Idiot Child-isms, part 2

At what point did our blue jeans go from being snap-fly to button-fly? Buttoning up this morning,* I realized that all my pants used to snap. None of my pants snap anymore and I was overcome with an immediate sense of loss.
I sat on the foot of my bed - half naked - listening to Simon & Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair/ Canticle" over and over until my sadness passed.
About the fourth time through "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme", I escaped my stupor realizing life was leaving me quick-as-a-blink. With a compulsion to capture its fleeting moments, I sat at my computer - button-fly pants secured around one leg - and wrote out another set of personal Idiot Child-isms. **

* * * * *

I'm not sure how most parents potty-train their children. In my head, I always assumed it was like training a puppy not to poop on the furniture. If the puppy's crap went outside, the puppy got a milkbone. If crap happened on the carpet, the puppy got whacked in the face with the New York Times.
Is it going to be a problem if I train my kids using this same model?
According to both my mother and father, while I was learning to use "big-boy" urinals, I had to be held aloft in order to splash-down successfully into the urinal.
I'm not sure why my parents were training me on the urinal before the regular seated toilet, but they did.
That's like learning to foxtrot before being taught the box-step, if I may.
That's like flambaying a full duck before learning how to microwave Ramen noodles, if I may.
That's like bringing sexy back before ever being n'sync, if I may.
The cart before the horse; walking before crawling and so-on, if I may.
But okay, for whatever reason, mom and pop felt it would behoove me to learn the art of peeing in a urinal two feet above my waistline. The worst part, according to my adoring parents, is that it took me longer than the normal child average to figure out how to do this.
I'm clearing my first birthday, still being suspended mid-air, like some burlesque trapeze artist and I'm not even gettin' it! Peeing into the open chasm of porcelin was apparently something that escaped me until my fourteenth or fifteenth month; before that, the adjacent wall did just fine, thanks.
I deserved a whack with the New York Times.

* * * * *

I was fascinated with goosebumps as a wee lad. I'm still somewhat fascinated with them. Why aren't we more interested in sudden rows of skin bumps appearing on our arms and legs and neck? We take goosebumps for granted, but as a kid, I did not.
I sat in my room for hours blowing on my feet or bellybutton trying to create chills - trying to get a glance at 'dem bumps. I would throw ice cubes down my own back, or tickle myself with my mom's feather duster only to stare intently at any part of my body with goosebumps on it.
Was it the hair raising off of my arms? Was it the nerves pushing through parts of my skin? What could I do to actually appear like a goose all the time?
And most importantly, if we humans are related to monkeys, does this bump phenomena mean that we humans are related to geese as well?
Wierd, huh?

* * * * * *


I hate eating liver.
If any of you out there are ever in a position to make me a nice dinner in hopes of wooing my favor, do yourself a favor and hold off on the liver, because I will most likely throw the meat up in the air and swing at it baseball-style with my knife.
Either that, or I'll throw it into a nearby cabinet.
When I was six, my mom insisted on making liver everyday of my life.*** Most of the time I was given a respite as long as I "tried a little bit of it." I never understood the philosophy behind this. I was quite aware the heinousness set in front of me was liver and that I was not fond of it's taste.
Trying it would not be a sensible solution to my problem.
And whereas, most dinners I just eeked the mea down my gullet, every once in a while I was a desperate little boy and sought a different route. I was very good at putting food in my mouth, chewing, and politely wiping any spare morsels away with my napkin. It should be noted that when discussing liver, anything already in my mouth was considered a morsel and I'd play the ol' bait 'n' switch with my parents.
I can't tel lyou how many liver dinners ended with a full napkin.
Eventually, I'd excuse myself from the table to go to the bathroom, taking the napkin with me. After a nice flush, my problem was nye.
But there was one dinner where there was simply too much liver to flush into the fiery depths of hell. It would never flush.
I had to go to plan B, even though I hadn't yet formulated a plan B.
And that's the problem with my younger self; I was excellent with plan A, but I never gave a second plan any thought.
It was winter, and dad had installed storm windows so, I couldn't gingerly toss the poison-filled napkin out the window. We had a nearby fish tank, but I loved those fish and the liver would certainly cause them a horrendous death.
We had cabinets. Lots of cabinets and I never really knew what was in any of them, which meant that I assumed a napkin full of meat would go completely unnoticed...

...When I die, I'd like to believe that we get one hour to watch instant replays of various portions of our lives. The look on my parents' face when they found a rotting wad of half-chewed liver buried with their fancy place settings a week after liver was last served, is something I will certainly want to replay up in Heaven.

* * * * *

I don't know how to ease into this one, so I'm just gonna come out and say it.
I'm just gonna spit it out because I'm a secure dude. I am a rock.
I am an island.

When I was a little kid, I really got a kick out of lip-syncing to old pop and soul songs from the 60s. But not just any of them, the ones I liked the best were the early Aretha Franklin songs and the Phil Spector girl groups.
No one wanted you to "Be My Baby" more than me. No one recounted "Then He Kissed Me" more than I did when I was seven and no one was more excited about "My Boyfriend [Coming] Back" than I was.
The songs were so dramatic back then.

He went away and you came around / And bothered me every night.
And when I wouldn't go out with you / You said things that weren't very nice.

