Back when I considered myself a traveler, or a wanderer or fucking whatever because I thought it sounded romantic and Kerouacian, I idolized people who could travel freely and extensively and I flat out looked down upon those who seemingly had the part of their soul that longs for sojourn surgically removed.
I would have conversations where I would say things like, "Why would someone want to stay in one place? Why don't they want to go out and experience the world?"
And the individuals I spoke with would agree with me, and say yes, of course, why wouldn't they?
The assumption that there are people who have an ideal world that opposes my own is inherent to my personality. I grew up idolizing personalities that had a direct enemy. Finding out I have no one to fight is...uncomfortable. Is this a generational thing? thanks to eighties movies, we grew up believing the protagonist was always an underdog, and we're learning that is really never the case and as a result we feel unimportant.
Or is this just me?
I've always assumed there were people out there who had a desire to stay put and experience nothing new, that there were people whose goals never reached beyond remain, consume, endure. In a way, I made them my hypothetical enemies.
But I've never actually met any people like that.
For reference, here is a list of other people I have never personally met, but hypothetically frown upon because I assume they exist:
1. someone who has never felt like an outsider
2. someone who believes pit bulls are inherently vicious
3. someone who super enjoys a good office cubicle
4. someone who never questions authority
5. someone who hates Disneyland
Sure, I've met people who cannot afford the luxury of travel. I've met people that grow out of their insecurities. I've met people who are afraid of dogs. I've met people who enjoy their job at the office. I've met people who follow the rules, and I've me people who don't give a crap about amusement parks.
But that's living in a shade of gray, and it's undesirable to fight gray.
You know, it's not that I want to go out and "experience the world." It's that I like wandering into new places, and having a beer and talking to people. That's what I like to do. And I want to do that in as many places as possible.
And when MoLinder, Katsisch and I got to Munich, what did we do? Well, we hugged Gyna like hell, because she lives there and she's amazing. We rode Falkor (oh, that's right), said howdy to ze Germans, then immediately got a beer and shared stories. We went to Salzburg and we wandered around and then sat down and had a beer and told stories. We went to Copenhagen and we wandered around and had a beer and told stories. Sometimes we were talking to strangers (natives and fellow travelers), sometimes we were talking to each other. But it never got tedious, it never got pressing. Not to me. Unless I had to pee really, really bad or something.
To me that is doing something. That is experiencing the world. Because I'm taking what I love and I'm making it work within other places and cultures, I'm learning about other people's lives and how they relate to my own, I'm learning about my sister, I'm learning about my best friends, I'm learning how we fit together and I fucking dig that.
I got some criticism because we went to five cities in ten days. But it was never stressful, really, since our goal wasn't to tour. It was to wander, enjoy people's company, share memories and stories and have beers. I loved it so, so much.
And that, I think, makes us awesome.
What would I do if the world was ending tomorrow? I would invite everyone I liked to wander aimlessly around with me, get drunk, yell at people and share stories. That is what I would want to do.
So. Seeing as I am not Dave Attell or Anthony Bourdain, how do I turn this into a job?
...
Showing posts with label beer and puppies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beer and puppies. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Friday, January 14, 2011
Luckery and Astrology
In the midst of all the excitement of being thirty years old I've been researching my "novel," and by "novel" I mean "newest unreachable goal." Technically I reached my last two unreachable goals, so that's awesome, and I got them by juuuust half a foot or so, and now I have new ones to make even though I'm pretty sure those were the first goals I've ever reached in my life and I may never reach another. No, I will reach another goal, because that falls under my goals for this year.
Whatever, so I read every book on my shelves and I win at year 29. I make Age Resolutions.
For a decade I was one of those people who would hoard used books with the intention of intending to read them eventually, but I can't even pretend I always had the intention in the first place. Some books I just picked up because I heard someone once say it was good, some I picked up because hipsters referenced them and I wanted to sneer at their pretentiousness, those shifty little fuckers, and some I picked up because they were Classics that Everyone Should Read. Most of them just sat around on my bookshelves, always the neglected topic of conversation.
Last year I read all of them.
This year I have a two new goals in mind:
(1) From now on I will be Lucky.
I spent 29 years believing I was unlucky. Rossi Curse and all. Because, oh, my family has a curse. Haven't I mentioned it?
Unto each Rossi generation there will be an Unluckiest.
It's not an official curse, it's just a fun little game that my bastard Poppy invented to explain why he won at everything and his brother Joe always lost, and the tradition carried down to my dad, John The Unluckiest, and now to me: Rassles The Unluckiest.
It's been accepted throughout the extended family that I am The Unluckiest, and I'm used to being berated for it. Of course you got robbed, you're Unlucky. Of course you're not married, you're Unlucky. Of course you deliver pizzas, you're Unlucky. Of course your job is a dead end, you're Unlucky. Of course you got pulled over on a day-old expired driver's license, you're Unlucky.
Of course comparatively worldwide, I'm extraordinarily lucky. And I actually consider myself lucky to be unwed because marriage is a sham.
So fuck it. I didn't get along with Poppy anyway. I refuse to be The Unluckiest Rossi, and I refuse to believe that my refusal of unluckiness will result in that unluckiness being passed on to another family member with an overabundance of luck to restore the balance of luckery. I've decided that instead, my unluckiness will pass on to some dickweed I don't like who's been lucky his/her entire life. Because fuck that guy.
So what I'm saying is this: I decide to be lucky, because luck and its adversary do not need capitalization because they are in the mind and not decided by someone who isn't me, and now I'm not a Capricorn anymore. I fucking win. Being a Capricorn sucked. Honestly, if I identified with those horoscopic descriptions in the slightest I probably would have grown up to be a fucking gastronomical astrological nightmare, like how I am with the animal test. Do I whip out this shit at parties? Yes, I do. It's a huge annoyance until someone takes the test and flips at its accuracy, and I'm like "bitch I told you" and they're all "yeah you did" and I'm all "fuckin worldshaker and heartbreaker" and then I point to myself with my thumb while they awkwardly laugh and slyly curse my always-right-edness and innate ability to fucking work it.
Then again, I don't think an astrologer named Kunkle should be trusted at all. Kunkle sounds like a Harry Potter character. Plus, astrology is fucking stupid and rooted in absolutely nothing logical. And all you believers shout, "Stars!" and I say, "No, you fools! It's about interpreting the symbolic nature of the position of celestial bodies. Fantasy."
Now that we're clear on my position, and now that we all know I am a Sagittarius (I still don't really identify with any of it, it just sounds more pleasant than a rigid, organized, ambitiously serious Capricorn), I think it's time to move on.
(2) I have a list of about sixteen books to research and master. For the "novel." Which I am "writing." "Hypothetically."
What books they are you'll never know, not until I'm giving interviews and TED speeches about my genius and someone asks for my greatest influence and I'll say, "Honestly? There are so many, but I've always been partial to Winnie-the-Pooh."
...
Whatever, so I read every book on my shelves and I win at year 29. I make Age Resolutions.
For a decade I was one of those people who would hoard used books with the intention of intending to read them eventually, but I can't even pretend I always had the intention in the first place. Some books I just picked up because I heard someone once say it was good, some I picked up because hipsters referenced them and I wanted to sneer at their pretentiousness, those shifty little fuckers, and some I picked up because they were Classics that Everyone Should Read. Most of them just sat around on my bookshelves, always the neglected topic of conversation.
Last year I read all of them.
This year I have a two new goals in mind:
(1) From now on I will be Lucky.
I spent 29 years believing I was unlucky. Rossi Curse and all. Because, oh, my family has a curse. Haven't I mentioned it?
Unto each Rossi generation there will be an Unluckiest.
It's not an official curse, it's just a fun little game that my bastard Poppy invented to explain why he won at everything and his brother Joe always lost, and the tradition carried down to my dad, John The Unluckiest, and now to me: Rassles The Unluckiest.
It's been accepted throughout the extended family that I am The Unluckiest, and I'm used to being berated for it. Of course you got robbed, you're Unlucky. Of course you're not married, you're Unlucky. Of course you deliver pizzas, you're Unlucky. Of course your job is a dead end, you're Unlucky. Of course you got pulled over on a day-old expired driver's license, you're Unlucky.
Of course comparatively worldwide, I'm extraordinarily lucky. And I actually consider myself lucky to be unwed because marriage is a sham.
So fuck it. I didn't get along with Poppy anyway. I refuse to be The Unluckiest Rossi, and I refuse to believe that my refusal of unluckiness will result in that unluckiness being passed on to another family member with an overabundance of luck to restore the balance of luckery. I've decided that instead, my unluckiness will pass on to some dickweed I don't like who's been lucky his/her entire life. Because fuck that guy.
So what I'm saying is this: I decide to be lucky, because luck and its adversary do not need capitalization because they are in the mind and not decided by someone who isn't me, and now I'm not a Capricorn anymore. I fucking win. Being a Capricorn sucked. Honestly, if I identified with those horoscopic descriptions in the slightest I probably would have grown up to be a fucking gastronomical astrological nightmare, like how I am with the animal test. Do I whip out this shit at parties? Yes, I do. It's a huge annoyance until someone takes the test and flips at its accuracy, and I'm like "bitch I told you" and they're all "yeah you did" and I'm all "fuckin worldshaker and heartbreaker" and then I point to myself with my thumb while they awkwardly laugh and slyly curse my always-right-edness and innate ability to fucking work it.
Then again, I don't think an astrologer named Kunkle should be trusted at all. Kunkle sounds like a Harry Potter character. Plus, astrology is fucking stupid and rooted in absolutely nothing logical. And all you believers shout, "Stars!" and I say, "No, you fools! It's about interpreting the symbolic nature of the position of celestial bodies. Fantasy."
Now that we're clear on my position, and now that we all know I am a Sagittarius (I still don't really identify with any of it, it just sounds more pleasant than a rigid, organized, ambitiously serious Capricorn), I think it's time to move on.
(2) I have a list of about sixteen books to research and master. For the "novel." Which I am "writing." "Hypothetically."
What books they are you'll never know, not until I'm giving interviews and TED speeches about my genius and someone asks for my greatest influence and I'll say, "Honestly? There are so many, but I've always been partial to Winnie-the-Pooh."
...
Monday, December 20, 2010
It's A Common Name
The FedEx man, it appears, has a crush on me, because whenever he comes in here he rambles on and on, and all I can think is, "Don't you have somewhere to be in the World? On time?" I could never work for FedEx because I do not believe in clocks and live in that radical state of cracked thumbtips and inculpable delays. Also, my finger is a little infected and it hurts. Ruin my life.
Using the space bar is dreadful.
The other day FedEx mumbled in front of my desk for a good 55 seconds, which is 35 seconds longer than I am comfortable affording him. Something about, "Oh, hey, I always for-get your last name. Oh, that's right, it's uh...Rossi, like the construction company or the furniture sellers in Oakbrook."
"Martini and," I add, handing him back the Electronic Signature Capturererer with my incomprehensible scribble, which is somewhere between "drunkwasted bar tab authorization" and "look my cat can hold a pen." Odd, because my regular handwriting is sexy as hell.
"Or the martini drink, you got it," he bounces nervously and jabs the inkless plastic pen towards me, "Yeah, and we could like go for one of those sometime, right, that is if your husband don't mind then again you're the kind who'd have one that wouldn't, amirite? Yeah unless you're not married and we don't need anyone's permission which would be nice, or we don't have to go get a drink at all we could just keep this professional, right, Rossi?" He grins and guy nods; his silver tooth gleans with all the fidgetting.
