I promise I am trying not to make everything I write during the next few weeks about the holidays coming up, but since this is probably the first time I am planning on actually writing something on Thanksgiving I might as well write about the holidays again. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to complaining about stupid people with their stupid faces in their stupid cars with their stupid driving habits by the middle of next week. Maybe. You might just end up getting a bunch of sentimental drivel for the next 5 weeks and then a tome about how happy I am going to be when I get wasted on New Year’s Eve.
Speaking of getting wasted, I was reminded last night that Thanksgiving Eve is the busiest bar night in America. That’s something you don’t think about when you don’t hit the bars all the time like I used to do (when did I get so lame and old?) back when I was a young buck with disposable income, lots of free time and a bulletproof liver. To me, Thanksgiving Eve was just another Wednesday night with 2 for 1’s at Mulligan’s, $2 U-Call-It’s at The Depot Cantina and the trailer park’s night out at Club R&R in Flagstaff (that should be quite a walk down memory lane for a few people who used to frequent those establishments). And Thanksgiving Day was just a day where I had to drive back home from Laughlin, Nevada because somehow the 2-4-1’s made me end up in a different state with bars that closed at a time I like to call “never.”
I have already gone into detail in my previous blog about how I have spent more Christmases with other families than my own. Thanksgiving is a whole very similar animal. The last Thanksgiving I can remember spending with my family was in 1992 or 1993. For those of you who are mathematically challenged, it’s been at least 16 years since I hung with the fam on turkey day.
So for the last 16 years I have had to come up with something else to do on what I consider to be the lamest holiday of the year. For those of you who go crazy talking about “oh, but the food” and “the food” and “don’t forget the food,” guess what? I eat food EVERY OTHER DAY OF THE YEAR. And guess what I eat just about every other day of the year? Nope, not candied yams, those things are disgusting and should be against the law. Guess again. Correct, I eat TURKEY.
I eat turkey at least five days a week, and probably closer to six since I don’t eat out as much as I used to. What this means to me is that turkey is just another protein source, not some huge deal where I need to work myself into a frenzy before I eat it like I’m some kind of shark that only eats barnyard animals. As far as I can tell, it is possible to buy and cook a turkey 365 days a year. 366 on leap years. It’s not like the animal is seasonal. It’s not an F’ing watermelon. It’s a turkey. The meanest and dumbest and most delicious bird in the history of the earth. People talk about eating the turkey like it is some mythical creature that only appears when a parade happens in New York City.
Good God don’t get me started on parades. Dammit, you did. I will just say that a parade is something invented when there was no such thing as cable TV. Or electricity, probably. It was something invented when kids used to entertain themselves by running around with a stick trying to keep a hoop rolling down the street. Enough said? I guarantee that if kids had PSP’s and Nintendo DS systems back in the days we would not be watching a Thanksgiving Day Parade. We’d be watching a Thanksgiving Day robot cage match and it would be the most awesome thing ever seen on TV.
So when people ask me if I’m excited for Thanksgiving, I am not. I am excited for a day off of work with football on TV. But there are other days like that in the world. I’m trying to think of what they are. Hmmmm. Oh yeah, now I remember, they are called SUNDAYS. How could I forget? Thanksgiving is just a Sunday in disguise. As far as I’m concerned, Thanksgiving is a Sunday with “The Office” on instead of “The Simpsons.” Oh, and everything is closed but Denny’s, and that works out just fine for me because, like I said, I don’t eat out as much as I used to so Thanksgiving actually saves me money.
Thanks Thanksgiving. You’re a doll. A big dumb stupid delicious doll who is going to make me spend 4 hours a day in the gym to work off the damage I’m going to do to myself this afternoon.
On second thought, F U Thanksgiving. You’re a pain in my ass. I wish Taco Bell was open today. If you were a Sunday, like you pretend to be, I could get my chicken chalupas and lounge in peace. Maybe Taco Bell should work on a turkey chalupa, just for days like today.
Mmmm, chalupas. Then I’d only have to spend 3 hours in the gym to work it off.
Happy Thanksgiving, fuckers.
B!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
I'll Be Home For Christmas
For those who aren’t hip to the whole workings of the retail machine, Black Friday is coming up this Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. If you want more info on what Black Friday is, you can Google that shit. Suffice it to say that the day used to be a little more under the table as far as retailers competing for your dollars, but now it seems like it has come to all-out whoring for your dollars.