Oh boy! That's dangerous. You don't mess with some other dude's chick. Even a seven-year-old knows that.

You've been spreading lies that I was untrue / Hey-la, hey-la, my boyfriend's back!
Well lookout now 'cause he's comin' after you / Hey-la, hey-la, my boyfriend's back!

Every once in a while I'd pretend to be some version of Kinicki from "Grease" standing in the corner combing my duck-tail haircut happy that my girl was smart enough not to double-cross me. Other times I pretended to be the jerk pushin' in on Kinicki's girl. I'd create some spastic character who should never have even attempted to push up on some other dude's dame.

You're gonna be sorry you were ever born / Hey-la, hey-la, my boyfriend's back!
'Cause he's kinda big and he's awful strong / Hey-la, hey-la, my boyfriend's back!

Most of the time I didn't pretend to be the guys in these pop songs, I was always the singer and the singer was always a girl. I always sashayed around all sassy like the singers in those songs seemed to be. And it always took on the same format, I'd pop a tape in the player, press play, find my hairbrush and sing into it while swinging my hips from side to side like a metranome.
I don't know if my father was aware of this behavior. If he wasn't, I'm glad about it. It was really unmanly.
I can see why my mom thought I was gay for a while.

I blame my toilet training.

==============================================

* Alright you got me, I slept in. It was this afternoon.

** For the first set, click on this blog's category link to find the prequel, entitled "Idiot Child-isms, pt.1"

*** Maybe not everyday of my life, but certainly once or twice a month, which was still just too much liver

MySpace Nincompoopery

Before we get started with tonight's blog, I'd like you to notice my little friend directly above and to the left of this text. I'm not sure why MySpace has employed Sloth from 'The Goonies' to give a visual representation of my every emotional whim, but he's been steadfast for eight months now. He's never wanted a pay raise, never incorporated his bias on the blog topics, nor has he ever asked for a Baby Ruth.

This blog is dedicated to my mascot, Sloth. Good on ya.

* * * * * *

On the eve of my 50th blog, I've decided to delve into what this MySpace website means to me (and perhaps to the other 55.8 million MySpace users out there).
I know of at least six people in my life floating somewhere on the periphery of MySpace reading this blog right now. They have a profile, but don't want anyone to know that they're using the person-to-person socializing website.
They just wanna stalk.
Stalking is a genuine American activity now. Ten years ago, stalking had maniacal connotations, dangerous socio-pathological connotations. Now stalking is a laughable time-waster. It's accepted. Ten years ago I would never have been sitting here in my basement, huddled over my keyboard, sipping a diet Tab, confessing that I enjoy watching people from a safe cyberspace.
That's right, I said it; I like watching you.
I like reading your blogs, and perusing your captioned profile pictures. I enjoy noting whether you are still single or if someone out there loves ya. I get frustrated when, after three months, you don't change your profile information and I enjoy going through the trouble of connecting the comments posted on your page with the comments that you've posted on other friends' pages. I judge your profile song and take note when and if you post pictures of yourself with cute friends that you barely see, just to make yourself look as if you hang out with attractive people all the time (you know who you are).
If I've dated you, thought about dating you, wondered if you were single, wondered where you work, wondered if you knew that girl you were talking to in the bar last night, wondered how you got so many more friends than me, wondered where your buddy's band is playing in three days, wondered how tall you are, wondered what your actual job title is, or guiltily forgot what school you were enrolled in… trust me, I've looked at your profile.
That being said, in the future, if you question me about my on-line behavior, I'll deny I've ever heard of this damn site, and then pour the contents of whatever beverage I'm holding onto your lap to ensure the conversation comes to a hurried commencement.

Why am I confessing all this? Why am I purposely creeping my reader's out? Because none of it really matters. I haven't been "Adam" on MySpace for a single day in the 12 months I've included myself in this cultural phenomenon. I've been "Turtle", "Shockingly Caucasian", "Squirt", "Up-And-Atom", "Duke, "Ace", "Captain Awesome", "Part-Man, Part-Amazing", and "Testarossa", but never once have I displayed myself as Adam.
Why? Because Adam is boring. And MySpace would also be boring if it weren't 91 percent lies.
If everyone told the truth on MySpace, all the studs would have their shirts on in pictures, and on-line scam artists pretending to be airbrushed hot girls would stop sending me messages claiming, "I think UR hotttttt. cum visit my web cam at www.predatorytrickery.com". Without a weird fake world of online friendship none of us could honestly claim to be friends with Dane Cook, Lonelygirl15, or three-million ultra-hip bands playing a concert somewhere in Oregon next month.*

But I digress.

The point is, MySpace isn't awesome because it allows people to connect with friends from all over the world via video, pictures and comments. That's what "Tom" would have you believe, but that's not why it's awesome. MySpace is awesome because it's just a year-round Halloween party. Dress up how you want, tell people you are whatever version of yourself you think is the best.
If you've got a picture of some underwear model kissing your cheek, upload it for the world to see.
If you're the biggest Chamillionaire fan in the world, better add one of his songs to your profile so that it's introductory six chords annoy your friends each time they come to your site.
Like talented emo bands and Jesus Christ; reality on MySpace simply doesn't exist. It's all just wishful thinking...
...I was kidding with that last comment; I'm sure there are a few talented emo bands.