I just smile and raise my eyebrows. Now, if it was Troy The Eagle Messenger guy? I would jump on that. He's one of the only bike messengers I've seen that smells like he showers. He's ideal, all Elliot Gould with classically disheveled helmet hair and a crooked nose that's definitely been broken several times. He also lacks metal teeth, which are really a fucking dealbreaker. I think I would have no problem with the metal teeth if we were already dating and he lost a tooth saving a puppy from the mean old dogcatcher (apparently we live in the 1920's), because I would probably make a boyfriend get metal teeth ironically just to be an asshole and ensure that no bitches try to steal my motherfucking puppysaving man.
"Yeah, you know, you're right, we don't need to go for a drink, I mean hey, you don't know me or my name and I always forget your name, what do I know I'm just the guy that drops off the packages. We don't have to do anything, you know, right? Yeah." He grins again amidst all the bouncing.
"Right. See ya later, Jimmy."
"Oh, you do? You? Yeah, I got it, I get it. Nametag. Yeah. Have a good weekend."
"You too."
...
Using the space bar is dreadful.
The other day FedEx mumbled in front of my desk for a good 55 seconds, which is 35 seconds longer than I am comfortable affording him. Something about, "Oh, hey, I always for-get your last name. Oh, that's right, it's uh...Rossi, like the construction company or the furniture sellers in Oakbrook."
"Martini and," I add, handing him back the Electronic Signature Capturererer with my incomprehensible scribble, which is somewhere between "drunkwasted bar tab authorization" and "look my cat can hold a pen." Odd, because my regular handwriting is sexy as hell.
"Or the martini drink, you got it," he bounces nervously and jabs the inkless plastic pen towards me, "Yeah, and we could like go for one of those sometime, right, that is if your husband don't mind then again you're the kind who'd have one that wouldn't, amirite? Yeah unless you're not married and we don't need anyone's permission which would be nice, or we don't have to go get a drink at all we could just keep this professional, right, Rossi?" He grins and guy nods; his silver tooth gleans with all the fidgetting.
I just smile and raise my eyebrows. Now, if it was Troy The Eagle Messenger guy? I would jump on that. He's one of the only bike messengers I've seen that smells like he showers. He's ideal, all Elliot Gould with classically disheveled helmet hair and a crooked nose that's definitely been broken several times. He also lacks metal teeth, which are really a fucking dealbreaker. I think I would have no problem with the metal teeth if we were already dating and he lost a tooth saving a puppy from the mean old dogcatcher (apparently we live in the 1920's), because I would probably make a boyfriend get metal teeth ironically just to be an asshole and ensure that no bitches try to steal my motherfucking puppysaving man.
"Yeah, you know, you're right, we don't need to go for a drink, I mean hey, you don't know me or my name and I always forget your name, what do I know I'm just the guy that drops off the packages. We don't have to do anything, you know, right? Yeah." He grins again amidst all the bouncing.
"Right. See ya later, Jimmy."
"Oh, you do? You? Yeah, I got it, I get it. Nametag. Yeah. Have a good weekend."
"You too."
...
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Weddings are no longer the worst times of my life: first photoblog ever.
"Okay," sighs CrazyLiz, closing her eyes and cranking her seat back. "High Low, Wisconsin Edition. Begin."
"What do you mean? Like how many Highs and how many Lows?"
"Yeah. Five each."
"Okay. Highs? Bar with the tree at the bachelor party."
"Tree bar. For sure."
"Best Jukebox ever, super bonding music time with Phil's brother."
"I think my binding time with Phil's brother was a High."
"Well you got to make out with him, so I'd say your high supersedes mine."
CrazyLiz giggles like she's about to divulge in dirty, opulent secrets. "Until Liger Girl ruined it."
"Stupid Liger Girl."
"Did you know there's a Liger Farm in Romeoville?"
"You speak fictitious untruths. You are a fucking Liger Liar, silly sally."
"And you steal my make out partners. That was a Low."
"Concur." We pause to ridicule the audacity of Liger Girl on countless levels, because we're bitches that need to fill the three hour car trip with something.
"Okay," I start up again. "Taylor at the bachelor party. That fucking guy is like a roman candle.""Who only drinks tequila."
"Neat," I remind her, pointing.
"Yes, only drinks tequila neat."
"And then we had to carry him down the hall to the hotel room after smashing him into the car like a drunken accordion."
"That reeks of tequila."
"Fucking Taylor." I take a sip of water, grinning.
"I got to kiss him too," she sighs, satisfied. "And cuddle. I would say cuddle time with both of them was a High."
"That's because you're a whore. I would say Taylor peeing on his pillow was a high."
"We saw his shween!"
"And then Phil had to follow the stream with the bucket and we made him sleep on it."
"You guys are such bastards."
"We are hiLARious."
"Whatever," CrazyLiz reaches forward. "Do we have any more beef jerky?"
"Fuck. Low: running out of road trip jerky."
"Lame." She puts on her sunglasses and leans back again. "Low? Not finding Otis Redding's memorial in Madison."
"High? Finding every single other memorial in Madison."
"Furious searching."
"Followed by extravagant failure. But then? Wrong turns equal super fun time."
"And Rassles' favorite museum of all time."
"Yes. New favorite museums. Could you imagine what would have happened if we didn't see that sign?"
"Yes. We would have napped, and my hangover would have mysteriously vanished."
"Small price to pay for the Circus World Museum."
"I love that you find a new favorite museum every year."
"I also love that about me."
"But you still had to wear that awful sweatshirt."
"Do not say things about my sweatshirt that you will fucking regret."
She cracks up. "Oh my GOD, that sweatshirt is such a fucking cock block."
"God forbid all of the smokin' hot dudes at the fucking Circus Museum want to stay away from us. THERE WAS NO ONE THERE."
"COCK. BLOCK."
"Shut up."
"You shut up."
"No you shut up."
"NO YOU SHUT UP."
"GAAAAHHHHHH. You know what? Fine. Okay. Lows: CrazyLiz talking mad shit about my fucking amazing-ass sweatshirt."
"Lows: Rassles wearing retarded-ass sweatshirts."
"I hate you so hard right now. Everyone loves that sweatshirt but you."
"That's because they all know to stay away from the Dorky Crazy Lady wearing Salvation Army rejects."
"I bought that sweatshirt straight from the fucking source. IT IS MY HOME JERSEY."
"THEN WEAR IT AT HOME."
"Oh, we are so in a fight right now."
"Whatever."
"Okay, okay. Highs. Circus Museum: climbing into the human cannon."
"Climbing into the off-limits human cannon."
"Having no one around to tell us to stop touching stuff."
"Climbing over all of the displays."
"And into creepy old traincars."
"Wearing circus costumes around the park that we found on a display rack."
"That cape was super itchy."
"You're a wuss."
"Plus it made me look huge."
"Mine was like a big gold moo-moo."
"Yes, but it was flowy and airy," I point out to her.
"And it billowed in the wind like a poem."
"Poems are known for being billowy."
"Okay. Next. Writing Phil's wedding vows for him after the rehearsal dinner."
I start to laugh, and quote our genius. "Your boobs look awesome from up here. This is because I am tall. Hey, if we have kids, are they going to be vegan like you? Because then I don't know if they can drink breastmilk."
"Low: Phil not using the vows we wrote for him."
"Seriously. Bullshit. High: beer canoe."
"High: dumping out the beer canoe and going canoeing in the lake."
"Okay, high: towel dancing on the bojangled dance floor."
"Oh, I loved towel dancing. Low: freezing cold."
"Low: everyone passing out and drinking and watching Big Fish by myself."
"High: you did not cry or fight with anyone."
"BEST WEDDING EVER!"
I think we had more than five of each.
...
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
I Am Allergic to July
I can tell I'm becoming responsible because I stopped getting those hangovers where I spend all day moaning and sweating and bitching about Margot Kidder's Lois Lane eye make up. Haven't had one of those in months. There are several reasons for this, the main one being dread, the second one being I stopped watching Superman whenever I had a hangover. Superman used to be my official Lonely Hangover Movie, but lately I've been watching Stardust because it reminds me of a guy I barely knew before I started having shitty summers. Or was it the first shitty summer?
I hate remembering unrequited crushes, but I do it all the same. Remembering them is much better than having them, because I can jiggle my memories around to convince myself he really actually returned the feelings and was too scared to act upon them. Or something.
The current unrequited crush is a fucking doozy that's been on and off for like three years, and whenever I see him I act like an asshole. Last summer he came into the office to drop of some prints when my face was at its most swollen. Even though I swore to keep the more attractive profile facing him during our conversation, when he asked how I was doing I immediately cranked my neck around, pointed at my jaw and declared, "Well, I'd be a lot better if I didn't have this fucking goiter growing out of my face. Check it, from this side I'm Marlon Brando."
"Wild One Brando or Apocalypse Now?"
"Doctor Moreau."
And then he laughed a real laugh, not one of those fake ones. See, it's those conversations that make him so dreamy. Do I have the balls to ask him out at all? No, and I don't think I ever will.
The past four summers, I've had some fucking ridiculous health problem. One summer I developed an allergic reaction to my lotion, and my hands were covered in cracks and blisters for two months before I discovered the cause. I didn't have health insurance then. Last summer was the swollen face and the liver ultrasound debacle, which was a fucking hoot. The summer before...okay, it wasn't so much of a "health problem" as it was a "crying problem."
On Saturday my eye swelled up. There is a fucking stye. Was a stye. It's basically gone now, but I look like I'm getting over a wicked shiner, and I've been make jokes about spousal abuse.
Tomorrow, the crush will be stopping by the office. Of course.
This post started off as one thing and now I don't remember where I am anymore.
Okay, so I'm actively avoiding hangovers. That, my friends, is the equivalent of willingness to accept responsibility for my irresponsibility. And old age. And the fact that MoLinder isn't here anymore and I don't have a drinking buddy at home.
But CrazyLiz moved in today, whom I love dearly, and along with her a one-eyed cat built like a tank named Oscar and a pepper-faced chocolate lab named Harley. Harley will only be here for a month, but hot damn, I'm excited.
For one month I will have a dog. Things are lookin' up for ole Rassles.
...
I hate remembering unrequited crushes, but I do it all the same. Remembering them is much better than having them, because I can jiggle my memories around to convince myself he really actually returned the feelings and was too scared to act upon them. Or something.
The current unrequited crush is a fucking doozy that's been on and off for like three years, and whenever I see him I act like an asshole. Last summer he came into the office to drop of some prints when my face was at its most swollen. Even though I swore to keep the more attractive profile facing him during our conversation, when he asked how I was doing I immediately cranked my neck around, pointed at my jaw and declared, "Well, I'd be a lot better if I didn't have this fucking goiter growing out of my face. Check it, from this side I'm Marlon Brando."
"Wild One Brando or Apocalypse Now?"
"Doctor Moreau."
And then he laughed a real laugh, not one of those fake ones. See, it's those conversations that make him so dreamy. Do I have the balls to ask him out at all? No, and I don't think I ever will.
The past four summers, I've had some fucking ridiculous health problem. One summer I developed an allergic reaction to my lotion, and my hands were covered in cracks and blisters for two months before I discovered the cause. I didn't have health insurance then. Last summer was the swollen face and the liver ultrasound debacle, which was a fucking hoot. The summer before...okay, it wasn't so much of a "health problem" as it was a "crying problem."
On Saturday my eye swelled up. There is a fucking stye. Was a stye. It's basically gone now, but I look like I'm getting over a wicked shiner, and I've been make jokes about spousal abuse.