It’s kind of nice to see Wal-Mart become such a slut. Though that is kind of overkill, to be honest. It’s like the Yankees begging and pleading for ANOTHER World Series title when they already have like 29 of them or something. Okay, we get it, you rule the world, now stop killing everyone else for a little while and let them have some fun.
And we all know that with all of this “holiday” spirit comes all of the Christmas songs that can either get you in a really great mood (usually only if you are a girl) or completely destroy your day by throwing you into past memories you never really asked to be thrown into. Today I had just such an experience. And since I’m not a girl, you know which of those I was thrown into.
It was the song “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” by any artist who has ever stood in front of a microphone for a Christmas album. I think I heard nine different variations on it today. And nine variations of that song is nine too many, if you ask me. And you didn’t ask me, but you’re reading this and that’s close enough for me.
The chorus got me thinking about where exactly home is. Am I supposed to dream about going home to the first Christmas I ever remember having? The one where I got the most AWESOME army man mountain fort with tanks and 6 levels of army man glory in it? Or am I supposed to dream about the one where I walked around all day in my underwear and my Lone Ranger 6-shooters (stop swooning ladies)? Those Christmases were in a house in Denver, Colorado and no one lives there anymore. At least no one I would go home to. I’m sure lots of other people live there, just not my family.
Should I think of the Christmases I spent in Flagstaff, AZ with my family? The ones where I was old enough to appreciate Christmas as more than just a day when I got a bunch of gifts but as a day where I got to hang around with my family and participate in traditions that the younger kids don’t even know exist? Those were some good Christmases, but once again, no one lives there anymore. That house belongs to someone else now. I haven’t even seen the inside in twelve or thirteen years.
Or should I think of the Christmases I spent with my friends and their parents over the years? In the last 15 years I have spent more Christmases with four COMPLETELY different families than I have with my own. Hell, I haven’t even seen my parents in eight or nine years. It’s been so long since I’ve seen them that I don’t even know what year it was anymore. Is that how I am supposed to think of going home to Christmas? The years I have spent as a Christmas “orphan?”
How do I go home to a Christmas like that? I have lots of fond memories of all of the holidays I have spent with my friends and their families, and I can’t thank those families enough for opening their arms and hearts to the Christmas orphan, but which of those memories am I supposed to go home to in my dreams?
I think this year the Christmas I am going to go home to is the one from 1993. I don’t remember exactly what happened that Christmas, but it couldn’t have been all bad . . . just like all of the rest of them.
B!
It’s kind of nice to see Wal-Mart become such a slut. Though that is kind of overkill, to be honest. It’s like the Yankees begging and pleading for ANOTHER World Series title when they already have like 29 of them or something. Okay, we get it, you rule the world, now stop killing everyone else for a little while and let them have some fun.
And we all know that with all of this “holiday” spirit comes all of the Christmas songs that can either get you in a really great mood (usually only if you are a girl) or completely destroy your day by throwing you into past memories you never really asked to be thrown into. Today I had just such an experience. And since I’m not a girl, you know which of those I was thrown into.
It was the song “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” by any artist who has ever stood in front of a microphone for a Christmas album. I think I heard nine different variations on it today. And nine variations of that song is nine too many, if you ask me. And you didn’t ask me, but you’re reading this and that’s close enough for me.
The chorus got me thinking about where exactly home is. Am I supposed to dream about going home to the first Christmas I ever remember having? The one where I got the most AWESOME army man mountain fort with tanks and 6 levels of army man glory in it? Or am I supposed to dream about the one where I walked around all day in my underwear and my Lone Ranger 6-shooters (stop swooning ladies)? Those Christmases were in a house in Denver, Colorado and no one lives there anymore. At least no one I would go home to. I’m sure lots of other people live there, just not my family.
Should I think of the Christmases I spent in Flagstaff, AZ with my family? The ones where I was old enough to appreciate Christmas as more than just a day when I got a bunch of gifts but as a day where I got to hang around with my family and participate in traditions that the younger kids don’t even know exist? Those were some good Christmases, but once again, no one lives there anymore. That house belongs to someone else now. I haven’t even seen the inside in twelve or thirteen years.