Am I against MySpace? Heckie-naw. Perusing all you goofballs on this site is better than televison. Well, all television except for:

Grey's Anatomy, Lost, The Gilmore Girls, CSI, The NBC Nightly News, The ABC Nightly News, The CBS Nightly News, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Office (both versions), Survivor, The Sopranos, Deadwood, ER, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Sportscenter, G.I. Joe, Pardon The Interruption, 60 Minutes, Around the Horn, My Name Is Earl, Sex & The City Reruns, Muppet Babies reruns, The Wire, The Real World, Laguna Beach, Punk'd, I Love Lucy reruns, Homicide: Life On the Street reruns, TRL, Seinfeld reruns, Oz reruns, Entourage, Baseball Tonight, Entertainment Tonight, SouthPark, The Chappelle Show reruns, The Flintstones reruns, Baseball, football, basketball, college football, college basketball, The Oscars, Lucky Louie, Da Ali G Show, Friends reruns, Tourgasm, Warner Brothers Cartoons, Who's Line Is It Anyway?, CNN, I Love the 80's, various E! Top 100 lists, America's Next Top Model, Conan O'Brien, Letterman, Project Runway, 30 Rock, and Flav-or of Love…

…other than that, there's no better way I can think to spend my time.

Make sure to tip Sloth on your way out of the theater.
==========================================================

* For a solid eight minutes I had a comment right at the top of Ben Kweller's music page telling him how deeply his music makes me feel. For those eight minutes I was Mr. Kweller's best friend in life.
My comment was tops. It was above everyone else's.
Then that skank MoretroublethanUknow22 made a big long comment post and usurped my position.

Making War Fun Again

It has recently been brought to my attention that Cameron Diaz has jettisoned Justin Timberlake from her romantic life (ten bucks says he won't be bringin' sexy back now) and I cannot help but believe that this event is in direct correlation to my recent post about Timberlake's ownership of Sexy.
But the power that I've obviously eccrued over time, does not come without it's price. I now realize my responsibility to you, the reader, to open your eyes to more important happenings in this world than caMALEtoe and the current location of Sexy.

I'm almost pro-war. I'm not yet pro-war, but I'm close.
And I should clarify that when I mean pro-war, I am not referring to our current situation with American troops in Iraq, I'm speaking about the idea of war. The jangle 'n' thud of nations engaging in a struggle of arms and power.
Yeah. That's what I'm almost completely in favor of.

Recently the New York Times reported on the Pentagon's goal to create fully functioning military robots that will take the place of U.S. soldiers. Okay, so I know what you're thinking and I agree; neither 'Terminator' film ended well, but this is different. James Cameron has nothing to do with this.
This entire idea got me thinking: if we as Americans, were neither taking nor expending human lives in pursuit of oil, power, land, allies, or weapons, would we really care whether or not we were at war? I have yet to hear a single American berating the fact that we are among the most powerful supernations in the world. The damning of our own country enters the argument only when we mistreat smaller, weaker nations in order to maintain such power.

So what happens if we just start blowing up robots instead of each other? Think about the hundreds of thousands of teenagers sitting in their mother's basement at this very moment exploding digital Nazis on their Xbox 360s. Many of these time-wasting teens couldn't get a job much better than Blockbuster Video, but if we employ the use of remotely automated robots, suddenly Skeeter and Drew are our nation's new incarnations of Navy Seals.
These geeks would kick ass.
So voila. In just 24 hours, I've put a stopper on all military human deaths, improved the teenage American workforce, and released Cameron Diaz back into the dating pool.
Do you think they'll mail me my Nobel or am I going to have to fly somewhere to accept it formally?
Heck, I'll even do you one better; with all the money the U.S. military won't be forced to spend feeding or paying soldiers - despite a multiple billion dollar spending plan by 2010 for these robots - we could invade whatever nations we need to, capture whatever it is we need from them, leave and use the rest of the money in a good-will effort to rebuild the war-torn cities we just finished ravaging.
C'mon, that's a clear-cut case of "meeting the enemy halfway".

The fact is, we love watching that show on television where a team of geeks pit their homemade robots against robots built by another team of geeks in a destructive grudge match to the death.
That show gets really nice ratings.
What I'm talking about is a multi-billion dollar version of that television program. Clearly, the American bloodlust is there, let's just make it more like a videogame.
Sure, we'll have to start out responsibly with our awesome warbots because the smaller, poorer nations will take a bit longer to design and manufacture their own, but that's okay.
We'll be patient.
We've already got warbots checking for landmines and scootering into dangerous terrain. Our next step will be to program warbots that travel from home to home gently knocking on doors checking for terrorists. Our country is so damn awesome that we'll even design little metallic hats for our warbots to politely tip if they happen upon a household with no terrorirst affiliations.
Y'hear me? We're building polite warbots. Take that 'Terminator'.
Eventually, like the atomic bomb, everyone else will catch up to our technological awesomeness and then our kickass warbots will do battle with their kickass warbots.
After that, we can just let the videogame dweebs go at one another like it was a 'Mortal Combat' tournament.