Tomorrow, the crush will be stopping by the office. Of course.
This post started off as one thing and now I don't remember where I am anymore.
Okay, so I'm actively avoiding hangovers. That, my friends, is the equivalent of willingness to accept responsibility for my irresponsibility. And old age. And the fact that MoLinder isn't here anymore and I don't have a drinking buddy at home.
But CrazyLiz moved in today, whom I love dearly, and along with her a one-eyed cat built like a tank named Oscar and a pepper-faced chocolate lab named Harley. Harley will only be here for a month, but hot damn, I'm excited.
For one month I will have a dog. Things are lookin' up for ole Rassles.
...
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Rock My Adidas, Never Rock Fila
"Rossi! Donation from Sieman, huh?" My boss, The Action Man, calls from down the hall. (Is there a word for like, powering up so you can properly snap into action? I might have to invent one. Actually, I think it's ackshinackshinackshinackshinackshin.)
I snicker. "Khkhkhkhkh - semen." (Okay, so khkhkhkhkh is my weak attempt at properly spelling out a snicker. In live oration, I am a professional Snickerer, and one never mistakes my snickering for anything, but on the internet it just looks like the call of Cthulhu. Also, I am twelve.)
Sure enough, Action Man steams around the corner like fucking turbine and points at me with a ferocious grin. "Rossi! Are you kickin' the new K-knowledge?"
I stop my snickering to gasp as he chugs past. "Sir! Did you just drop the science like Galileo dropped the orange?"
He turns at the door and winks. "I believe I just did."
"I can't believe you're all up in the Beastie Boys."
"Saw 'em in '88!" he yells from outside, and as the elevator dings onto our floor I can hear hammering out, "Right up to your face and diss you..."
My boss is excellent.
...
I snicker. "Khkhkhkhkh - semen." (Okay, so khkhkhkhkh is my weak attempt at properly spelling out a snicker. In live oration, I am a professional Snickerer, and one never mistakes my snickering for anything, but on the internet it just looks like the call of Cthulhu. Also, I am twelve.)
Sure enough, Action Man steams around the corner like fucking turbine and points at me with a ferocious grin. "Rossi! Are you kickin' the new K-knowledge?"
I stop my snickering to gasp as he chugs past. "Sir! Did you just drop the science like Galileo dropped the orange?"
He turns at the door and winks. "I believe I just did."
"I can't believe you're all up in the Beastie Boys."
"Saw 'em in '88!" he yells from outside, and as the elevator dings onto our floor I can hear hammering out, "Right up to your face and diss you..."
My boss is excellent.
...
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Twitterpated With Spring. Like Bambi, Not Social Networking.
Today is the kind of day where the world is sprinkled with bunnies and songs from Sgt. Pepper or something equally twee.
I got this awesome plan to do some serious porch drinking tonight. Or frivolous porch drinking. If one were to adopt a more shrewd epithet, then frivolity is the more pertinent...appellation.
Yeah, I been watching a lot of Deadwood.
...
I got this awesome plan to do some serious porch drinking tonight. Or frivolous porch drinking. If one were to adopt a more shrewd epithet, then frivolity is the more pertinent...appellation.
Yeah, I been watching a lot of Deadwood.
...
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Friendship Is Just Like Electromagnetic Interactions and Quarks
My friendship with the Smith Sisters can best be ignorantly described with the following highly accurate Feynman diagram that flawlessly follows all of the rules of quantum electrodynamics:
I know what you're thinking: O fair Rassles, my brilliant, beautiful, bodacious blogging friend, however did you familiarize yourself with quantum physics? Weren't you a diligent speech major, busy writing a senior thesis that would earn you a historically impressive D+?
First of all, in my defense, I started that thesis a week before it was due and I was supposed to be working on it for a year. Second of all, I changed my major about seventeen times. Third of all, your face makes you look like a jerk.
But I dabbled in physics, for sure. Well, I've read In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, which is sloppy old school fun with physics, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to name-drop things like inter-perlative-quantum-business-something.
Sooooooo I don't really remember anything about the book except the pictures. Anyone who knows anything about anything knows that if I am anything, I am full of shit.
Basically, I wanted to talk about the Smith Sisters via graph, so initially in this explanation, I needed a graph. And I knew I wanted a Feynman because there were squiggly lines.
But I technically didn't remember the name of it, so I to googled "diagram with squigglies and positrons" and found it right away and I was all "fucking score" and then I tried to remember where I read about it since I've never taken a physics class in my life, and I googled "physics book with a cat" and then fucking Vwa-la (this is the way we spell things around here, by the way, because this is fucking America and I don't want any of your French-fangled Canadian verbal crappage all up in my business) I've got a complex explanatory answer to a question no one asked me directly.
This serves as an accurate diversion, no doubt, from the fact that my graph makes no sense whatsoever, and also provides a worthy transition into a rant about how my country is better than Canada because our hockey team whooped their asses, ergo I am better than The Smith Sisters because they are from Canada and I am from THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. And I will continue to point that out as often as possible, even though they let me sleep on their couch when I'm drunk.
...
Unfortunately, that would prove to be a superlong blog post, so...tomorrow? I thrash Canada.
And yeah, I'm aware of my hypocrisy: I bitch about the Olympics and then write a blog post mentioning that game. BUT! But but BUT! Making fun of my friends, without mercy and under the guise of patriotism, takes precedence over nearly everything.
...
I know what you're thinking: O fair Rassles, my brilliant, beautiful, bodacious blogging friend, however did you familiarize yourself with quantum physics? Weren't you a diligent speech major, busy writing a senior thesis that would earn you a historically impressive D+?First of all, in my defense, I started that thesis a week before it was due and I was supposed to be working on it for a year. Second of all, I changed my major about seventeen times. Third of all, your face makes you look like a jerk.
But I dabbled in physics, for sure. Well, I've read In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, which is sloppy old school fun with physics, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to name-drop things like inter-perlative-quantum-business-something.
Sooooooo I don't really remember anything about the book except the pictures. Anyone who knows anything about anything knows that if I am anything, I am full of shit.
Basically, I wanted to talk about the Smith Sisters via graph, so initially in this explanation, I needed a graph. And I knew I wanted a Feynman because there were squiggly lines.
But I technically didn't remember the name of it, so I to googled "diagram with squigglies and positrons" and found it right away and I was all "fucking score" and then I tried to remember where I read about it since I've never taken a physics class in my life, and I googled "physics book with a cat" and then fucking Vwa-la (this is the way we spell things around here, by the way, because this is fucking America and I don't want any of your French-fangled Canadian verbal crappage all up in my business) I've got a complex explanatory answer to a question no one asked me directly.
This serves as an accurate diversion, no doubt, from the fact that my graph makes no sense whatsoever, and also provides a worthy transition into a rant about how my country is better than Canada because our hockey team whooped their asses, ergo I am better than The Smith Sisters because they are from Canada and I am from THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. And I will continue to point that out as often as possible, even though they let me sleep on their couch when I'm drunk.
...
Unfortunately, that would prove to be a superlong blog post, so...tomorrow? I thrash Canada.
And yeah, I'm aware of my hypocrisy: I bitch about the Olympics and then write a blog post mentioning that game. BUT! But but BUT! Making fun of my friends, without mercy and under the guise of patriotism, takes precedence over nearly everything.
...
Friday, November 13, 2009
People Have Their Preferences
Like so many other people, I spent a large portion of my childhood watching Swiss Family Robinson, reading Walter Farley books, and building Robin Hood pirate fort dude ranches out of Legos.
Now this is important, because my goal was not necessarily to build Robin Hood pirate fort dude ranches, but my Lego options were limited to just that. Eldorado Fortress. Google it. It's one thing to play with Legos, but it's a different situation entirely when you're playing Eldorado Fucking Fortress. And I was mixing it with the stable and the Sherwood Forest shit (I totally don't remember its name but the Lego men were all Robin Hoody and lived in a fucking tree and they had a vine they used to swing across the two inch river).
Are you aware that my Eldorado Fortress had a horse trainer? Totally. She was a young woman with brown Lego hair who snuck into Eldorado on a rowboat under the guise of a punk soldier after getting shipwrecked on a nearby island, where wild ponies and merry men ran free. True story. And after earning the respect of the most honored horsemen within the mighty ocean fortress she revealed herself to be - ah ha! A girl! And her boyfriend was Robin Hood! And then they took over the Eldorado Fortress and made it their private sea fort, and lived in days of relaxation and wonder, exploring the neighboring island, building extravagant treehouses and befriending all of the wild ponies, and their children grew up to be presidents because they were raised with the perfect blend of freedom and regulation!
Seriously, did you know about all the shit going down at Eldorado Fortress?
So I decided, officially, that childhood interests are destructive. Watching Swiss Family Robinson is horrible for young girls, because I still want that. Robin Hood isn't real and Fritz isn't real and the Black Stallion isn't real, and no one steals from the rich and rides zebras in the Kentucky Derby and throws coconut bombs at angry Asian pirates. Horseshit.
And then I read this back to myself, this list of things that I identified with as a child that completely influenced my behavior and interests as an adult. Not like, OMG robinhoodpirateponies yar or anything like that, but the mindset, the characters' perceptions and goals and how they related to each other - I wanted to be on the fringe, forced to prove myself in some way because extreme circumstances demanded it for my survival. Obviously, that never happened.
Then again, why couldn't it happen? Why sit around and wait for it to happen? Why shouldn't I just live like it is happening, right now? I'm not saying I should dress up like a naval officer and sneak into a sea fort and tell people I'm Robin Hood's girlfriend, but that character - I wanted to be her. So, I should try to be like her.
And then I made a list of characteristics that defined her, the girl I wanted to be, and I realized that I basically am her already but outside of the circumstances of my fantasy, and that's kind of neat.
AND THEN, my sister sent me this article, saying, "I feel like this interview with Umberto Eco justifies your whole life. Particularly this quote: 'I like lists for the same reason other people like football or pedophilia. People have their preferences.'"
This is the first time she has ever shown any interest in my life without antagonistic ridicule. I nearly cried.
...
Now this is important, because my goal was not necessarily to build Robin Hood pirate fort dude ranches, but my Lego options were limited to just that. Eldorado Fortress. Google it. It's one thing to play with Legos, but it's a different situation entirely when you're playing Eldorado Fucking Fortress. And I was mixing it with the stable and the Sherwood Forest shit (I totally don't remember its name but the Lego men were all Robin Hoody and lived in a fucking tree and they had a vine they used to swing across the two inch river).
Are you aware that my Eldorado Fortress had a horse trainer? Totally. She was a young woman with brown Lego hair who snuck into Eldorado on a rowboat under the guise of a punk soldier after getting shipwrecked on a nearby island, where wild ponies and merry men ran free. True story. And after earning the respect of the most honored horsemen within the mighty ocean fortress she revealed herself to be - ah ha! A girl! And her boyfriend was Robin Hood! And then they took over the Eldorado Fortress and made it their private sea fort, and lived in days of relaxation and wonder, exploring the neighboring island, building extravagant treehouses and befriending all of the wild ponies, and their children grew up to be presidents because they were raised with the perfect blend of freedom and regulation!
Seriously, did you know about all the shit going down at Eldorado Fortress?
So I decided, officially, that childhood interests are destructive. Watching Swiss Family Robinson is horrible for young girls, because I still want that. Robin Hood isn't real and Fritz isn't real and the Black Stallion isn't real, and no one steals from the rich and rides zebras in the Kentucky Derby and throws coconut bombs at angry Asian pirates. Horseshit.
