Xanax just to make it through the ordeal. Again, it's not the pain I'm concerned about. It's the actual sitting in the chair, the anticipation and the concern and the wondering. The knowledge that once you commit, you're in it for the long haul. You don't get up with a tooth half-filled and say, "I can't handle it anymore today Doc, let's finish up tomorrow." You're pretty much stuck, and it always gets worse before it gets better. But on this day, I didn't have time to prepare and I didn't have any drugs.
I make it in to see the dentist, and he tells me I need a root canal. Soon. There is a bit of a language barrier. More specifically, an accent barrier. But we manage to communicate across the cultural divide, as he has apparently been observing my worst nightmares and taking exceptionally fucking detailed notes. He shows me the xray that shows how dangerously close to the root the cavity is, and how it's about to start really hurting. He explains that he can fill it, but he may hit the nerve and that would be bad. I did not go to dental school, but I'm guessing that if the dentist says 'bad' what he means is 'fucking agony.' I agree to have it done, and he begins to get ready.
Me: "Wait wait wait wait. You mean today, right now?"
Dentist: "Yes"
Me: "Oh my god! What kind of drugs can you give me?"
Dentist: "Just the novocaine"
Me: "Are you kidding?! Can I go get drunk first?"
Dentist: "Is joke?"
Me: "No really"
But no, despite what you may have seen in the movies, the dentist won't let you get hammered before he works on you. So I had no choice but to sit there and tough it out like a man. I laid back in the chair, they gave me a bib and a pair of goggles. A fucking pair of goggles?! When did they start doing that? They put the topical stuff on my gums to numb them before the novocaine shots. And then, in a move of unprecedented cowardice, I jumped up from the chair and called the whole thing off. I stopped them before they even started it. I just couldn't do it. No drugs? Not even an iPod to block out the sound of the drill? You've got to be kidding me. No chance.
The dentist, to his credit, tried to use psychology on me. He sat me down and started talking about the procedure. The intricate details of scrubbing out the roots and nerves in the holes in my skull and filling them with metal. I'm guessing that was to de-mystify the operation and therefore give me confidence. And in a way, it worked. It made me 100% confident that I couldn't do it. I tried to talk myself down from the ledge, but there was no use. I had found my happy place, and it was anywhere but the dentist.
I'm sure they made bets after I left about whether I would come back for my 8am appointment the following Monday. But they lost, because I did. I took an entire handful of Ativan, a dose of Immodium (you think I'm kidding- I'm not) and my iPod. I was a zombie by the time I got there (and I walked through downtown in rush hour traffic, to boot), but I made it to the chair and just tuned out. He did his thing, and I hated every second of it.
The worst part about a root canal is that there are so many worst parts that you can't pick which one to hate the most. Ten thousands shots in your mouth, keeping your mouth open for three hours, the inexplicable parade of torture instruments you see the dentist and his assistant pass back and forth in front of your face each time you're stupid enough open your eyes. And oh yeah, let's not forget the noise, inside your head, of an instrument actually drilling into the bones of your skull. Have you thrown up yet? Wait until you find out what drilled bone smells like.
Three hours later, the dentist starts packing it up. And I swear to god, he says to me, "I have some bad news." Did you ever have the acute feeling that you wished you were dead? I'm not talking about your high school goth phase where nobody understands you but Robert Smith, and you'll teach those jocks and assholes and they'll all be really sorry when they're at your funeral and they read your suicide note and you blame them for everything. No, I'm talking the sudden, overwhelming urge to kill yourself rather than endure what's about to happen in the next ten seconds. What, pray tell, is the bad news?
"I not finish, you come back tomorrow."
God, are you listening? It's not fucking funny anymore. I'm over it. If this is the way it's going to be, I'm checking out. If you thought the suicide note to the jocks was bad, wait til you hear what I've got to say to you. Clear your calendar.
(mouth full of gauze, head full of Ativan, soul full of generations of suffering condensed into three hours)
"Why?"
"Your tooth, it is problems."
You don't fucking say.