I imagine some of you are toiling right now to locate the holes in my "Vision of Human Peace" and that's fine. You have the absolute right to side with the war- mongers. Fair enough.
But just ask Timberlake, I make things happen. I influence powerful people and I'm tired of innocent soldiers and civilians giving their lives when there are so many unused robots that could be giving theirs.
I will save millions of lives and in so doing, will bring the fun back to International Combat.
You folks might wanna get on the bus now, it's rolling out soon.

Sexy II: It's Back!

I've been reading reports throughout the week that Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson of the Black Eyed Peas had to battle with her crystal meth addiction before releasing her new album The Dutchess.* Although a story about a musician battling addiction is hardly noteworthy, a headline stating (purposely, I suspect): " Dutchess' Fergie Fought Meth Addiction." is noteworthy.
Clearly, anyone as adoring of English royality as I, understandably thought that the headline was referring to Dutchess of York Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson.
Admittedly, I was confused.
Totally understandable.

What isn't as understandable, is a seperate, totally unrelated "Hip-Pop" misnomer rolling through the dancefloors of the world.
Justin Timberlake's 'SexyBack'.

With all due respect** to Mr. Justin Timberlake, I feel compelled to challenge whether sexy ever left us. Everywhere I go, I keep hearing everyone protesting that they are, in fact, the one's responsible for bringing sexy back. After returning from shopping for my new wardrobe, my new pageboy Amos reported that several people in Banana Republic trying on pleated khakis were also "bringing sexy back."

Take it to the chorus!

C'mon people, nothing from Banana Republic is sexy.
Also this week, I was in a bar and saw two girls stand up saying, "come on, let's go bring sexy back" while heading to the dancefloor.
Even that Adam kid from Moron 5 (intended spelling) claimed that his new album was going to be "taking sexy back!"
Wait.... wait... wait. Sexy not only left and then came back, but it is also being fought over by Timberlake and Levine?
No, no, no, no, no.
This all stops now.
And I'm tired of hearing clubbers, bubble-gummers and pelvic-gyrating ravers claim to be the sole benefactor in the campaign to thrust sexy back upon us.

Take it to the bridge!

I don't know where the idea came that someone needed to bring sexy back, but shouldn't we focus on the idea that it was always around? I mean, is Timberlake claiming that Sexy missed out on the 90's? How long has Sexy been gone and are we to assume that JT has never once called Cameron Diaz sexy?
Come to think of it, was Cameron Diaz away for a period of time? Follow up question: is she now back?
Also - and I think we can all agree on this - if sexy was to take a human form, Timberlake or not, Sexy would be in the form of a woman.

Take it to the bridge!

I've been keepin' tabs on sexy for quite some time, I never let it get more than about a block away from me. Sexy always takes the North 86 bus to Addison during the week and frequents the gym on Saturday afternoons. Sexy is a Miami Heat fan and hopes to one day create a seascape using oil paints . Sexy can't wait for the new season of My Name Is Earl on NBC Thursdays and hates Fergie's new album.
Trust me, I know all about Sexy. Sexy won't get too far away. Timberlake and all you party people can relax, Sexy's around.
Whatever it is that you're doing, it's not bringing Sexy back but it might be giving Sexy a reason to go 'head be gone.

Take it to the chorus!

==============================================================

* I enjoy The Peas, but man, her solo album is bad. Also, have you ever noticed how much Fergie looks like Kirstie Alley?

** Have you ever noticed that when someone preceeds a statement with "all due respect", they are more than likely going to say something disrespectful? If someone comes at you with "all due respect" it's probably not going to end well. For some reason, leading dialogues with "all due respect" gives the speaker sudden carte-blanche to say whatever they'd like. The beauty of "with all due respect" is that this statement, in no way, suggests that any respect is due at all. For all you know, no respect is due to you and so now it's time to take some shit.

The Ninja Slipper

There are topics of conversation that should never be discussed or examined or talked about amongst friends. These things are lurid and heinous and shameful. Toxic and devilish. Embarrassment would haunt us like spectors should these things ever be overheard by bosses, priests or local librarians.
Our families would turn their backs on us.

...Yet something compells us to these inglorious topics. There is something that drives us to whisper about them in our school hallways and cubicle dividers.
And at the exact moment we wish we had kept it to ourselves, it wafts out of our collective mouths, parading itself in front of everyone to hear.

Cameltoe.

As defined by Wikipedia, "Cameltoe is a slang term that refers to the outline of a woman's vulva when seen through tight, form-fitting clothes."
It is the reason Daisy Duke was an iconic heroine, why Marilyn Monroe wore two pairs of panties for the subway grate scene in 'The Seven Year Itch', and why I have decided to abandon all sense of normal decorum.
Unfortunately for my perverted constituents, this blog is not about female cameltoe, but male cameltoe, which has dared not been defined by Wikipedia or any other on-line resource. Male cameltoe - like seeing ghosts of dead relatives - is something that if happened upon, should nevertheless remain secret.
Tonight, I break the silence.