And then I read this back to myself, this list of things that I identified with as a child that completely influenced my behavior and interests as an adult. Not like, OMG robinhoodpirateponies yar or anything like that, but the mindset, the characters' perceptions and goals and how they related to each other - I wanted to be on the fringe, forced to prove myself in some way because extreme circumstances demanded it for my survival. Obviously, that never happened.
Then again, why couldn't it happen? Why sit around and wait for it to happen? Why shouldn't I just live like it is happening, right now? I'm not saying I should dress up like a naval officer and sneak into a sea fort and tell people I'm Robin Hood's girlfriend, but that character - I wanted to be her. So, I should try to be like her.
And then I made a list of characteristics that defined her, the girl I wanted to be, and I realized that I basically am her already but outside of the circumstances of my fantasy, and that's kind of neat.
AND THEN, my sister sent me this article, saying, "I feel like this interview with Umberto Eco justifies your whole life. Particularly this quote: 'I like lists for the same reason other people like football or pedophilia. People have their preferences.'"
This is the first time she has ever shown any interest in my life without antagonistic ridicule. I nearly cried.
...
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Sure, Nutella Tastes Good, But It Ain't No Peanut Butter.
Riding in the elevator down to the lobby, it occurs to me that I should have brought my wallet so I could get a bag of Cool Ranch after picking up the applications, and get two birds stoned at once. I'll just have to get it later.
With a tone the doors shift open, and I wince as my boots click on the granite floor. I feel like a villain. How does one hush the click of their boots? Glue cotton balls to the sole, soften things up a little. Like a metaphor or something. What does the sound of your shoes suggest about the tenderness of your soul?
What should my shoes sound like? A louder thud with a legato hum, one step slurs into the other with a sort of, I don't know...letter B. Each sounds like a "buh," loud and stretched, but squashy all the same. Maybe not squashy. Butternutty? Is that what my soul sounds like?
I love pushing through this revolving door, because each revelation is like saving the earth.
Rain. Rain should always be like wandering into the middle of a cool, invisible surprise party. One where I am the guest of honor. We're having a good time, getting into a little mischief, and we've gotten over the awkward small talk and have yet to enter blinding, drunken turbulence. From this moment on, I will try to live life like that.
Also:
Will Reese's ever develop Nutella cupcakes? That could be delicious. But then I would have to eat two at once (one to cancel the other) because Nutella just makes me wish I had peanut butter.
"Hello, ladies," I say to the two smiling, elderly principals waiting for me in their car on the street. They hand me packages of school grant applications, and I thank them for beating the deadline, and they ask if I have an umbrella. I explain that I have bad luck with umbrellas, because sometimes I get drunk and give them to homeless people sleeping in boarded doorways. We say goodbye. As they shift back into the busy traffic I offer a wave, when a random angry-looking woman stalks up to me.
"This is the FUCKING BUS LANE," she shouts angrily, and flicks off the nice old ladies in the car before trying to stare me down.
I point at her and laugh, and keep on chuckling over my shoulder as I click back into the office building through the rain.
Today is a good day.
...
With a tone the doors shift open, and I wince as my boots click on the granite floor. I feel like a villain. How does one hush the click of their boots? Glue cotton balls to the sole, soften things up a little. Like a metaphor or something. What does the sound of your shoes suggest about the tenderness of your soul?
What should my shoes sound like? A louder thud with a legato hum, one step slurs into the other with a sort of, I don't know...letter B. Each sounds like a "buh," loud and stretched, but squashy all the same. Maybe not squashy. Butternutty? Is that what my soul sounds like?
I love pushing through this revolving door, because each revelation is like saving the earth.
Rain. Rain should always be like wandering into the middle of a cool, invisible surprise party. One where I am the guest of honor. We're having a good time, getting into a little mischief, and we've gotten over the awkward small talk and have yet to enter blinding, drunken turbulence. From this moment on, I will try to live life like that.
Also:
Dear Me,
Stop eating Reese's pumpkins, fatty. Live life like that. Without all the peanut butter.
Love, Me
Will Reese's ever develop Nutella cupcakes? That could be delicious. But then I would have to eat two at once (one to cancel the other) because Nutella just makes me wish I had peanut butter.
"Hello, ladies," I say to the two smiling, elderly principals waiting for me in their car on the street. They hand me packages of school grant applications, and I thank them for beating the deadline, and they ask if I have an umbrella. I explain that I have bad luck with umbrellas, because sometimes I get drunk and give them to homeless people sleeping in boarded doorways. We say goodbye. As they shift back into the busy traffic I offer a wave, when a random angry-looking woman stalks up to me.
"This is the FUCKING BUS LANE," she shouts angrily, and flicks off the nice old ladies in the car before trying to stare me down.
I point at her and laugh, and keep on chuckling over my shoulder as I click back into the office building through the rain.
Today is a good day.
...
Thursday, October 15, 2009
I Won't Mean Business On This Vacation
If we had spoken last Monday, hypothetically, and if you had said, "Dude, you are such a fucking douchebag" I might have defended my honor with ruthless abandon.
If you had texted me last Monday, hypothetically, and said, "All inclusive resort in Cancun + flight + transportation limited offer $500" I would have laughed at my phone and responded with my highly opposable thumbs, "you are a fucking loser" or whatever.
If we met at a bar last Monday, hypothetically, and our barversation ripened into an excited debate on vacation destinations, I would not have brought up any place in Mexico. Mexico isn't even in my top twenty-five Places To See While I Can Still Walk Moderately Quickly.*
Mostly this is because anything south and west of Kansas, in my brain, is "The Tropics."
And I'm not very tropical. I'm not one of those yellowy pink coltish girls that always wear flip flops and smell like sunshine. People don't look at me and think, "I'd bet the farm that that girl wears Hawaiian-hibiscus-print dresses," although they may perhaps think, "I'd bet this Hawaiian-hibiscus-print dress that that girl works on a farm."
Mid-west.
Secondly, I don't go on vacation. I take trips: there's a difference. "Vacation" implies relaxation. Usually I'm on a trip. Where I like...do stuff. Route 66. New Orleans. Alaska. Vegas (okay, maybe not Vegas).
But the fact is somewhere between last Tuesday and yesterday, we decided to go to a resort in Cancun. I couldn't pass this shit up. Six days, five nights, all-inclusive, flight, transportation, decent hotel, with a ringing total of $503.47 including tax.
I've had unintentional $200 bar nights before, where you wake up on the floor of your kitchen in the late afternoon with a fistful of corndog and a pocketful of receipts and an ankle-ful of sprain, and you swear upon green earth and stone that if your car is hopefully where you left it when you were sober twenty hours earlier, you'll swear off alcohol to preach the Word to heathens, and this time you mean it. Not like last time.
But that's not going to happen this time, no fucking way. This time I've already paid for alcohol. Because that shit's included, suckah.
And I know what people are going to say: don't go to Cancun, go to this place, where there are Mayan ruins and cave-diving, or go to this one place that is more beautiful and much more like the "real" Mexico. Or go to fucking blahgiddy blahgiddy blah blah blah, because the beaches are better and there are less tourists and more to see and do. Don't get kidnapped (exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point).
No.
You do not understand.
I am going to sit on the beach and get drunk on exotic pink things with umbrellas in them and read really trashy novels**, and I'm going to fucking like it.
I am going to lay around in a goddamn bathing suit, and no one is going to be able to see me because I am the same color as the sand, and I'll constantly forget where I put my sunglasses.
I am going to create a playlist in my head that alternates between "Kokomo" and "This Is It" and "Knights of Cydonia" and "Panama" and basically anything by Weezer, and I'm going to play it over and over again with my brain, because I don't own an iPod, and I don't care if you don't like those songs because you can't hear my brain anyway.
You have no idea how excited I am for this. I never do stuff like this. There's usually a point for things. There are mountains to climb (yeah, I totally bagged a peak) and long infamous roads to drive, drinking local brews, kayaking, legendary cuisine, church spirals and Irish pony races, biking along canals, wandering through Roman ruins, seeing monuments and palaces and the streets where they filmed Full House (everywhere you look, everywhere there's a place...somebody who needs you). Yeah. I've done all that business.
But I have no such expectations of Cancun, except for white beaches and booze. Booze that I have already paid for.
DECEMBER, BITCHES.
* List to come.
** Okay, so I have to buy some trashy novels. I've never been a trashy novel person, but I'm single and sneaking closer to thirty every day. It's about that time.
...
If you had texted me last Monday, hypothetically, and said, "All inclusive resort in Cancun + flight + transportation limited offer $500" I would have laughed at my phone and responded with my highly opposable thumbs, "you are a fucking loser" or whatever.
If we met at a bar last Monday, hypothetically, and our barversation ripened into an excited debate on vacation destinations, I would not have brought up any place in Mexico. Mexico isn't even in my top twenty-five Places To See While I Can Still Walk Moderately Quickly.*
Mostly this is because anything south and west of Kansas, in my brain, is "The Tropics."
And I'm not very tropical. I'm not one of those yellowy pink coltish girls that always wear flip flops and smell like sunshine. People don't look at me and think, "I'd bet the farm that that girl wears Hawaiian-hibiscus-print dresses," although they may perhaps think, "I'd bet this Hawaiian-hibiscus-print dress that that girl works on a farm."
Mid-west.
Secondly, I don't go on vacation. I take trips: there's a difference. "Vacation" implies relaxation. Usually I'm on a trip. Where I like...do stuff. Route 66. New Orleans. Alaska. Vegas (okay, maybe not Vegas).
But the fact is somewhere between last Tuesday and yesterday, we decided to go to a resort in Cancun. I couldn't pass this shit up. Six days, five nights, all-inclusive, flight, transportation, decent hotel, with a ringing total of $503.47 including tax.
I've had unintentional $200 bar nights before, where you wake up on the floor of your kitchen in the late afternoon with a fistful of corndog and a pocketful of receipts and an ankle-ful of sprain, and you swear upon green earth and stone that if your car is hopefully where you left it when you were sober twenty hours earlier, you'll swear off alcohol to preach the Word to heathens, and this time you mean it. Not like last time.
But that's not going to happen this time, no fucking way. This time I've already paid for alcohol. Because that shit's included, suckah.
And I know what people are going to say: don't go to Cancun, go to this place, where there are Mayan ruins and cave-diving, or go to this one place that is more beautiful and much more like the "real" Mexico. Or go to fucking blahgiddy blahgiddy blah blah blah, because the beaches are better and there are less tourists and more to see and do. Don't get kidnapped (exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point).
No.
You do not understand.
I am going to sit on the beach and get drunk on exotic pink things with umbrellas in them and read really trashy novels**, and I'm going to fucking like it.
I am going to lay around in a goddamn bathing suit, and no one is going to be able to see me because I am the same color as the sand, and I'll constantly forget where I put my sunglasses.
I am going to create a playlist in my head that alternates between "Kokomo" and "This Is It" and "Knights of Cydonia" and "Panama" and basically anything by Weezer, and I'm going to play it over and over again with my brain, because I don't own an iPod, and I don't care if you don't like those songs because you can't hear my brain anyway.
You have no idea how excited I am for this. I never do stuff like this. There's usually a point for things. There are mountains to climb (yeah, I totally bagged a peak) and long infamous roads to drive, drinking local brews, kayaking, legendary cuisine, church spirals and Irish pony races, biking along canals, wandering through Roman ruins, seeing monuments and palaces and the streets where they filmed Full House (everywhere you look, everywhere there's a place...somebody who needs you). Yeah. I've done all that business.