Turns out your average molar has three roots. This particular tooth has four. That means more work, more drilling, another morning at the dentist. The procedure has also become complicated because I have begun bleeding too much. Again, I'm no dentist, but I'm not exactly shocked that there has been some blood loss. He explains that he has filled the holes in my head with gauze, used pinball machine parts, and whatever else he had on hand. But if I come back tomorrow and be a good boy, he will try to finish. He actually said try, and he actually smiled when he said it. So, utterly despondent, I gather my stuff and walk home.
This time, the earliest I could get an appointment was 10:30am. Ever the optimist (that is so funny if you know her), Baby had the nerve to say, "Well, at least you can sleep in." Cause, you know, it's easy to sleep when you know you've got a root canal scheduled in the morning. But I took a potentially lethal dose of Ativan (how many milligrams are in a handful, anyway?) and walked back over to the dentist and finished the job.
What happened over the course of those two and a half hours during the second stint is somewhat of a blur. Crazy as it sounds, the combination of extreme anxiety, Ativan, and a veritable shit ton of novocaine knocked me out. Maybe my body just couldn't handle it anymore and I had no choice but to just lay there and take it like a bitch. I remember the dentist saying, "This part maybe is hurting" and then putting his hand on my forehead. I then remember crying out like a little girl before going limp. After that I just didn't fucking care anymore.
When he was finished, he told me about the necessary follow-up appointments and the concerns he had about the tooth immediately behind the one he just worked on. Apparently it's similar to the bad one, and it may need a root canal of its own. Consider this the first chapter of my suicide note. Are you there god? It's me, bryc3...
Thursday, October 05, 2006
W, GTFO PLZ? K THX BYE
This one isn't at all funny. But honestly, how often do you get a soapbox? Plus shit and goddamn it and crap and exclamation points! I'm too pissed not to rant.
I walked into the kitchen at work today and found a group of people looking at the windows. I walked over, and they told me that George W. Bush had just gone into the Department of Education (jokes for days) across the street. To protect W, the police and Secret Service had closed off the entire block. They also stopped people from leaving the surrounding buildings, trapping more than a few people in the Starbucks on the corner. My fellow pinko commie co-workers and I exchanged more than a few jokes about W as we waited for him to leave, in hopes of catching a glance. First he tricked us (and any lurking snipers) by sending out the double that looks just like him and moves to the dummy limo (aren't they all dummy limos when W rides in them?). The next time you bitch about your job, re-evaulate. You could be the man that not only looks like W, but whose sole job is to get shot in the face by a terrorist so W doesn't have to. Those TPS reports suddenly seem a lot more fun, don't they?
So anyway W finally comes outside, waves to the photographers, and gets in the limo and leaves with the motorcade. If you live in DC, you see these things from time to time. Having grown up here, I've been seeing them for years. And I tell you what, W's is mighty impressive. Far longer than, say, Reagan's, and that motherfucker got shot here! If you've never seen W's parade, it features truck after truck full of soldiers pointing fucking machine guns out the window at people standing on the street. They're not specifically aiming at any one person (unless you fit the profile, of course), but rather just training the gun from one person to the next to make sure nobody tries any funny business. I don't know about you, but I sure do feel safe about the state of our freedom when there is a fucking gun pointed at me. Thankfully W escaped unharmed. I hate the man to no end, but only a fool would want anything terrible to happen to him. Have you seen the demons who are on deck? Yikes.
But all these thoughts of W got me thinking that I should write him a letter. Here it is:
Dear Mr. Bush, you go on and on about preserving freedom and defending democracy, but you drive around in a fucking tank just a few blocks from your big White House. What's that say about winning the war on terror? If you need a private army to guard you just a stone's throw from the Capitol, how must your troops in the thick of the shit in Iraq feel every day? Have you ever thought about that? No, of course you haven't. Because you're a coward and an idiot.