We live in a crippled world where everyone has seen this horrendous phenomenon and says nary a word about it. Men are buying pants that are too tight at the inseam and then sitting with legs splayed outward for the rest of humanity to see.
Our ramshackle society no longer believes in tailors or seamstresses and the result has long been poorly fitting knickerbockers.
Men's testicles are having a Civil War and the inseam is the Mason-Dixon.
I rarely buy my own clothing anymore. I find the task tedious and I've hired a pageboy to do the bulk of my shopping for me. He buys my powdered wigs, my feathered caps, my ruffleed shirts, but the lone item I disallow anyone to purchase for me are my pants.
The pants are my responsibility. I stand a statuesque 6'3" and 5'9" of that are my legs.
I'm leggy.
And because I am leggy, I am faced with the same pantaloon dilemma time and time again: do I allow my pants to fall rebelliously below my butt crack or do I wear ankle-flooding high pants that inevitably present my "Thunderpaw" to anyone sitting in front of me?
Because I am a man of the people, I choose to display my boxer shorts before I display my "VW Beetle Hood".
I call upon the rest of you to do the same.
I bring this up in the name of outrage. We are - none of us - innocent in this battle of the bulge.
A professor of mine insists on wearing form-fiting chinos. Originally, I thought nothing of this fashion decision until he lifted his leg and rested it upon a chair causing each of his testicles to part ways due to heavy constriction.
My professor's inseam is Moses and his package is the Red Sea.
My professor's testicles are Lucille Ball and Ricky Ricardo and his tight inseam is the episode where the two of them get into a fight and split their bedroom in half with duct tape.

I chose to sit at the front of the class on day one and I'm too stubborn to switch horses mid-race now, but my friends, I promise you, had I to do it over again, I would not choose to be eye-and-eye with his "Ninja Slipper".
His "Vertical Smile."
His "Moose Knuckle".
His "Fosolo."
His "Mandelbrot Muffin."
I write to you now because something must be done. We cannot live in a society this maddening, this unaware of itself. We must all be like Howard Beale in the 1976 film 'Network'. We must all get out of our chairs, and race to our windows. We must all clatter and shout and shatter the silence. Shout to stop professors and fat guys and Frenchmen from chaffing themselves so publicly.
It is time, my dear friends, to take a stand. It is time to say we are mad as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore.
The time to act is now.
Loosen the inseams and sit comfortably in a world of adjoined testicles. Please.

My grade depends on it.

Dating in China

I went on a date last October. I've been on a few since then, but none quite like this one. I've relayed my experiences to a few members of my family, but until now I kept the bulk of the details under wraps from most of my friends.
Enough time has passed that I doubt I'll face any reprocussions.

And if I'm wrong... well, that might be kinda funny too.

* * * * *

I'm moving to China.

In Chinese culture, the responsibility to mate does not fall onto the shoulders of the man and woman in question, but on the families of the man and woman in question.
I like this idea. Dad did a pretty good job picking Mom and Mom did an equally good job picking Dad and so... I pretty much trust their opinions. But more than my trust of their collective opinions, it would save me from having to go on any more dates like the one I went on Saturday.

I'm trying this "traditional dating" thing with a girl I barely know (which, in itself, is one of the familiar traits of "traditional dating") and decided that the first date went well enough to warrant a second.
Everything seemed to align itself perfectly. On the phone the night before, I told Casey (that's my date's name, Casey.) that I had friends coming in from New York and I'd like to meet up with them after dinner. Not wanting to be rude or give the impression that I put Casey second, I told her that I'd love for her to meet my N.Y. friends. She accepted the invitation and added that it was funny I mentioned my friends because she too had buddies visiting from out-of-town and tomorrow was their last night.
It was my bright idea to suggest we start our night eating dinner with her friends while capping it off with mine.
Voila. Perfect.
Everything was in order.
We decided to head into Boston's illustrious Back Bay area to eat at a seafood restaurant.

What Casey didn't think to tell me and what I didn't think to ask was how old her friends were. This prior knowledge might have asuaged the look of shock that crossed my face when we arrived at the restaurant, and two 40-year-old Brits greeted us at the door.
Kisses all around.
As it was a "last-night-in-America" get-together, it wasn't only Casey and I joining the two Brits but two other couples and some oddball who I believe to be a spinster as well.
We sat down and immediately everyone ordered wine.
First of all, I like sodapop, okay? I do. I wanted a Dr. Pepper. But everyone was wearing argyle sweaters or carrying fancy clutches (or should I say, "clutching fancy clutches") I decided I'd have to settle for a glass of water and get the Dr. Pepper later. I told the waiter that "I'll just have a water" and quickly added "...for now" in hopes of staving off a judgemental glance from him after the other eight people around me all ordered wine.
I'm sure the waiter either thought I was a recovering alcoholic desperately clinging to sobriety amidst my wine-guzzling mates or that I was years younger than I looked and couldn't yet drink legally.
It should also be noted that wine goes through me like a Nascar in the final three laps of the Indianapolis 500. I drink the stuff like it was grape juice and I imagined myself, at some point, calling the Brit wife a "tart" and taunting the spinster to "get out more" in a wine-induced frenzy of indecent behavior.
Water it is.
Then came the dinnertime conversation.