But I have no such expectations of Cancun, except for white beaches and booze. Booze that I have already paid for.
DECEMBER, BITCHES.
* List to come.
** Okay, so I have to buy some trashy novels. I've never been a trashy novel person, but I'm single and sneaking closer to thirty every day. It's about that time.
...
Monday, July 6, 2009
Oh, The Heart of Rock and Roll Is Totally Still Beating.
It's strong and it's sudden.
My bladder is cruel, sometimes. I can't hold it in much longer. "Dude, I gotta pee so bad."
The Smith Sister glances at me, sympathetic, and offers, "My mom would tell you to just not think about that whole like...area."
"But that's so hard--I mean, with Huey Lewis right there, on the stage."
She laughs big and coughy and raises her hand. "Okay, nice. Up high. That right there? You get a high five for that."
I fucking love high fives, I don't know why. I will never, ever turn down a high five. I love their cheesiness, I love the douchey, simple, sporting camaraderie they signify.
Huey Lewis is like the musical equivalent of the high five.
"I just want to give him a big fucking hug," I sigh.
"A naked hug."
"Well he's just so dreamy."
"Ahhhh, the power of love."
"I WANT YOU TO BE MY DAD!"
This stupid ass concert is going to make me hoarse, and I really, really can't hold it in much longer.
...
My bladder is cruel, sometimes. I can't hold it in much longer. "Dude, I gotta pee so bad."
The Smith Sister glances at me, sympathetic, and offers, "My mom would tell you to just not think about that whole like...area."
"But that's so hard--I mean, with Huey Lewis right there, on the stage."
She laughs big and coughy and raises her hand. "Okay, nice. Up high. That right there? You get a high five for that."
I fucking love high fives, I don't know why. I will never, ever turn down a high five. I love their cheesiness, I love the douchey, simple, sporting camaraderie they signify.
Huey Lewis is like the musical equivalent of the high five.
"I just want to give him a big fucking hug," I sigh.
"A naked hug."
"Well he's just so dreamy."
"Ahhhh, the power of love."
"I WANT YOU TO BE MY DAD!"
This stupid ass concert is going to make me hoarse, and I really, really can't hold it in much longer.
...
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
I Was On Fire This Weekend, Figuratively Speaking.
"Excuse me," I slide up to the gentlemen at the bar. I'm like butter. "I couldn't help but overhear that, uh, you guys were having a conversation. Might I join?"
They stop talking and turn to look at me. Turn to each other, one motion, then back at me, amused and trying to hold back surprised chuckles. I'm deadpan and drunk as all hell, and focused on keeping my eyes naturally wide and innocent, but I probably look like some drunk girl focused on keeping her eyes wide and innocent, and it's fucking brilliant.
"Really? Did you just say that?"
I tilt, like a bird. "Say what?"
"That. Is. Awesome. Yes," the first guy snickers. I name him Hat Guy in my brain, and he offers me a beer-spilling cheers, "Yes, yes, you can join in on our conversation."
"How come we never thought of that?" the second guy (I have named him Ginger by now) says to Hat Guy as he sips his beer.
"Because I am on fire today," I explain, "you guys have like, no idea how awesome I am today. Go on. Ask me how awesome I am."
"How awesome are you?" they're in unison, and it's funny.
I smile, and I'm butter again. "Very."
"Okay, that's fair," Hat Guy smiles.
"I'm convinced," Ginger adds.
I take a sip of my beer. "I am so awesome," I clap my hand on Hat Guy's shoulder, "that I just invented the best pick-up line ever, because it's not just a pick-up line, it's a test." I nod at them, knowingly, willing them to understand.
It takes a few seconds. They're befuddled, slightly, and Hat Guy starts to come around. "Oh, because if we think it's funny..."
"Then you are also awesome."
"So you're picking us up?" Ginger won't look at me. Look at me, Ginger, or I will make you look at me.
"Oh, psssh, no," I'm smug and drunk, and my feet slip on the floor behind their barstools, "they just dared me to talk to you guys and I was all, 'fucking watch this, bitches, I'm like a social butterfly' and I said the first thing that came to mind. By the way, I don't know if you guys saw that, but I totally just almost slipped and fell right there, and then you guys would have had to pick up pieces of my face."
They laugh. "I like you," Ginger nods.
Hat Guy agrees. "Yeah, I like her, too."
Duh. "Duh. I'm like a genius or something."
"Or something. What's your name?"
We exchange names, and I forget theirs instantly. They are Hat Guy and Ginger.
"So, Rassles, what're you drinking?" Hat Guy asks.
"PBR. Are you buying me a beer? You are excellent."
Ginger turns to me. "So, you're a genius, right? You said that?"
I nod very seriously.
"Plus, you have good pick up lines," Ginger says.
"Plus that, and then multiply it by awesome."
"So your friends told you to talk to us," Hat Guy affirms.
"Yup." I wave my hand towards the corner and and grab the back of his chair. "Over there. Back corner. I'm glad I did--you guys are fun."
Hat Guy smiles and ponders for a moment while he hands me my beer. "I'm gonna go talk to them." He stands up. "You don't mind?"
"Go nuts, Hat Guy."
He laughs, marching over to their table.
"Be nice! Some of them are from Canada," I yell after him. Turn to Ginger. "So seriously, what were you guys talking about?"
...
They stop talking and turn to look at me. Turn to each other, one motion, then back at me, amused and trying to hold back surprised chuckles. I'm deadpan and drunk as all hell, and focused on keeping my eyes naturally wide and innocent, but I probably look like some drunk girl focused on keeping her eyes wide and innocent, and it's fucking brilliant.
"Really? Did you just say that?"
I tilt, like a bird. "Say what?"
"That. Is. Awesome. Yes," the first guy snickers. I name him Hat Guy in my brain, and he offers me a beer-spilling cheers, "Yes, yes, you can join in on our conversation."
"How come we never thought of that?" the second guy (I have named him Ginger by now) says to Hat Guy as he sips his beer.
"Because I am on fire today," I explain, "you guys have like, no idea how awesome I am today. Go on. Ask me how awesome I am."
"How awesome are you?" they're in unison, and it's funny.
I smile, and I'm butter again. "Very."
"Okay, that's fair," Hat Guy smiles.
"I'm convinced," Ginger adds.
I take a sip of my beer. "I am so awesome," I clap my hand on Hat Guy's shoulder, "that I just invented the best pick-up line ever, because it's not just a pick-up line, it's a test." I nod at them, knowingly, willing them to understand.
It takes a few seconds. They're befuddled, slightly, and Hat Guy starts to come around. "Oh, because if we think it's funny..."
"Then you are also awesome."
"So you're picking us up?" Ginger won't look at me. Look at me, Ginger, or I will make you look at me.
"Oh, psssh, no," I'm smug and drunk, and my feet slip on the floor behind their barstools, "they just dared me to talk to you guys and I was all, 'fucking watch this, bitches, I'm like a social butterfly' and I said the first thing that came to mind. By the way, I don't know if you guys saw that, but I totally just almost slipped and fell right there, and then you guys would have had to pick up pieces of my face."
They laugh. "I like you," Ginger nods.
Hat Guy agrees. "Yeah, I like her, too."
Duh. "Duh. I'm like a genius or something."
"Or something. What's your name?"
We exchange names, and I forget theirs instantly. They are Hat Guy and Ginger.
"So, Rassles, what're you drinking?" Hat Guy asks.
"PBR. Are you buying me a beer? You are excellent."
Ginger turns to me. "So, you're a genius, right? You said that?"
I nod very seriously.
"Plus, you have good pick up lines," Ginger says.
"Plus that, and then multiply it by awesome."
"So your friends told you to talk to us," Hat Guy affirms.
"Yup." I wave my hand towards the corner and and grab the back of his chair. "Over there. Back corner. I'm glad I did--you guys are fun."
Hat Guy smiles and ponders for a moment while he hands me my beer. "I'm gonna go talk to them." He stands up. "You don't mind?"
"Go nuts, Hat Guy."
He laughs, marching over to their table.
"Be nice! Some of them are from Canada," I yell after him. Turn to Ginger. "So seriously, what were you guys talking about?"
...
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The City of New Orleans: Professional Drinkers Association
Day Three.
Because of the shatness of Bourbon Street, on Monday night we bought PBR silos and loitered on the sidewalk behind the cathedral in Jackson Square Park. Okay, sure, technically only Coors Light comes in silos, being the silver bullet and everything [nards] but you can't full well call a 24 oz can of heaven a tallboy when it's more than a tall order and you're drinking double the pleasure. So "silo" it is.
After striding around the block for awhile, two dirty crackheads plopped next to us on the sidewalk. We carried on conversations within our own individual groups, laughed at the same jokes and threw sporadic conversational interjections at each other.
A stranger ambled up after about half an hour, saddled with a low-slung back pack and munching out of a box of Crunch Berries with a long-handled spoon.
"Hey strangeh," called a crackhead. "Where yeh headin'?"
"Down Frenchmen street. There's a [some musical style] band playing at [some bar] and they got [some drink specials.]"
"Niiiiiice. I'll be headin down theah lateh."
"Cooo, maybe I'll see ya."
"Aiight. I'll be lookin fer the boxxah Crunch Berries." They exchanged smiles and a handslapfingersnap, and Crunch Berry Guy drifted away with his box and spoon.
I looked at Muffy. "I am hungry. And that guy was awesome."
"Dude. Yes."
"He is not an amateur."
"Hell no, that guy's definitely a professional. I'll bet he gets paid to be fucked up."
"I would pay him to be fucked up."
"I would give you half."
"And then I'd double his fucking salary."
"Crunch Berry Guy is so pro he's got a Masters In Professional Fuckedupness."
"Yeah, but that M.P.F. was bestowed upon him in the streets. Being a Professional in a field such as ours is a natural talent. That's some shit you can't learn at Tulane."
"Fuck Tulane."
"Unless he went to Kellogg. Now that's a school for Professional management."
"HAH! For sure, dude. And Crunch Berry guy manages to mix business and cereal."
"Dude, cereal is business. That's what they teach you at Kellogg."
"Cereal is serious business."
"They should really leave cereal for the Professionals."
"PDA 2009, dude. P. D. A."
We hung out there for a couple of hours before wandering back to the hotel, where I ate some Cheetos, wrote a drunk blog, and then convinced Muffy and Amber to head back out with me.
I led them to the casino across the street. I was just itching to play craps. Seriously itching. Took twenty dollars cash and an ID, because if I'd had plastic on me I would have diced my ass off. Nearly two hours of craps and free drinks, and I passed out back at the hotel with fifteen still in my pocket. Muffy and Amber weren't as lucky, but then again, they don't play craps.
And I am a Professional.
But the highlight of the night was back on the sidewalk, leaning against the fence behind that cathedral.
"I came here twenty-two years ago with my dad--" the older dirty crackhead began, his voice surprisingly clear and pleasant, without an ounce of the grit we expected, "--and he was like, I'll be right back."
He paused to light a cigarette, taking a long, slow drag. "I'm still waiting," he exhales in an expert stream of smoke. "He never came back."
We exchanged secret glances, listening in on his confession.
"So I fucking went to Mardi Gras and sold my roller skates for crack."
...