Or should I think of the Christmases I spent with my friends and their parents over the years? In the last 15 years I have spent more Christmases with four COMPLETELY different families than I have with my own. Hell, I haven’t even seen my parents in eight or nine years. It’s been so long since I’ve seen them that I don’t even know what year it was anymore. Is that how I am supposed to think of going home to Christmas? The years I have spent as a Christmas “orphan?”
How do I go home to a Christmas like that? I have lots of fond memories of all of the holidays I have spent with my friends and their families, and I can’t thank those families enough for opening their arms and hearts to the Christmas orphan, but which of those memories am I supposed to go home to in my dreams?
I think this year the Christmas I am going to go home to is the one from 1993. I don’t remember exactly what happened that Christmas, but it couldn’t have been all bad . . . just like all of the rest of them.
B!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
The Music Store Of Life
On my way home from the gym today a song came on my iPod. The song is called “Five O’ Clock World” by a group called The Vogues. I’m not sure of the exact release date of the song, but I’m guessing it comes from somewhere early in the 1960’s. I’m going to say 1962 just because it sounds like the music did before the Beatles came along. I could go look it up but I absolutely don’t feel like doing that so deal with it.
Anyway, the lyrics of the part of the song I want to talk about go like this:
“Up every morning just to keep a job
Got to fight my way through the hustling mob
Sounds of the city pounding in my brain
While another day goes down the drain
But it’s a 5’O Clock World when the whistle blows
No one owns a piece of my time
And there’s a 5’O clock me inside my clothes
Thinking that the world looks fine”
The point I am trying to make is that people have been feeling this way for at least 40-some years. Most likely a lot longer than that, but this song is the first I’ve heard about a guy hating his job and knowing his life doesn’t begin until his work is over.
How many of us feel that way? Is everyone really only working for the weekend? It makes me wonder what people would do if they could just do it. If money was no object, what would you do with yourself?
By the way, I hate that question. “If money was no object . . .” blah blah blah. Guess what? It is an object. It has always been an object. It isn’t the only object, but damn it, it’s a pretty big object. If money really weren’t an object, I can honestly say I would be writing this in a completely different time zone (at the very least) on a completely different computer while wearing completely different clothes.
Money is the object that keeps my life the way it is now. They say when you get rich your personality doesn’t change, you just become more of whatever it was you were in the first place. If you were an asshole before you got rich, you’ll just be a bigger one. If you were a really great person before, you’d just be a bigger really great person.
I can honestly say that the only thing that would change about me would be the fact that you wouldn’t be able to find me. That’s why the internet could be such a brilliant tool for me to use if I ever actually did something with myself and got rich. All I’d have to do is put up my daily bullshit blog and the bored few who actually read them could follow me along my completely uninteresting adventures to nowhere.
Let’s face it, I’ve never actually been headed anywhere in my life. People who have known me for a long time can attest to this. I always worry about the fact that I am not moving forward in my life, but the fact is, even if I am moving forward I am heading nowhere. So I’m just moving further along a tangent line into the ether.
Like the line from The Streets: “If you don’t know where you’re going then any road will take you there.” That pretty much sums up my life to this point. I’ve been blessed with gifts I don’t use, I have no “calling” in life that I know of and I end up wasting hours and hours searching for something that I have never found and probably never will.
Have you ever gone into a music store to browse while you are waiting for something else to happen (your car to get repaired, an appointment somewhere, etc.)? Then when an employee comes up to ask if you need any help you realize that you have just walked around a store for 20 minutes and not known what you were in there for? The standard response (from me at least) is, “Oh, I’m just looking. I’ll know it when I find it.”
That’s pretty much how I live my life. I’ll know it when I find it.
I just hope time doesn’t run out before I figure out which purchase to make.
On a related note, if anyone has found an extra Calling In Life somewhere, can you pass it along to me? I think I need one of those. Wow, you’d never guess my 37th birthday is in two days, would you? Holy shit I’m getting old.
B!
Anyway, the lyrics of the part of the song I want to talk about go like this:
“Up every morning just to keep a job
Got to fight my way through the hustling mob
Sounds of the city pounding in my brain
While another day goes down the drain
But it’s a 5’O Clock World when the whistle blows
No one owns a piece of my time
And there’s a 5’O clock me inside my clothes
Thinking that the world looks fine”
The point I am trying to make is that people have been feeling this way for at least 40-some years. Most likely a lot longer than that, but this song is the first I’ve heard about a guy hating his job and knowing his life doesn’t begin until his work is over.