Being 25 is an extremely awkward age.
Being 15 was physically awkward, but being 25 is socially, the most awkward I can remember feeling. College kids have all turned up their noses at my supposed neveau professionalism, but I'm so new to my post-college existence that I haven't the establishment that 30-year-old members of society have. I'm like Oliver Twist out here!
Look, if you wanna talk about sports or movies or Eastern seaboard ghettos, I'm all over it. Unfortunately, the Brits, the spinster, a married couple who were both balding, and two remaining completely nondescript human beings decided to speak about such barn buring topics as the Roman tyranny over England centuries ago, energy resources in Belgium, and the best outlets of information throughout the globe. *
There are about eleven people on earth who would find it uninteresting to learn that 24 hours earlier I, me, Adam - personally shook the hand of Bruce Springsteen - and seven of them were sitting at this Goddamned table! I spent the bulk of the evening praying that no one ask my opinion on whatever topic was currently being discussed. It was like being in Mr. Averbach's 10th grade history class all over again. I kept coaching myself, prompting myself in hopes of remaining invisible amongst the other eight:

Smile Adam, smile Adam.
Don't forget to nod. Nod knowingly, Adam. Keep nodding.
Oooh! The speaker is looking you in the eye; quick! Avoid eye-contact! Avoid eye-contact! Goddammit, look elsewhere! Find something on the table that needs your attention NOW!
The fork! Fiddle with the fork! Keep fiddling.
Drink some water. Drink some more, but not too much. Don't finish your water before they all finish their wine because you'll have to ask for more water and remind everyone that you aren't drinking wine.
Alright, enough time has passed. Look at the speaker again.
Smile Adam, smile Adam.
Don't forget to nod...

...and so-on.

I realized something about Casey. She's extremely sophisticated. She's kind, but also extremely regal, which made me wonder if she thought I was regal, which we all know I am not. For all I knew, I still had a piece of beef jerky stuck in my teeth from lunch. How sophisticated can I be that I not only eat beef jerky, but occasionally run the risk of allowing it to remain in my teeth from one meal to the next?! But even Casey, who apparently befriends 40-year-old resource industrialists from London, had little to say during the dinner, which meant that she and I said very little to one another, because Lord knows I was so afraid of being exposed as a doofus I dared not ask Casey about her favorite shellfish.
I took every chance I had to make some sort of comment, interject with some witty one-liner. I even danced with the idea of saying things with a British accent, but I was sure to have embarrassed myself had I done so. Instead I spent most of the dinner hiding my frequent yawns.
And when not hiding my yawns, I spent the remainder of the dinner in tears, because the spinster kept cracking chunks of lobster into my retinas. It took all the self-control I could muster to refrain from leaning in close to the woman and calmly suggesting that her eating habits are why no one will ever love her. She seemd to really like me, however. She kept deferring to me while she talked and nudged me when she thought something was funny.
It was because of this that I opted not to crush her soul.

The lovely night ended with the check. I had decided early on that I would not be paying for Casey's meal tonight. Technically, she owed me a meal (as we decided on the first date which I paid for) and each meal was, like $30. That's not second-date money. That's engaged-to-be-married money and none of you will convince me otherwise. The Brits pulled open the check (with a final tally that topped $350.00) and asked if we all just wanted to split the final tally nine ways...

!...
...?
(no, I was right the first time)...
...!

...I'm not cheap, okay? If you know me, you know that I'm looser with money than I should be. But these people got wine, champagne, and dessert. Heck, the spinster got a $50.00 lobster dish! And I had just spent a good ten minutes thinking about what I'd owe on the bill while pretending to listen to the balding woman discuss her hiking trip in Zion. I hade a crabcake combo and water.
That's it.
$29.00 including tip.
But the male Brit said, "if we add in tax and split it equally it should only be about $45-$50 bucks."
I almost choked on the last portion of my sixth water.
Shit. Pardon my language, but shit.
How can I get out of this without exposing myself as a cheap, teary-eyed, MTV-watching, AA member? Then it occured to me: the spinster didn't drink champagne, nor did she have any dessert. That stupid spinster was gonna get me out of this mess.
"You know, I don't know that everyone got dessert." I say.
"Yeah, and I didn't have champagne either." The spinster piped up.
THE KICK IS UP... AND IT'S GOOD! Yesss! Thanks spinster. You just saved me 20 bucks.
I spent exactly $29.00 not a penny more.

Dinner didn't end for another 45 minutes after we paid the check (it never does) and it was kisses all around when we all parted, but I had had it by then.
My hand was out, shake it if you want, but there will be no kisses.
The dinner took over two hours longer than I had planned, so we ended up not meeting up with my New York friends as planned (I saw them the next day though). Instead I drove her home on a rainy, dreary night. And if you feel like you know nothing about Casey after this entire story, it is because I too, know nothing about her.
Essentially, the second date furthered nothing between us. I don't know if I'll go on a third date with her, but I do know that if we happen to make arrangements, we're going bowling.
You hear me?
Bowling.
Followed by pizza slices.

And if she doesn't like it, she can go to China where they'll take care of all of this stuff for her.

============================================================

* The general concensus was that the best informational resource is found in the BBC network followed by England's newspaper The Gaurdian. No one seemed to even consider MTV News when I brought it up.

(Dis)Orientation

Tomorrow is my first day back as a student following a four-year hiatus. In honor of this occasion, instead of catching one last wave or taking one last road trip or making out with one last girl as the sun sets, I've decided to commemorate this last day of summer by writing about what else? School.

* * * * *

It was quite windy on Wednesday. Earth-shattering information I know, but it's true. I left for the city with a hat placed *PLOP* firmly atop my head and the wind blew it off and down the street. I had to chase after my damn hat like a child going after a slippery frog. I finally caught up to it rolling down Michigan Avenue but it was muddy and soggy when I got it.