Because of the shatness of Bourbon Street, on Monday night we bought PBR silos and loitered on the sidewalk behind the cathedral in Jackson Square Park. Okay, sure, technically only Coors Light comes in silos, being the silver bullet and everything [nards] but you can't full well call a 24 oz can of heaven a tallboy when it's more than a tall order and you're drinking double the pleasure. So "silo" it is.
After striding around the block for awhile, two dirty crackheads plopped next to us on the sidewalk. We carried on conversations within our own individual groups, laughed at the same jokes and threw sporadic conversational interjections at each other.
A stranger ambled up after about half an hour, saddled with a low-slung back pack and munching out of a box of Crunch Berries with a long-handled spoon.
"Hey strangeh," called a crackhead. "Where yeh headin'?"
"Down Frenchmen street. There's a [some musical style] band playing at [some bar] and they got [some drink specials.]"
"Niiiiiice. I'll be headin down theah lateh."
"Cooo, maybe I'll see ya."
"Aiight. I'll be lookin fer the boxxah Crunch Berries." They exchanged smiles and a handslapfingersnap, and Crunch Berry Guy drifted away with his box and spoon.
I looked at Muffy. "I am hungry. And that guy was awesome."
"Dude. Yes."
"He is not an amateur."
"Hell no, that guy's definitely a professional. I'll bet he gets paid to be fucked up."
"I would pay him to be fucked up."
"I would give you half."
"And then I'd double his fucking salary."
"Crunch Berry Guy is so pro he's got a Masters In Professional Fuckedupness."
"Yeah, but that M.P.F. was bestowed upon him in the streets. Being a Professional in a field such as ours is a natural talent. That's some shit you can't learn at Tulane."
"Fuck Tulane."
"Unless he went to Kellogg. Now that's a school for Professional management."
"HAH! For sure, dude. And Crunch Berry guy manages to mix business and cereal."
"Dude, cereal is business. That's what they teach you at Kellogg."
"Cereal is serious business."
"They should really leave cereal for the Professionals."
"PDA 2009, dude. P. D. A."
We hung out there for a couple of hours before wandering back to the hotel, where I ate some Cheetos, wrote a drunk blog, and then convinced Muffy and Amber to head back out with me.
I led them to the casino across the street. I was just itching to play craps. Seriously itching. Took twenty dollars cash and an ID, because if I'd had plastic on me I would have diced my ass off. Nearly two hours of craps and free drinks, and I passed out back at the hotel with fifteen still in my pocket. Muffy and Amber weren't as lucky, but then again, they don't play craps.
And I am a Professional.
But the highlight of the night was back on the sidewalk, leaning against the fence behind that cathedral.
"I came here twenty-two years ago with my dad--" the older dirty crackhead began, his voice surprisingly clear and pleasant, without an ounce of the grit we expected, "--and he was like, I'll be right back."
He paused to light a cigarette, taking a long, slow drag. "I'm still waiting," he exhales in an expert stream of smoke. "He never came back."
We exchanged secret glances, listening in on his confession.
"So I fucking went to Mardi Gras and sold my roller skates for crack."
...
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Daydream
Oh, New Orleans is incredible. I love it here. I could be wrong, I mean, I'm totally time traveling right now. Or am I practicing divination? Irrelevant, I don't believe in fate anyway.
You guys better be good and ready for some soul right now, because Formerly Fun is going to let us see into hers a little bit, and then she's gonna go wax some vagina. She's the most intelligent vag-waxer in the world, although I really have no experience with estheticians and I don't know anyone else who gives Brazilians for a living. I also do not know any Brazilians. Obviously I fail today. Like everyone that I pay attention to (yeah, that means you, blog readers, because I really don't have the attention span for boring people) FF is fascinating. Unlike some of you jerkoids, she's astute, adept, and quietly hilarious.
So with this in mind, when she asked for a theme to inspire her discourse, I offered "Daydream."
...
I am an extroverted introvert who has always enjoyed the space inside my head. I have frequently said I could be relatively content in prison given time to myself, books and maybe a sundry of art supplies. Oh, and freedom from random shiv shanking. My husband has told me more than once that this ability to withstand confinement coupled with the fact that I watch so much Forensic Files scares him a little. Just don't do anything bad I tell him, and you don't have anything to worry about. Sure, I'd miss the outside world but my imagination would make a fine companion for ten to life.
I grew up an only child and an avid daydreamer. Stacks of books took me far past the borders of the city where I grew up. Books gave me the pieces to build upon. When I was young, most of my daydreams took on different forms of wish fulfillment. I was a jet-set fashion designer, a symphony conductor, a foreign double agent and even a ballerina, never mind I'm only five foot tall. I was Karen Von Blixen on a coffee plantation in Kenya, going on safaris, learning to use a gun. I was the muse Kira from Xanadu skating figure eights in my basement, the soundtrack booming from my giant 1980s boombox. I was Laura Ingalls Wilder, Karana from Island of the Blue Dolphins, Francie struggling for a better life in Brooklyn.
Many of my reveries wreaked of the dramatic. I was never very graceful but I can sing so many of my fantasies were my own little musicals, put on in my bedroom for no one else but me, and maybe a reliably unimpressed house cat. Think one part theater, one part the Judy Miller Show. Put on the soundtrack to Evita ad I was Eva atop a balcony addressing the little people. I think I wore clear through my vinyl copy of the Grease soundtrack. I would tease my hair, put on slutty clothes pilfered from my moms closet, slip on my red Candies and stand in front of my mirror with one of my mom's unlit Winston lights dangling from my lips. Tell me about it stud. True to girly-girl form, every daydream had an accompanying outfit.
Once in awhile, someone else was let into this usually personal reverie. Ask my cousin about the impromptu operas I performed for her. Scarves tied to our heads babushka style, I'd sing/talk about being taken from our parents in Russia(no we're not Russian) and being forced to be slaves of a prince, or labourers in a work camp. I'd see the expression on her face at first was one of skepticism and mild embarrassment but it quickly turned in to full scale buy-in as she tightened her babushka and lamented with me about the mother country. I think my mom might have made me watch Doctor Zhivago one too many times. Even as we got older and the “operas” stopped, she'd still call me a couple of times a week at bedtime and make me sing to her over the telephone until she fell asleep. I guess that could be considered a delayed standing ovation.
Now that I'm older with a husband, three kids, two cats, one dog, a mortgage, a small business and more, many of my daydreams have been replaced by anxiety dreams. Daydreaming as a child was probably the result of plenty of time on my hands and an active imagination. My adult anxiety thoughts are no doubt the result of not enough time on my hands and that same active imagination. Now I worry less about the monsters under my bed and more about the dust mites. Did I leave the wax warmer on when I left the spa? Is it burning down at this moment, the fire trucks littering the street to hose down the inferno. A florist five businesses down got held up at gunpoint a year ago. I wonder what if they had hit my spa and found me and my massage therapist instead of a doughy, overweight gay bear peddling petals? Are my children getting enough DHA, Omega 3s? I hope that toy the bebe is chewing on doesn't have lead in it, damn the grandparents and their Big Lots, Chinese imported, lead ridden, foot gouging, room cluttering, car littering crap.
Thanks to 9/11, the fact that our house is in a relatively busy airport pattern, and probably too many Donnie Darko/Weeds viewings, I have visions of planes careening through our roof. I worry about my husband being hit and smushed accordion style in the crazy L.A. rush hour traffic. I follow a truck with steel pipes battened in and I ponder decapitation by steel pipe before switching lanes. I think about people breaking into my house and taking my children, Darfur, unequal education opportunities, poverty, peacekeeping, climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem losses, oceanic dead zones, child sex rings and world hunger. Don't get me wrong, I don't obsess and I'm not at the point where my anxiety requires medication, well more medication. It's just that I have so much now that I have so much to lose. The dangers of the real world are so much scarier than the stuff that worried me as a kid.
Now my wish fulfillment daydreams are saved for my frequent bouts of insomnia. As my husband lay next to me, still save for his rhythmic breathing, and the kids are safely tucked into their beds, and the dog lays on her cushion in the corner of our room and the cats are curled up on any one of the beds of my children, this is when I feel calm enough to dream bigger. I'm not Sandi or Francie or Ludmila anymore but I do see myself doing the things I hope one day I will. I see myself traveling around the world with my husband. I see a time in the future where I have some time to myself again, time to read, to draw, to meander through a day with nothing to do. I see my children grown and healthy, happy living their own lives, being their own people. I see myself holding my grandchildren, released from the responsibility of raising them right, free to spoil them relentlessly to my children's chagrin. I see myself a few years from now, walking up to a podium at a small bookstore to give a reading. I see my husband and I, hitting each milestone in our life together, our relationship morphing to fit the changes in our lives. I see myself calmer, mellowed with age, wizened with experience, though I'm pretty sure I will always avoid those giant steel pipe carrying trucks.
...
You guys better be good and ready for some soul right now, because Formerly Fun is going to let us see into hers a little bit, and then she's gonna go wax some vagina. She's the most intelligent vag-waxer in the world, although I really have no experience with estheticians and I don't know anyone else who gives Brazilians for a living. I also do not know any Brazilians. Obviously I fail today. Like everyone that I pay attention to (yeah, that means you, blog readers, because I really don't have the attention span for boring people) FF is fascinating. Unlike some of you jerkoids, she's astute, adept, and quietly hilarious.
So with this in mind, when she asked for a theme to inspire her discourse, I offered "Daydream."
...
I am an extroverted introvert who has always enjoyed the space inside my head. I have frequently said I could be relatively content in prison given time to myself, books and maybe a sundry of art supplies. Oh, and freedom from random shiv shanking. My husband has told me more than once that this ability to withstand confinement coupled with the fact that I watch so much Forensic Files scares him a little. Just don't do anything bad I tell him, and you don't have anything to worry about. Sure, I'd miss the outside world but my imagination would make a fine companion for ten to life.
I grew up an only child and an avid daydreamer. Stacks of books took me far past the borders of the city where I grew up. Books gave me the pieces to build upon. When I was young, most of my daydreams took on different forms of wish fulfillment. I was a jet-set fashion designer, a symphony conductor, a foreign double agent and even a ballerina, never mind I'm only five foot tall. I was Karen Von Blixen on a coffee plantation in Kenya, going on safaris, learning to use a gun. I was the muse Kira from Xanadu skating figure eights in my basement, the soundtrack booming from my giant 1980s boombox. I was Laura Ingalls Wilder, Karana from Island of the Blue Dolphins, Francie struggling for a better life in Brooklyn.
Many of my reveries wreaked of the dramatic. I was never very graceful but I can sing so many of my fantasies were my own little musicals, put on in my bedroom for no one else but me, and maybe a reliably unimpressed house cat. Think one part theater, one part the Judy Miller Show. Put on the soundtrack to Evita ad I was Eva atop a balcony addressing the little people. I think I wore clear through my vinyl copy of the Grease soundtrack. I would tease my hair, put on slutty clothes pilfered from my moms closet, slip on my red Candies and stand in front of my mirror with one of my mom's unlit Winston lights dangling from my lips. Tell me about it stud. True to girly-girl form, every daydream had an accompanying outfit.
Once in awhile, someone else was let into this usually personal reverie. Ask my cousin about the impromptu operas I performed for her. Scarves tied to our heads babushka style, I'd sing/talk about being taken from our parents in Russia(no we're not Russian) and being forced to be slaves of a prince, or labourers in a work camp. I'd see the expression on her face at first was one of skepticism and mild embarrassment but it quickly turned in to full scale buy-in as she tightened her babushka and lamented with me about the mother country. I think my mom might have made me watch Doctor Zhivago one too many times. Even as we got older and the “operas” stopped, she'd still call me a couple of times a week at bedtime and make me sing to her over the telephone until she fell asleep. I guess that could be considered a delayed standing ovation.