How many of us feel that way? Is everyone really only working for the weekend? It makes me wonder what people would do if they could just do it. If money was no object, what would you do with yourself?
By the way, I hate that question. “If money was no object . . .” blah blah blah. Guess what? It is an object. It has always been an object. It isn’t the only object, but damn it, it’s a pretty big object. If money really weren’t an object, I can honestly say I would be writing this in a completely different time zone (at the very least) on a completely different computer while wearing completely different clothes.
Money is the object that keeps my life the way it is now. They say when you get rich your personality doesn’t change, you just become more of whatever it was you were in the first place. If you were an asshole before you got rich, you’ll just be a bigger one. If you were a really great person before, you’d just be a bigger really great person.
I can honestly say that the only thing that would change about me would be the fact that you wouldn’t be able to find me. That’s why the internet could be such a brilliant tool for me to use if I ever actually did something with myself and got rich. All I’d have to do is put up my daily bullshit blog and the bored few who actually read them could follow me along my completely uninteresting adventures to nowhere.
Let’s face it, I’ve never actually been headed anywhere in my life. People who have known me for a long time can attest to this. I always worry about the fact that I am not moving forward in my life, but the fact is, even if I am moving forward I am heading nowhere. So I’m just moving further along a tangent line into the ether.
Like the line from The Streets: “If you don’t know where you’re going then any road will take you there.” That pretty much sums up my life to this point. I’ve been blessed with gifts I don’t use, I have no “calling” in life that I know of and I end up wasting hours and hours searching for something that I have never found and probably never will.
Have you ever gone into a music store to browse while you are waiting for something else to happen (your car to get repaired, an appointment somewhere, etc.)? Then when an employee comes up to ask if you need any help you realize that you have just walked around a store for 20 minutes and not known what you were in there for? The standard response (from me at least) is, “Oh, I’m just looking. I’ll know it when I find it.”
That’s pretty much how I live my life. I’ll know it when I find it.
I just hope time doesn’t run out before I figure out which purchase to make.
On a related note, if anyone has found an extra Calling In Life somewhere, can you pass it along to me? I think I need one of those. Wow, you’d never guess my 37th birthday is in two days, would you? Holy shit I’m getting old.
B!
Monday, November 9, 2009
Today I was driving home from work when the song, “Meet Me Halfway” by the Black Eyed Peas came on the radio for like the 900th time in the last two days. I have gone into depth in previous posts about how much I hate the Black Eyed Peas and how they have pretty much ruined music in the early 2000’s.
I can’t really fault somebody for making shitty music that the masses latch onto. It has happened time and time again over the years. I will freely admit that I was a fan of MC Hammer back in the days when he was absolutely demolishing real rap music with his vapid lyrics and “marbles in the mouth” delivery. The only reason I listened to Hammer was because his beats were SO DAMN GOOD! In fact, they are still good and you know it.
The main thing that separates MC Hammer from the whole horrifying thing that is The Black Eyed Peas is that MC Hammer isn’t a liar like Will.i.am is. When MC Hammer says, “You can’t touch this” it is the absolute truth. Did you ever try to touch it? Were you successful? Of course not, because you couldn’t touch it, just like MC Hammer said.
On the other hand, you have lyrics like these from Will.i.am in the Black Eyed Peas’ song “Meet Me Halfway”:
Girl, I travel round the world and even sail the seven seas
Across the universe I go to other galaxies
Just tell me where to go, just tell me where you wanna to meet
I navigate myself to take me where you be
Now, let me break this down so I can prove that this dude is a liar. First, we will take the line “Girl, I travel round the world and even sail the seven seas.” There is a girl involved, apparently, so this must be a love song. And because this is a love song, there has to be these unreal statements of devotion from the man to the woman because most love songs are full of shit and girls eat that shit up. I believe he would travel around the world, but not for a girl. It would probably because he was on tour and had some concerts scheduled in places that would take him to several different cities around the globe.
As far as him sailing the seven seas? Not a chance. Not a chance in hell. Do you know how much time that would take? Do you know how dangerous that is? I don’t think anyone has ACTUALLY sailed the seven seas in like 150 years. They have engines now that eliminate the need for sails on a boat. Maybe he was so busy flying around in his G-5 airplane that he didn’t realize that. A better lyric would probably be “Girl, I go from place to place in cities around the globe but I try to stay away from places that don’t have 5 star hotels and limo service, and I would probably take a cruise ship from Miami to Jamaica, but I don’t have much more free time in my schedule for that because I have to drive Fergie to an audition to play young Jack Nicholson in the newest Batman movie.”