I was embarrassed and upset.

It was my first day of graduate orientation and I showed up embarrassed and upset.

My new alma matre is Roosevelt University. I was surprised to realize how prime the real estate owned by the university actually is. My main campus building overlooks Buckingham Fountain, which for my out-of-state friends, is like having a college in Boston that overlooks the Citgo sign; but even prettier and classier.

Unless you think neon advertisements are classier than bubbling water fountains...

...Then nevermind.

I walked through the doors of the famous Louis O. Sullivan Auditorium building to find nothing but lines. No matter where I stood I found myself looking at the back of someone's head. Except that I'm taller than almost everyone else, so it was more like looking past the back of everyone's head directly toward the end of the line, which was much farther away than I'd have liked it to be.

My immediate problem was that I didn't know what line to be in, I couldn't tell which line was just right for me. So I went to the far right. When I drive and I don't know where I'm going, I always tend to turn right. I don't know why this is, but I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I throw a baseball with my right hand...

...I don't know why those things would be connected...

So there I was, in the far right line waiting patiently. Eventually, I got to the head of the line, which is the nice thing about storytelling; you didn't have to wait in line with me. You got to magically zip through the boring parts of my life and experience the meaty portions by themselves without all the fat.

Which doesn't make you very good friends at all, does it? Where the hell were you during the rough times? The boring times? You're just with me for the laughs and then you're gone. I stood in that damn line for like, eighteen minutes, staring off into space. I coulda used a friend you jerk. Thanks.

I hope you're bored all day tomorrow. Don't even think about calling me, I'll just catch up to you when things get a little more interesting in your life. How 'bout that?

Jerks.

The girl at the table whose line I had been waiting in smiled at me, which was not part of her job because she did not smile at the Middle-Eastern girl with the tunic-like apparatus atop her head, waiting before me. I worried that the line-owner denied the girl ahead of me a smile because she was a racist. I opted not to make small talk with the racist girl.

I just grabbed my orientation packet and coldly headed in the direction she pointed.

I don't deal with racists.

I also don't deal with kind-hearted girls who flirt with me.

Either way, I had my bases covered.

I headed up the massive marble staircase toward the second floor where the bulk of my orientation was being held. On my way upward, I assumed I might stroll past a descending Norma Desmond awaiting her close-up. The stairs took forever to climb. About halfway up I began looking for the Gatorade guy or one of those motorized stair-chairs for the elderly. I'm no sissy, okay? I know all about stairs. Stairs and I go way back.

Way back.

We went to the same preschool. I'm pretty sure Stairs borrowed my Mr. Potatohead doll and lost his angry eyes.

No need to school me on stairs. I've climbed the Bunker Hill Monument, The Statue of Liberty, the Tian Tan Temple stairs in Hong Kong, the steps in the Philadelphia Museum of Art where Rocky conquered his fear of heights (or something like that, I can't remember what happened in that movie); you name it, I've climbed it. The stairs at the main building of my new school were tough though.

It took me nearly fourteen minutes to get to the second floor. Somewhere around the nine-minute-mark, I left my pessimism behind and decided that stairs were a good thing. Stairs were both pomp and circumstance. Queens ascended staircases such as this...

...Not that I was a queen.

Not at all.

I thought we took care of those rumors during my last blog.

Stairs meant wealth and privilege and high ceilings and higher learning. These stairs represented my ascension into the glory that is education.

Metaphorically speaking, with each step I took, the smarter I became.
Physically speaking, with each step I took, the more vomit I could taste in my own mouth.

I started thinking that this damn staircase was like one of those optical illusions, like a striped barbers pole; something I would never - could never - completely climb.

By the time I reached the fifteen-hundredth step upon my spiral heavenward, I began hearing classical music and assumed that somewhere along my trip I had died and I was no longer ascending to the conference room of my graduate school but to Heaven itself. In my fatigued stupor I began getting really pissed that even though I was dead, I still had to trudge up stairs.

Shouldn't I be floating somewhere? Why the hell am I still so winded? There should be no breathlessness in Heaven. Well maybe romantic breathlessness, like that Godard film, but...

...Unless this isn't Heaven. What if we all got the directions wrong on Heaven and Hell? That would make more sense, right? Your first punishment after you die is climbing four billion stairs to get to Hell's Gate.

How had no one thought about this before?

And if this is Hell, what does it say that the ascending music I hear seems to be a Brahms piece from his Fantasias period?

I wouldn't have guessed that.

I always assumed I'd be hearing Yoko Ono on my way to Hell.

At the age of 38, I finally reached the second floor of Roosevelt University's Auditorium building. It was there that I realized I had not dreamt up the orchestra, that they were, in fact, playing in the center of the grand hallway for the enjoyment of all incoming graduate students. I also noticed multiple tables filled with finger foods and drinks.

My own mother didn't treat me with this much warmth and kindness. I stood stone- like in the middle of the hall as if a donkey had kicked the intelligence right out of my skull. I went numb. My jaw may have fallen open, but I can't be sure. Like I said, I was numb.

I moved one foot in the front of the other. My body was screaming in joy. My body wanted to run - nay - skip in peppy glee toward all the food tables and immediately take all the cookies for myself.