You are also, however, our President. I keep hoping that one day you do something worry of living up to that title. Your father was on the Today show this morning, with your remarkably unattractive sister (seriously, what's up with that?). Dad was blathering on about something to do with Jeb, about how he's doing a heckuva job and all that bullshit you guys tell each other all the time. And then something truly scary dawned on me. I found myself remembering your dad fondly in comparison to you. Can you seriously have fucked up the country so badly that you've made your own father look good?
Do us all a favor. Stop even bothering with the appearances in DC. Nobody believes you're actually getting anything done. No more photo opps, no more press conferences, no more trips to Nats games. We spend way too much local money protecting you, and none of us likes waiting in traffic while you and your army drive by. We want you to be safe, we don't want anything to happen to you. This isn't because we like you very much, mind you, but only because we hate the men behind you far, far more. So protect your neck, and go back to Texas. Take Allen, Foley and the rest of your henchmen and hole yourselves up at the ranch. We've got work to do fixing everything you've broken, and the clock is ticking.
If we don't write then we're alright.
LYLAS,
bryc3
I walked into the kitchen at work today and found a group of people looking at the windows. I walked over, and they told me that George W. Bush had just gone into the Department of Education (jokes for days) across the street. To protect W, the police and Secret Service had closed off the entire block. They also stopped people from leaving the surrounding buildings, trapping more than a few people in the Starbucks on the corner. My fellow pinko commie co-workers and I exchanged more than a few jokes about W as we waited for him to leave, in hopes of catching a glance. First he tricked us (and any lurking snipers) by sending out the double that looks just like him and moves to the dummy limo (aren't they all dummy limos when W rides in them?). The next time you bitch about your job, re-evaulate. You could be the man that not only looks like W, but whose sole job is to get shot in the face by a terrorist so W doesn't have to. Those TPS reports suddenly seem a lot more fun, don't they?
So anyway W finally comes outside, waves to the photographers, and gets in the limo and leaves with the motorcade. If you live in DC, you see these things from time to time. Having grown up here, I've been seeing them for years. And I tell you what, W's is mighty impressive. Far longer than, say, Reagan's, and that motherfucker got shot here! If you've never seen W's parade, it features truck after truck full of soldiers pointing fucking machine guns out the window at people standing on the street. They're not specifically aiming at any one person (unless you fit the profile, of course), but rather just training the gun from one person to the next to make sure nobody tries any funny business. I don't know about you, but I sure do feel safe about the state of our freedom when there is a fucking gun pointed at me. Thankfully W escaped unharmed. I hate the man to no end, but only a fool would want anything terrible to happen to him. Have you seen the demons who are on deck? Yikes.
But all these thoughts of W got me thinking that I should write him a letter. Here it is:
Dear Mr. Bush, you go on and on about preserving freedom and defending democracy, but you drive around in a fucking tank just a few blocks from your big White House. What's that say about winning the war on terror? If you need a private army to guard you just a stone's throw from the Capitol, how must your troops in the thick of the shit in Iraq feel every day? Have you ever thought about that? No, of course you haven't. Because you're a coward and an idiot.
You are also, however, our President. I keep hoping that one day you do something worry of living up to that title. Your father was on the Today show this morning, with your remarkably unattractive sister (seriously, what's up with that?). Dad was blathering on about something to do with Jeb, about how he's doing a heckuva job and all that bullshit you guys tell each other all the time. And then something truly scary dawned on me. I found myself remembering your dad fondly in comparison to you. Can you seriously have fucked up the country so badly that you've made your own father look good?
Do us all a favor. Stop even bothering with the appearances in DC. Nobody believes you're actually getting anything done. No more photo opps, no more press conferences, no more trips to Nats games. We spend way too much local money protecting you, and none of us likes waiting in traffic while you and your army drive by. We want you to be safe, we don't want anything to happen to you. This isn't because we like you very much, mind you, but only because we hate the men behind you far, far more. So protect your neck, and go back to Texas. Take Allen, Foley and the rest of your henchmen and hole yourselves up at the ranch. We've got work to do fixing everything you've broken, and the clock is ticking.
If we don't write then we're alright.
LYLAS,
bryc3
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