Now, the lyric “Across the universe I go to other galaxies” has got to be examined closely. Not for any other reason than the fact that if he were actually going to travel across the universe, he is in the wrong business for it. Even that kid from N’Sync got denied his little jaunt into space and that dude was way more popular than the Black Eyed Peas will ever be. The only way for him to get a trip into space would be for him to join the Air Force, become a pilot, work his way through the ranks, get into the astronaut training program, dazzle his superiors and be lucky enough to get assigned onto a space shuttle mission. Unfortunately for him, the space shuttle doesn’t have the capability to go across the universe or even another galaxy, and I’m pretty sure NASA would be pissed if he blew his whole space mission just to meet some girl and hopefully get some ass. Here’s a better lyric: “Across the street to Waffle House I’ll slip you a hotel key.”
The next lyric, “Just tell me where to go, just tell me where you want to meet” is the most realistic lyric in the verse because, as we all know, girls control the when, where and how any booty exchange takes place. Of course, by admitting to the woman that she is in control of where you will go with your life you have just F’ed yourself and you have given her the “hand” in the relationship. If you don’t understand “hand” you should go watch re-runs of Seinfeld until you get a better grasp on the way the universe works. Suffice it to say that if he does actually show up where she wants him to show up, he might get some ass but he will definitely have given her the upper hand in the relationship and she will probably actually send him across the galaxy at some point JUST BECAUSE SHE CAN. Way to go, dumbass! You’ve got to think of these things before singing them to your girl. And stop singing them to other people’s girls because I GUARANTEE there is some idiot girl getting ready to ask her boyfriend, “Would you travel across the universe for me?”
How the hell do you answer that? You can’t tell the truth (“Shoot, I barely like walking across the room for you, do you really want me to answer that?”) so you HAVE to lie. Way to make liars out of everyone, Will.
The last lyric, “I navigate myself to take me where you be” is not only a lie, but it’s an idiotic one because in the line previous he tells her to tell him where to go. If someone tells you which way to go, what does that make them? A navigator, perhaps? So how are you going to navigate yourself if you have to ask someone else where to go? That doesn’t work, unless he is talking about literally driving a Lincoln Navigator to where she wants to meet, but those things would never make it into space to go across the universe, and even if they could, they get horrible gas mileage and there’s no place to fill up. Plus, that thing would sink in the first of the seven seas and it would get crushed under the weight of the ocean.
This guy can barely navigate himself across a music track without making several stupid mistakes. I really hope this girl doesn’t hold her breath in hopes that he really will meet her halfway. She’ll be dead somewhere and he’ll have driven his SUV into a lake. Maybe she’ll be holding her breath halfway across the lake.
Hmm.
Maybe they deserve each other.
B!
I can’t really fault somebody for making shitty music that the masses latch onto. It has happened time and time again over the years. I will freely admit that I was a fan of MC Hammer back in the days when he was absolutely demolishing real rap music with his vapid lyrics and “marbles in the mouth” delivery. The only reason I listened to Hammer was because his beats were SO DAMN GOOD! In fact, they are still good and you know it.
The main thing that separates MC Hammer from the whole horrifying thing that is The Black Eyed Peas is that MC Hammer isn’t a liar like Will.i.am is. When MC Hammer says, “You can’t touch this” it is the absolute truth. Did you ever try to touch it? Were you successful? Of course not, because you couldn’t touch it, just like MC Hammer said.
On the other hand, you have lyrics like these from Will.i.am in the Black Eyed Peas’ song “Meet Me Halfway”:
Girl, I travel round the world and even sail the seven seas
Across the universe I go to other galaxies
Just tell me where to go, just tell me where you wanna to meet
I navigate myself to take me where you be
Now, let me break this down so I can prove that this dude is a liar. First, we will take the line “Girl, I travel round the world and even sail the seven seas.” There is a girl involved, apparently, so this must be a love song. And because this is a love song, there has to be these unreal statements of devotion from the man to the woman because most love songs are full of shit and girls eat that shit up. I believe he would travel around the world, but not for a girl. It would probably because he was on tour and had some concerts scheduled in places that would take him to several different cities around the globe.