The tables were park trees and I was a dog lifting his leg to pee.

But I had to play it cool. This wasn't undergraduate orientation. This was graduate orientation and I didn't want to start off on more of a wrong foot than I already had.

I was the only student wearing a baseball hat. I was a little sweaty from the stairs and I had already made the racist line-leaders upset by ignoring their smiles. In hopes of not drawing further attention to myself, I decided to swing around the orchestra first. My thinking was that no one would suspect my desire for food if I didn't make a bee-line directly toward it.

So I'm standing next to the orchestra as if I were in some grunge club. All I needed was a Coors Light and a rhythmic head-bob and there'd really be no difference. It was awkward. They finished a musical piece and I began clapping, but I was the only one clapping, so I stopped clapping fairly soon after I started.

Are we not supposed to clap for orchestras? No one tells me shit.

Enough of this, let's hit that sandwich carte.

I have a friend whom for the sake of this blog I will call "Barmin." Barmin is infamous for formulating weekend plans based on the locales of gallerias and museums supplying free food at their exhibits. I only bring Barmin up because he would have wept at the sight of Roosevelt's spread. And his weeping wouldn't have been one of those "damn I just hit my thumb with this hammer" kind of weeping fits, it would have been girly and pitiful; more like "Heidi Klum just said she wanted to have my love child" fits.

I'm sure you understand.

In honor of Barmin I ate several extra tiny croissant sandwiches. I didn't even want them, but they were there and I'd be damned if I was going to allow some snotty undergrad to get their paws on it.

I also had nearly 2/3 of all available pineapple slices, which amounted to roughly six whole pineapples.

It's a passion fruit. I was incapable of stifling myself.

The orientation itself was fairly uneventful. Again, because you are not so much my friends as you are thrill-seekers, you get to be spared the boredom of the actual orientation. We'll skip past all the getting-to-know-you activities, self-congratulatory salutations that every school feels compelled to concoct and various campus tours. You can thank me later. But before we completely leave the bulk orientation portion, I should menton that I met one psychology student working on her doctorate named Christa Jones. She was extremely kind and comforting to me during our isolated group discussions and I apprecaited meeting her. Unlike Barmin, Christa Jones is her real name and the only reason I am submitting her real name here is because if she perchance comes across this blog or if I perchance ever see her on campus, I plan to immediately propose marriage to her in the name of serendipity.

Which would also go a long way in proving that I am the John Cusack of Chicago.*

My orientation evening ended waiting in yet another line; this time for my student ID. We've come a long way in field of bulk photographs. I was only in line long enough to realize that my hair had been under a soggy and muddy baseball cap for the bulk of the last few hours and that my hair isn't usually well coiffured anyway.

Sometimes, when I'm lost and driving and really need to catch a stop light in order to peek at a map, I inevitably make a record number of lights and drive for forty minutes in the absolute wrong direction. When I have nothing to do while waiting in line, the line inevitably takes for-ev-er to move. Not at Roosevelt U, nope. At Roo-U as the hep cats are known to call it, the lines with messy haired people desperately trying cajole their follicles into cooperating zips right along at record speed.

If Donald Trump got into a fist fight with a hoard of condors it would not look worse than the nonsense happening on my noggin.

"Next!" It was too late. I was up next. I looked like a Dick Tracy character and I had no time to remedy my situation. So I sat down in the chair set in front of a blue background and the thought crossed my mind that they were going to bluescreen my head onto something cool. Maybe my student ID would have a theme. Perhaps they'd affix my face onto John Wayne's body and for the next three semesters I would get to be the "John Wayne student". And maybe the girl after me would get to be the "woodchuck student" and the person after her would be the "astronaut" until she graduated.

"Next! " The cameraman bellowed. Which was a weird thing to bellow because I was already in the chair. I sat right down the first time he called my name. I've been sitting here for several seconds now and...

Oh crap! He already took my picture! That last bellow was for the person in-line after me. Crap! He didn't warn me or anything. He didn't even adjust the camera to counter my abnormally tall and lanky frame. The camera was barely tilting upwards at all and he didn't tell me to look into the camera, and because I was not instructed to do it I failed to do it.

Dammit! Why must I be such a lemming? Johnny Rotten would have looked directly into the camera no matter who told him not to. He might have even spat into the camera, but that would be taking it too far.

That would be too much. Spitting is unnecessary.

But looking into it was not unnecessary.

A warning would have been keen. A warning might have saved me from taking a picture that renders my already large forehead to appear as if an ice-dance could be performed on it's surface. And there are no do-overs for these pictures. I got one shot and I didn't even know it was happening. That picture is my key to the school's library, the bookstore, the public transportation, it's what my future girlfriends are going to ask to see when we go out to dinner and I open my wallet to pay for dinner and they notice picture identifications sticking out of it.

Photo IDs are the most important photographs anyone can take in this world and mine looks like I was punched in the head by a kangaroo.

Welcome back to school, kid. Here's your kangaroo wallop!

=============================================================== * Yes, dammit, I am aware that John Cusack is from Chicago. And yes I am aware that he hasn't even moved out of Chicago in favor of Los Angeles or something like that. And so yes I am aware that claiming to be Chicago's John Cusack is like claiming to be New York's Woody Allen or Montana's Unabomber.
Leave me alone.