Now that I'm older with a husband, three kids, two cats, one dog, a mortgage, a small business and more, many of my daydreams have been replaced by anxiety dreams. Daydreaming as a child was probably the result of plenty of time on my hands and an active imagination. My adult anxiety thoughts are no doubt the result of not enough time on my hands and that same active imagination. Now I worry less about the monsters under my bed and more about the dust mites. Did I leave the wax warmer on when I left the spa? Is it burning down at this moment, the fire trucks littering the street to hose down the inferno. A florist five businesses down got held up at gunpoint a year ago. I wonder what if they had hit my spa and found me and my massage therapist instead of a doughy, overweight gay bear peddling petals? Are my children getting enough DHA, Omega 3s? I hope that toy the bebe is chewing on doesn't have lead in it, damn the grandparents and their Big Lots, Chinese imported, lead ridden, foot gouging, room cluttering, car littering crap.
Thanks to 9/11, the fact that our house is in a relatively busy airport pattern, and probably too many Donnie Darko/Weeds viewings, I have visions of planes careening through our roof. I worry about my husband being hit and smushed accordion style in the crazy L.A. rush hour traffic. I follow a truck with steel pipes battened in and I ponder decapitation by steel pipe before switching lanes. I think about people breaking into my house and taking my children, Darfur, unequal education opportunities, poverty, peacekeeping, climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem losses, oceanic dead zones, child sex rings and world hunger. Don't get me wrong, I don't obsess and I'm not at the point where my anxiety requires medication, well more medication. It's just that I have so much now that I have so much to lose. The dangers of the real world are so much scarier than the stuff that worried me as a kid.
Now my wish fulfillment daydreams are saved for my frequent bouts of insomnia. As my husband lay next to me, still save for his rhythmic breathing, and the kids are safely tucked into their beds, and the dog lays on her cushion in the corner of our room and the cats are curled up on any one of the beds of my children, this is when I feel calm enough to dream bigger. I'm not Sandi or Francie or Ludmila anymore but I do see myself doing the things I hope one day I will. I see myself traveling around the world with my husband. I see a time in the future where I have some time to myself again, time to read, to draw, to meander through a day with nothing to do. I see my children grown and healthy, happy living their own lives, being their own people. I see myself holding my grandchildren, released from the responsibility of raising them right, free to spoil them relentlessly to my children's chagrin. I see myself a few years from now, walking up to a podium at a small bookstore to give a reading. I see my husband and I, hitting each milestone in our life together, our relationship morphing to fit the changes in our lives. I see myself calmer, mellowed with age, wizened with experience, though I'm pretty sure I will always avoid those giant steel pipe carrying trucks.
...
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Even in the Face of Armageddon I Shall Not Compromise This.
Gaaahhhh Thursday night. Or Friday morning, whatever. Tickets have been purchased. I am shaking. Kevin got me theme-appropriate goody bag full of plastic cups, a t-shirt, and condoms, which will probably just sit there on my dresser, untouched. Because I'm the type of person that gets excited about movies like this.
Not that I mean to get my hopes up or anything, but the fact of the matter is I've been writing this movie in my head for twelve fucking years and to see it actualized onscreen is just very exciting. It could suck. It could dominate. What if it's as horrible as X-Men: The Last Stand? What if it's better than Batman Begins?
Life is getting to the point where previously steadfast friends are reconsidering their Rassles allegiance. I can tell, because they keep on saying things like this:
Patrick thought it was hilarious that you were so excited for the Creation Museum, and I was like, "Wait til the movie. Do not. Sit next. To Ross. I will be as far away from her as possible. Maybe in a completely different theater, I don't know."
- Gyna
There is no way I am sitting near you. You're just gonna punch me the whole time.
- Kevin
I'm just afraid that you're going to be sitting there by yourself, alienating the world and hitting strangers with your fist.
- Xtine
I am so not sitting next to you during the movie. I do not want to get hit, man. It's crap.
- MoLinder.
Fuck. Yes.
...
Not that I mean to get my hopes up or anything, but the fact of the matter is I've been writing this movie in my head for twelve fucking years and to see it actualized onscreen is just very exciting. It could suck. It could dominate. What if it's as horrible as X-Men: The Last Stand? What if it's better than Batman Begins?
Life is getting to the point where previously steadfast friends are reconsidering their Rassles allegiance. I can tell, because they keep on saying things like this:
Patrick thought it was hilarious that you were so excited for the Creation Museum, and I was like, "Wait til the movie. Do not. Sit next. To Ross. I will be as far away from her as possible. Maybe in a completely different theater, I don't know."
- Gyna
There is no way I am sitting near you. You're just gonna punch me the whole time.
- Kevin
I'm just afraid that you're going to be sitting there by yourself, alienating the world and hitting strangers with your fist.
- Xtine
I am so not sitting next to you during the movie. I do not want to get hit, man. It's crap.
- MoLinder.
Fuck. Yes.
...
Monday, February 16, 2009
Who Am I To Mock Your Fun?
Apparently, for Valentines Day, the best love that me and Gyna were able to muster up was from our fathers.
Because Gyna mentioned this VDay phone call from her dad:
"I think someone got you something sweet from your sweetheart for Valentines Day!"
"Is it candy?"
"If you guessed chocolate candy, then you would be correct!"
My Dad drove out here on Sunday to wander around a used bookstore with me and have dinner, which was unfortunately the best date I've ever had. Because seriously, there are few things more satisfying than coffee and the smell of old books.
"Is it sad that our only Valentines are our dads?" Gyna asked me on the way to the VFW.
"I don't think so. Nevermind. Yes."
Some people wouldn't go out with us on Saturday, and gave us sarcastic excuses like, "Oh, I'm sorry, my limo driver has the night off." It's not our fault you live far away.
So we gathered up Xtine, her friend from work, and Bowser ze German, and headed out to the VFW, where we were served cans of PBR by an old veteran named Hot Rod. It was goddamn single hipster central.
Hanging out with ze German is a blast, because his pants are too tight and he dances with abandon and wants to hit on all the American girls.
I wanted to make fun of him so bad for dancing. So. Bad. Because he looked epileptic and painfully Caucasian. I had to hold off. Who am I to mock someone for dancing for fun? Even though no other man in the entire room was doing it? I admire that: the fact that it never even occurred to him to be embarrassed for dancing like a fucking moron. I guess I'm growing up.
But seriously, if you're at a place with Xtine, Gyna, and myself, and there's karaoke? You would dance with abandon too, because you walked in with the three best chicks, and everyone there knows that, you lucky bastard. Because we rock so fucking hard. We always turn into minor celebrities for the night.
Sure. Karaoke celebrities at the VFW. Yeah, we're cool.
Still, I love it when strange guys give me high fives and tell me how awesome I am. Inevitably, though, in the middle of our conversation about the Peter Sellers movie in the background, whatever girl who was clinging to whatever guy before he talked to me at the bar would come barreling over and drape herself around his shoulders and glare at me in victory. So I would smile to take the sting away, and ask her if she was singing, and she would giggle and say, "Oh, no, I don't sing. He knows," she tilts towards him and coils around him tighter. "You were great, though."
Friendly smile. "Thanks." Pick up my beer and start walking away. "You should totally sing though. Who fucking cares that you suck so much? Other than him." Beer salute to the dude, grin at the whore on his shoulders, and back into the fray. This happens what, like, four times? Same conversation, exactly.
Story of my life. Back to the friends, who've gained genuine admirers from the crowd. They just want to be around us, I think. Am I really so full of myself, to think that? To assume we can have that effect on people?
No. After all, it's how we all met each other. Hanging out at a bar, being so impressed by how the others shined that we all kind of grouped together and became excellent, inseparable friends. Is it too hard to imagine that we wouldn't meet other friends that way? That people wouldn't be drawn to that?
I don't think so.
...
Because Gyna mentioned this VDay phone call from her dad:
"I think someone got you something sweet from your sweetheart for Valentines Day!"
"Is it candy?"
"If you guessed chocolate candy, then you would be correct!"
My Dad drove out here on Sunday to wander around a used bookstore with me and have dinner, which was unfortunately the best date I've ever had. Because seriously, there are few things more satisfying than coffee and the smell of old books.
"Is it sad that our only Valentines are our dads?" Gyna asked me on the way to the VFW.
"I don't think so. Nevermind. Yes."
Some people wouldn't go out with us on Saturday, and gave us sarcastic excuses like, "Oh, I'm sorry, my limo driver has the night off." It's not our fault you live far away.
So we gathered up Xtine, her friend from work, and Bowser ze German, and headed out to the VFW, where we were served cans of PBR by an old veteran named Hot Rod. It was goddamn single hipster central.
Hanging out with ze German is a blast, because his pants are too tight and he dances with abandon and wants to hit on all the American girls.
I wanted to make fun of him so bad for dancing. So. Bad. Because he looked epileptic and painfully Caucasian. I had to hold off. Who am I to mock someone for dancing for fun? Even though no other man in the entire room was doing it? I admire that: the fact that it never even occurred to him to be embarrassed for dancing like a fucking moron. I guess I'm growing up.
But seriously, if you're at a place with Xtine, Gyna, and myself, and there's karaoke? You would dance with abandon too, because you walked in with the three best chicks, and everyone there knows that, you lucky bastard. Because we rock so fucking hard. We always turn into minor celebrities for the night.
Sure. Karaoke celebrities at the VFW. Yeah, we're cool.
Still, I love it when strange guys give me high fives and tell me how awesome I am. Inevitably, though, in the middle of our conversation about the Peter Sellers movie in the background, whatever girl who was clinging to whatever guy before he talked to me at the bar would come barreling over and drape herself around his shoulders and glare at me in victory. So I would smile to take the sting away, and ask her if she was singing, and she would giggle and say, "Oh, no, I don't sing. He knows," she tilts towards him and coils around him tighter. "You were great, though."
Friendly smile. "Thanks." Pick up my beer and start walking away. "You should totally sing though. Who fucking cares that you suck so much? Other than him." Beer salute to the dude, grin at the whore on his shoulders, and back into the fray. This happens what, like, four times? Same conversation, exactly.
Story of my life. Back to the friends, who've gained genuine admirers from the crowd. They just want to be around us, I think. Am I really so full of myself, to think that? To assume we can have that effect on people?
No. After all, it's how we all met each other. Hanging out at a bar, being so impressed by how the others shined that we all kind of grouped together and became excellent, inseparable friends. Is it too hard to imagine that we wouldn't meet other friends that way? That people wouldn't be drawn to that?
I don't think so.
...
Monday, January 26, 2009
Pie Fight 2009
So it looks like within the next couple of weeks a bunch of us are going to attempt an entry into the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest cream-pie fight in the world.
Oddly enough, there are several categories of Pie Fights: cream, custard, and cherry.
Yeah. Cream.
I figure if I can get like, 40 people to get drunk on a train with me to celebrate my birthday, rounding up 150 for a world-class pie fight shouldn't be too hard.
Pie Fight 2009, bitches.
...
Oddly enough, there are several categories of Pie Fights: cream, custard, and cherry.
Yeah. Cream.
I figure if I can get like, 40 people to get drunk on a train with me to celebrate my birthday, rounding up 150 for a world-class pie fight shouldn't be too hard.
Pie Fight 2009, bitches.
...