As far as him sailing the seven seas? Not a chance. Not a chance in hell. Do you know how much time that would take? Do you know how dangerous that is? I don’t think anyone has ACTUALLY sailed the seven seas in like 150 years. They have engines now that eliminate the need for sails on a boat. Maybe he was so busy flying around in his G-5 airplane that he didn’t realize that. A better lyric would probably be “Girl, I go from place to place in cities around the globe but I try to stay away from places that don’t have 5 star hotels and limo service, and I would probably take a cruise ship from Miami to Jamaica, but I don’t have much more free time in my schedule for that because I have to drive Fergie to an audition to play young Jack Nicholson in the newest Batman movie.”
Now, the lyric “Across the universe I go to other galaxies” has got to be examined closely. Not for any other reason than the fact that if he were actually going to travel across the universe, he is in the wrong business for it. Even that kid from N’Sync got denied his little jaunt into space and that dude was way more popular than the Black Eyed Peas will ever be. The only way for him to get a trip into space would be for him to join the Air Force, become a pilot, work his way through the ranks, get into the astronaut training program, dazzle his superiors and be lucky enough to get assigned onto a space shuttle mission. Unfortunately for him, the space shuttle doesn’t have the capability to go across the universe or even another galaxy, and I’m pretty sure NASA would be pissed if he blew his whole space mission just to meet some girl and hopefully get some ass. Here’s a better lyric: “Across the street to Waffle House I’ll slip you a hotel key.”
The next lyric, “Just tell me where to go, just tell me where you want to meet” is the most realistic lyric in the verse because, as we all know, girls control the when, where and how any booty exchange takes place. Of course, by admitting to the woman that she is in control of where you will go with your life you have just F’ed yourself and you have given her the “hand” in the relationship. If you don’t understand “hand” you should go watch re-runs of Seinfeld until you get a better grasp on the way the universe works. Suffice it to say that if he does actually show up where she wants him to show up, he might get some ass but he will definitely have given her the upper hand in the relationship and she will probably actually send him across the galaxy at some point JUST BECAUSE SHE CAN. Way to go, dumbass! You’ve got to think of these things before singing them to your girl. And stop singing them to other people’s girls because I GUARANTEE there is some idiot girl getting ready to ask her boyfriend, “Would you travel across the universe for me?”
How the hell do you answer that? You can’t tell the truth (“Shoot, I barely like walking across the room for you, do you really want me to answer that?”) so you HAVE to lie. Way to make liars out of everyone, Will.
The last lyric, “I navigate myself to take me where you be” is not only a lie, but it’s an idiotic one because in the line previous he tells her to tell him where to go. If someone tells you which way to go, what does that make them? A navigator, perhaps? So how are you going to navigate yourself if you have to ask someone else where to go? That doesn’t work, unless he is talking about literally driving a Lincoln Navigator to where she wants to meet, but those things would never make it into space to go across the universe, and even if they could, they get horrible gas mileage and there’s no place to fill up. Plus, that thing would sink in the first of the seven seas and it would get crushed under the weight of the ocean.
This guy can barely navigate himself across a music track without making several stupid mistakes. I really hope this girl doesn’t hold her breath in hopes that he really will meet her halfway. She’ll be dead somewhere and he’ll have driven his SUV into a lake. Maybe she’ll be holding her breath halfway across the lake.
Hmm.
Maybe they deserve each other.
B!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
A Gray Haired Creep
I don’t know if it’s just me or if everyone has been experiencing this, but it seems like more and more I am being reminded of exactly how old I am getting. It seems like several times a week I will see something on TV or hear a song on the radio and they will say what year it is from and I will think, “That was how long ago?! Are you kidding me?!”
Sometimes I even say that out loud. I’ll admit it. Luckily I haven’t done it in public. Or maybe I have. Oh my God! Have I done that in public and not even realized it due to my advancing years? Have I crossed over to the sort of advanced age related idiosyncrasies like sneezing SO LOUD that it restarts your heart because it’s so worn out it stops when you sneeze and I haven’t even noticed it because my hearing is so bad?
Just kidding, my hearing is fine. What?
It’s quite a reality check when you realize that a very important event in your life happened over a decade ago. Are you kidding me? Do you know what is supposed to have happened a decade ago? Fifth grade. That’s it. That is the ONLY thing that should have happened that long ago. Everything else in life should have happened within the last 2 years because that’s how young people experience life.
College kids have no concept of the reality of age because everything that happens to them is new and fancy and full of fun and probably the very real threat of an STD. And I can honestly say that there is nothing wrong with that. As far as I’m concerned, everything should be new and fancy and full of fun and I’ll just bring a condom to make sure everything is the way it is supposed to be. Even the STD.
The best part of being young is (or should I say ‘was’) the fact that there are no consequences for most of your actions. Fail a class? “I’ll take it next semester.” Break up with your girlfriend/boyfriend? “I’ll get a new one in a couple of weeks.” Have a shitty summer vacation? “I’ll do something better next year. Maybe Cancun.”
But the next thing you know 12 summers have passed, you’ve never been to Cancun and you’re sitting at home on a Tuesday night, watching “The Biggest Loser” alone while eating a plain chicken breast and broccoli instead of being out at the bars enjoying San Felipe’s Cantina’s ½ price tequila shots on Tequila Tuesdays with bar food, the hot girl that worked there who wanted to do you but you never hooked up because one of you ALWAYS had a girlfriend or a boyfriend when the other was single, and at least 2 of your best friends in the world. Oh yeah, and tequila.
That was a really long sentence that mathematically adds up to this sentence: Why the hell do I even wake up in the mornings anymore? Honestly. What the hell am I doing being this old and this lame? A decade ago I was making more money, drinking a WHOLE lot more and thus having a WHOLE lot more fun, and I had no concept that someday I would wake up and be as old as I am.
I’ll be honest, though. I can’t really say I am depressed by the act of getting older, because mentally I feel just about as dumb as I was when I was 22, give or take some sparkles of age-induced brilliance every now and again (like when I finally figured out what securities trading is. Unfortunately I am getting old and I promptly forgot what I learned so I need to go look it up again just to make sure). Apart from how much it hurts to get out of bed sometimes, it’s really not too bad.
The worst part of it, to me at least, is the fact that I have gray hair creeping up into my facial area. I don’t like that one bit. Not one bit I say! Gray hair is for old people. Not almost 37-year-olds. It’s for like 55-year-olds and above. That stuff just does not fit into my lifestyle.
A couple of years ago I was at a pool party at my friend T-Rock’s house (just an FYI, eventually we are going to be too old for nicknames like that. Eventually Ice Cube is going to HAVE to change his name back to O’Shea Jackson because I don’t think anyone in their 40’s should be named after something you use to reduce swelling) and I was standing on the diving board, getting ready to unleash some mad diving skills upon the pool, when Zoom, a friend of mine whose nickname days are also numbered (can’t wait to see you half-stepping it with a walker and telling some lady at the nursing home, “They call me ZOOM, bitch!”) says to me, “Dude, what the hell is that on your chest?”
I look down, fully expecting an open wound, a tattoo I don’t remember getting or a large piece of barbed wire to be sticking out of my chest. Instead I come face to face with a large patch of gray chest hair where my black chest hair used to be. And the gray hair begins mocking me.
“What the hell is that?” I ask, a bit panicked.
“Is that gray hair?” asks Zoom.
“No, I think I was out in the sun too long and it bleached my chest hair blond,” I lie.
“Ha ha! That’s gray hair! Dude, you’re OLD!”
So I tried to cannonball him but I jackknifed my hip and almost drown because my leg didn’t work. That’ll teach him.
But he was right. It was gray hair. And that gray hair has steadily started the creep up from my chest into my goatee and into the sides of my hair. If I don’t shave for 3 days I can literally add 12 years to my face. That would have been awesome when I was 19, but it’s not so good when I’m already old enough to do anything worth getting old for.
Except maybe joining AARP. I hear they have some good tequila parties. But they probably don’t let anyone dance on the bar anymore. Not without a doctor’s note.
I think there is probably a box or two of Just For Men in my future. I’m lame, I know, but the gray hair belongs on someone else’s face, at least for 13 more years. Then I’ll take it back. Maybe.
B!
Sometimes I even say that out loud. I’ll admit it. Luckily I haven’t done it in public. Or maybe I have. Oh my God! Have I done that in public and not even realized it due to my advancing years? Have I crossed over to the sort of advanced age related idiosyncrasies like sneezing SO LOUD that it restarts your heart because it’s so worn out it stops when you sneeze and I haven’t even noticed it because my hearing is so bad?