Monday, December 22, 2008
An Abundance of High Fivery
Saturday was one of those nights where we got drunk, made Bad Decisions, and passed out with the sunrise. Those are the best kinds of nights. 'Round here we call that, "every night." We're incomparable at naming things, over here. We also enjoy referring to ourselves royally, apparently. Our blog must be a dictatorial monarchy. And if you believe that "dictatorial" is an imaginary lexical derivation of "dictator," you would be secretly correct, then thoroughly overruled by us, and hung by your feet in the gallows while we played "Flight of Icarus" and "My Brain is Hanging Upside Down" really, really loudly and threw rocks at you.
So the Smith Sisters had a party, and I went, after falling asleep early on Friday and spending all Saturday wrapped in a blanket, feeling sorry for myself and watching Pride and Prejudice by candlelight.
Shut up.
But eventually I get to the party after battling the wind and snow and emotional overload, and I can feel this surge of desperation inside of me as I sit down with my beer, so I pick up a deck of cards with one hand and thumb over card after card, keeping my beer in the other hand so it doesn't have to travel as far to my mouth.
"Are you playing Highlowredblack by yourself?" Slinger asks, seating himself across from me.
"Yeah."
"That's wicked awesome." He strokes his spankin' new molester mustache.
I keep guessing cards and drinking as I flick over each card. "Dude, I am so getting in a fight tonight."
Slinger peers at me over his indoor sunglasses and barks, "Yeah buddy. Let's get all fired up."
"Why do you think you're going to fight?" asks Dude Who Obviously Doesn't Know Me Very Well Yet. That'll change.
"I can feel it." I don't even look up as I finish off the deck and my beer. "There's a full keg out there--"
Slinger tips his head and refills my cup with the pitcher. "Not for long."
"Yeah buddy," I say as we high five, "it's cold, I had to go shopping and I fucking hate shopping. I watched Pride and Prejudice today--shut up"--I glare at Slinger without missing a beat and point at him, and give him my Threatening Face as he starts shaking his head--"Shut. Up. And there were candles, and I didn't have any coffee...I'm either gonna cry or fight. My guts are all..gutty."
"I got dibs on the former," Slinger yells.
"But why?" asks A Smith Sister.
"It's a thing. It's very lame." I take a sip of beer, shaking my head.
"Because whenever Ross does anything girly she gets drunk and cries." He leans and aims a finger gun at me, sternly. "You go back to cowboy movies. When you watch cowboy movies you're fucking awesome. Or those other ones you made me watch with the swords. I don't like it when you feel things."
I nod. "Like Keanu Reeves in everything."
"Yes!" And we totally high five, because for some reason, whenever Slinger is around, so is an abundance of high fivery. "Be that guy."
...
So the Smith Sisters had a party, and I went, after falling asleep early on Friday and spending all Saturday wrapped in a blanket, feeling sorry for myself and watching Pride and Prejudice by candlelight.
Shut up.
But eventually I get to the party after battling the wind and snow and emotional overload, and I can feel this surge of desperation inside of me as I sit down with my beer, so I pick up a deck of cards with one hand and thumb over card after card, keeping my beer in the other hand so it doesn't have to travel as far to my mouth.
"Are you playing Highlowredblack by yourself?" Slinger asks, seating himself across from me.
"Yeah."
"That's wicked awesome." He strokes his spankin' new molester mustache.
I keep guessing cards and drinking as I flick over each card. "Dude, I am so getting in a fight tonight."
Slinger peers at me over his indoor sunglasses and barks, "Yeah buddy. Let's get all fired up."
"Why do you think you're going to fight?" asks Dude Who Obviously Doesn't Know Me Very Well Yet. That'll change.
"I can feel it." I don't even look up as I finish off the deck and my beer. "There's a full keg out there--"
Slinger tips his head and refills my cup with the pitcher. "Not for long."
"Yeah buddy," I say as we high five, "it's cold, I had to go shopping and I fucking hate shopping. I watched Pride and Prejudice today--shut up"--I glare at Slinger without missing a beat and point at him, and give him my Threatening Face as he starts shaking his head--"Shut. Up. And there were candles, and I didn't have any coffee...I'm either gonna cry or fight. My guts are all..gutty."
"I got dibs on the former," Slinger yells.
"But why?" asks A Smith Sister.
"It's a thing. It's very lame." I take a sip of beer, shaking my head.
"Because whenever Ross does anything girly she gets drunk and cries." He leans and aims a finger gun at me, sternly. "You go back to cowboy movies. When you watch cowboy movies you're fucking awesome. Or those other ones you made me watch with the swords. I don't like it when you feel things."
I nod. "Like Keanu Reeves in everything."
"Yes!" And we totally high five, because for some reason, whenever Slinger is around, so is an abundance of high fivery. "Be that guy."
...
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
War of War
Last night, after a rip-roaring good episode of Heroes, MoLinder got hammered by herself and switched on her newest alternate personality, The Most Entertaining Human Being On A Monday.
First, in a feat of drunken disgust, she hand-plucked all of the fur off her cat's ass out of sheer hatred for cat ass scabs, throwing bits of fur and scab on the ground with such ferocity that she pulled a muscle.* Then she yelled and hollered for nearly two hours about celebrities, how Bono is useless, what she would do if she won the lottery, the snow, and how Gyna's mom was underappreciated because of teaching something something something.
She kept on almost falling.
Then the subject of Gyna's mom triggered this whole other rampage about societal values and Japanese handmugs, and how her two favorite words are "Tool" and "Dbag." I watched her finish off all of our beer before she told me her deepest, darkest secret, which I will now unload on the world:
"If I evermeet Maynard Keenan inrealife, Iam...droppingtomylegs. Knees. Hahahaha. I amdropping.to.my.kneez. Yes. And giving him a"--raises her eyebrows and whispers--"blow job. Right. There. Because he has the SEXIEST voice," she pauses, and then with a grand, sweeping, beer-spilling arm swipe, she breathes, heavily, "Ehhhhvveerrrr." She sways on her feet for several seconds before continuing, "A lot of people don't like Tool. They think they're too..." she squints, angrily, "aaaaangreeee. But I LOOOOOVE Tool. I L-a-La-LOOOOVVE Tool. Let me tell you. I LOOOOOVE Tool."
"So you like Tool."
"Oh my god. LOOOOOVE Tool. Lemmetellyou. If I evermeet Maynard, I WILL SUCK HIS DICK. Right there."
"Because his voice is sexy?"
"OH MY GOD I LOOOOVE HIS VOICE. It is sexy. I would blow him. I pro-mise you. Because I LOOOOVE Tool. Love Tool. I. Love. Tool."
"And you love Maynard's tool."
"Dude lemmetellyou. When wewereon Route 66, in Arizona, if therewuz time...and if we weren't all powering through...I wouldah made you go to his winery, so I couldbeall eat that Shana."
I don't know who Shana is, so I just nod in agreement.
"An thenif HE wuzthere...I would blow him. He...deserves it."
This continues for several minutes. She yells at me until I order her a pizza at like 1AM (she couldn't really use a phone), and then she eats three quarters of it and passes out, mumbling something about Doctor Spock killing Veronica Mars and how babies were bullshit anyway.
I tried to wake her up. "Dude, drink some water before you go to bed, or you'll be all salty tomorrow."
"Murmuhrmuhrmuhrmurrmurhr."
I'm laughing at her now. "I don't know what that means."
"Dude. Srrsslee?"
"Yeah, you're fucking mumbling."
"Dude. You. Need. To...light the books. Tell your parents. They save things."
I try to laugh quietly, but it doesn't work. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Okay. Pay tension."
"Okay."
"You need to arfwar."
"What is arfwar?"
"PAY TENSION!"
Snort. "Okay." Breathe. Ready. "Okay."
"War. Of. War."
"I need to war of war?"
"NOO!" She slumps and sighs, exhausted from logic. "You neeeeeed to mapquest it. Thennyouwillunnerstand."
"Okay. G'nite, MoLinder."
"I AM MOLINDER. I AM THE TURKEY MAN. That guyz funnee."
"Drink some water."
Her head lolls. "Fuck your war."
...
*This is true. This morning on the bus she was all, "Oww, my arm, I need to stop working out, waaah." But I know it's because of cat hair pluckery.
...
First, in a feat of drunken disgust, she hand-plucked all of the fur off her cat's ass out of sheer hatred for cat ass scabs, throwing bits of fur and scab on the ground with such ferocity that she pulled a muscle.* Then she yelled and hollered for nearly two hours about celebrities, how Bono is useless, what she would do if she won the lottery, the snow, and how Gyna's mom was underappreciated because of teaching something something something.
She kept on almost falling.
Then the subject of Gyna's mom triggered this whole other rampage about societal values and Japanese handmugs, and how her two favorite words are "Tool" and "Dbag." I watched her finish off all of our beer before she told me her deepest, darkest secret, which I will now unload on the world:
"If I evermeet Maynard Keenan inrealife, Iam...droppingtomylegs. Knees. Hahahaha. I amdropping.to.my.kneez. Yes. And giving him a"--raises her eyebrows and whispers--"blow job. Right. There. Because he has the SEXIEST voice," she pauses, and then with a grand, sweeping, beer-spilling arm swipe, she breathes, heavily, "Ehhhhvveerrrr." She sways on her feet for several seconds before continuing, "A lot of people don't like Tool. They think they're too..." she squints, angrily, "aaaaangreeee. But I LOOOOOVE Tool. I L-a-La-LOOOOVVE Tool. Let me tell you. I LOOOOOVE Tool."
"So you like Tool."
"Oh my god. LOOOOOVE Tool. Lemmetellyou. If I evermeet Maynard, I WILL SUCK HIS DICK. Right there."
"Because his voice is sexy?"
"OH MY GOD I LOOOOVE HIS VOICE. It is sexy. I would blow him. I pro-mise you. Because I LOOOOVE Tool. Love Tool. I. Love. Tool."
"And you love Maynard's tool."
"Dude lemmetellyou. When wewereon Route 66, in Arizona, if therewuz time...and if we weren't all powering through...I wouldah made you go to his winery, so I couldbeall eat that Shana."
I don't know who Shana is, so I just nod in agreement.
"An thenif HE wuzthere...I would blow him. He...deserves it."
This continues for several minutes. She yells at me until I order her a pizza at like 1AM (she couldn't really use a phone), and then she eats three quarters of it and passes out, mumbling something about Doctor Spock killing Veronica Mars and how babies were bullshit anyway.
I tried to wake her up. "Dude, drink some water before you go to bed, or you'll be all salty tomorrow."
"Murmuhrmuhrmuhrmurrmurhr."
I'm laughing at her now. "I don't know what that means."
"Dude. Srrsslee?"
"Yeah, you're fucking mumbling."
"Dude. You. Need. To...light the books. Tell your parents. They save things."
I try to laugh quietly, but it doesn't work. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Okay. Pay tension."
"Okay."
"You need to arfwar."
"What is arfwar?"
"PAY TENSION!"
Snort. "Okay." Breathe. Ready. "Okay."
"War. Of. War."
"I need to war of war?"
"NOO!" She slumps and sighs, exhausted from logic. "You neeeeeed to mapquest it. Thennyouwillunnerstand."
"Okay. G'nite, MoLinder."
"I AM MOLINDER. I AM THE TURKEY MAN. That guyz funnee."
"Drink some water."
Her head lolls. "Fuck your war."
...
*This is true. This morning on the bus she was all, "Oww, my arm, I need to stop working out, waaah." But I know it's because of cat hair pluckery.
...
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