Just kidding, my hearing is fine. What?
It’s quite a reality check when you realize that a very important event in your life happened over a decade ago. Are you kidding me? Do you know what is supposed to have happened a decade ago? Fifth grade. That’s it. That is the ONLY thing that should have happened that long ago. Everything else in life should have happened within the last 2 years because that’s how young people experience life.
College kids have no concept of the reality of age because everything that happens to them is new and fancy and full of fun and probably the very real threat of an STD. And I can honestly say that there is nothing wrong with that. As far as I’m concerned, everything should be new and fancy and full of fun and I’ll just bring a condom to make sure everything is the way it is supposed to be. Even the STD.
The best part of being young is (or should I say ‘was’) the fact that there are no consequences for most of your actions. Fail a class? “I’ll take it next semester.” Break up with your girlfriend/boyfriend? “I’ll get a new one in a couple of weeks.” Have a shitty summer vacation? “I’ll do something better next year. Maybe Cancun.”
But the next thing you know 12 summers have passed, you’ve never been to Cancun and you’re sitting at home on a Tuesday night, watching “The Biggest Loser” alone while eating a plain chicken breast and broccoli instead of being out at the bars enjoying San Felipe’s Cantina’s ½ price tequila shots on Tequila Tuesdays with bar food, the hot girl that worked there who wanted to do you but you never hooked up because one of you ALWAYS had a girlfriend or a boyfriend when the other was single, and at least 2 of your best friends in the world. Oh yeah, and tequila.
That was a really long sentence that mathematically adds up to this sentence: Why the hell do I even wake up in the mornings anymore? Honestly. What the hell am I doing being this old and this lame? A decade ago I was making more money, drinking a WHOLE lot more and thus having a WHOLE lot more fun, and I had no concept that someday I would wake up and be as old as I am.
I’ll be honest, though. I can’t really say I am depressed by the act of getting older, because mentally I feel just about as dumb as I was when I was 22, give or take some sparkles of age-induced brilliance every now and again (like when I finally figured out what securities trading is. Unfortunately I am getting old and I promptly forgot what I learned so I need to go look it up again just to make sure). Apart from how much it hurts to get out of bed sometimes, it’s really not too bad.
The worst part of it, to me at least, is the fact that I have gray hair creeping up into my facial area. I don’t like that one bit. Not one bit I say! Gray hair is for old people. Not almost 37-year-olds. It’s for like 55-year-olds and above. That stuff just does not fit into my lifestyle.
A couple of years ago I was at a pool party at my friend T-Rock’s house (just an FYI, eventually we are going to be too old for nicknames like that. Eventually Ice Cube is going to HAVE to change his name back to O’Shea Jackson because I don’t think anyone in their 40’s should be named after something you use to reduce swelling) and I was standing on the diving board, getting ready to unleash some mad diving skills upon the pool, when Zoom, a friend of mine whose nickname days are also numbered (can’t wait to see you half-stepping it with a walker and telling some lady at the nursing home, “They call me ZOOM, bitch!”) says to me, “Dude, what the hell is that on your chest?”
I look down, fully expecting an open wound, a tattoo I don’t remember getting or a large piece of barbed wire to be sticking out of my chest. Instead I come face to face with a large patch of gray chest hair where my black chest hair used to be. And the gray hair begins mocking me.
“What the hell is that?” I ask, a bit panicked.
“Is that gray hair?” asks Zoom.
“No, I think I was out in the sun too long and it bleached my chest hair blond,” I lie.
“Ha ha! That’s gray hair! Dude, you’re OLD!”
So I tried to cannonball him but I jackknifed my hip and almost drown because my leg didn’t work. That’ll teach him.
But he was right. It was gray hair. And that gray hair has steadily started the creep up from my chest into my goatee and into the sides of my hair. If I don’t shave for 3 days I can literally add 12 years to my face. That would have been awesome when I was 19, but it’s not so good when I’m already old enough to do anything worth getting old for.
Except maybe joining AARP. I hear they have some good tequila parties. But they probably don’t let anyone dance on the bar anymore. Not without a doctor’s note.
I think there is probably a box or two of Just For Men in my future. I’m lame, I know, but the gray hair belongs on someone else’s face, at least for 13 more years. Then I’ll take it back. Maybe.
B!
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