Speaking of showers and judgy assholes,1See: Lawnmower Man that reminds me…
During my second year of grad school, I lived with three of my fellow physics grad students. They were all [astro]nuclear physicists and my main research tool was Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), so we decided to lean hard into the whole “nuclear” theme and dubbed our humble abode “the Bomb Shelter”. We thought ourselves modestly clever with that one. Alas, that all has nothing to do with the story; it’s just for reference in the future.
Anyways, at the time, two of us had samurai-length hair, me and Jesus Christ.2Not his real name. But his real initials, though. One fine morning I hop in the shower and find a wad of dark hair on the shower wall. Clearly, it was Jesus’s hair,3We all know that Jesus wasn’t really white. He was Italian. and I was a little indignant about the whole situation. How rude to leave your hair in the shower for your roommates to take care of!
At some point I brought it up in a less than graceful manner, talking about how disgusting it was. I don’t even remember if I was adult enough to bring it up to Jesus–I think I was bitching to one of the other roommates. Either way, he heard me talking about it, and explained that he always does that, so his hair didn’t clog the drain. Then, when he gets out of the shower, he just grabs some toilet paper and easily wipes it off the shower wall and disposes of it properly in the toilet or trash. He offered an unprompted apology for having forget the last step that particular day.
Sometimes, life imitates art. In this case, the art being an M. Night movie, replete with the obligatory twist at the end: he was the one being considerate. I was the asshole.
Oh, and also, that’s a pretty solid strategy for longer hair management in the shower. I still use it to this day–I highly recommend it.
We all know the famous psycho-analytical question “Is the glass half full, or is it half empty?” Yes, it is the classic put-me-in-a-box-please test as to whether one is an optimist or a pessimest. Now, I had high hopes of illustrating a third option–the realist–by humble-bragging “personally, I see the glass at 50% capacity”. Upon immediate reflection, however, I realized that, dammit, wouldn’t you know that “capacity” implies how full something is. After all, if I said to you “my bowels are at 50% capacity” you would immediately know that I’m half full of shit. Alternatively, one could theoretically describe an arbitrary container as being “at 50% incapacity”…a little dark, maybe, but nonetheless we would all slap a pessimist label on their back.
The point being, I was overly optimistic that I was going to stick the landing on my monologue, but in reality I just got off topic. Now I have to resort to plain-speak, brevity, and conciseness in order to share the thoughts currently banging around my skull. Ugh-triple-ugh.
J.K. Kidding, I’m going to tell a couple of stories instead. Tricked ya!
My body type is such that I would be extremely pleased if I could hit 205 lbs and maintain that for an extended period of time, especially as I enter the Middle Ages. However, I haven’t really been close to that since getting married almost 12 years ago. At this point, just plain stability would be nice, but even that eludes me.
Figure 1: Never ask a man about his weight. He just might answer with historical data going back over 7 years.
Anyways, thrice I’ve peaked out close to 250 (see Figure 1). It’s not clear here, but one of those peaks was around the Fourth of July ’14. That particular year I spent the 4th with my brother and his girlfriend in her dad’s beautiful riverside cottage. An irrelavent detail, I know, but it helps set the scene.
The first morning I was there, I got up early, still in my size medium white tee shirt, and was making pancakes for everyone. My brother being a typical older brother, comes in and starts busting my chops about how I really needed to buy larger tee shirts. I looked him dead in the eye and said “I’m a ----- optimist.”
Okay, maybe I wasn’t that gangsta in the moment. If I’m being honest, it was more of a half-defensive “What can I say? I’m optimistic!” His skinny ass probably didn’t appreciate it, but the woman in the room gave me an understanding nod and chuckle.
I like to believe that, despite whatever my current weight is, hope springs eternal for a slimmer self in the relatively near future. Near enough, anyways, that I never get around to buying appropriately sized clothing because, hey, I’m going to be trim any week now, right?
Clearly, my self-perception is that I’m a glass-half-full type of guy. So riddle me this: how in the hell is it that my beloved Natosha swears that I’m a pessimist? Well, after much thought, I think I have figured it out: I’m actually a realist.
For example, when I was finishing up grad school and we were getting ready to move to Hawaii, I got a call from one of my former roommates from Kansas State. It turns out his fiance had gotten into an advanced degree program at UNC, so they were wondering if he could crash with us when she came for her obligatory school visit, and he could look for housing in the meantime.
Whilst hosting them, it occurred to us that if we had loved the quiet little cottage that we had lived in for the past three years, then this young couple might enjoy it for the next five. It was a great plan: we could save our recently widowed landlady the headache of finding new, reliable tenants, at the same time saving my friend the huge pain in the ass of finding a decent place to live. Everyone would win.
So how did I pitch the prospect to them? I spent most of my precious words talking about…mosquitos. The. ----- Mosquitos.
You see, we lived about a quarter mile from one of the town’s water treatment stations, so all the standing water in its reservoir resulted in a rather significant mosquito population emanating outward into the neighborhood. Unfortunately, we were about one house away from where the feast-of-humans zone tapered off into the land-of-tolerance-and-peaceful-coexistence.
All three summers we lived there, I had fancied myself a backyard gardener. It was leading up to that first summer that I learned the hard way that we had a mosquito problem when I stayed out until 9 pm on an early May evening pulling weeds. Despite having a [medium sized] tee shirt on, my profuse sweating made my back an easy snack-target for those little ----- (see Figure 2). Natosha–who is/was a nurse–was a bit shocked that I hadn’t had a much more serious reaction given the many bites I had sustained.
Figure 2. Ignore my impending death by melanoma/mole constellations, and focus on the many welt-like mosquito bites. That is the the point of this picture.
In summary, the mosquito situation not only sucked literal blood, but also figurative balls.
But! But! But! But, the reason I emphasized it was that once they dealt with and accepted that reality, they could understand that it was the most perfect, adorable, wonderful place to live (and affordable, too!). I mean, we would have lived in that house forever if we could have. And if there hadn’t been mosquitos, of course. And fleas. But the fleas were courtesy of Muffin, our cat–but she’s a story for another time.
Let me break down what just happened with some algebra. We could posit that an optimist and a pessimist might cancel each other out and result in a realist (or maybe a nihlist?), ergo:
Optimism + Pessimism = Realism (and vice-versa)
Now, what happens if we subtract the Pessimism from both sides?
Figure 3. A past [skinnier] version of my self models my most favoritest thrift store tee shirt1Size Medium, of course. of all time.
Interesting theorem, no? In other words, a realistic perspective acknowledges both the positives and negatives of a situation. Let’s not kid ourselves about what’s really going on, yeah? But, by explicitly acknowledging and processing the negative aspects (often aloud), one is left to fully enjoy the positives. While one may externally be complaining, it is wholly possible that they actually have an annoyingly sunny disposition on the inside. And it’s all firmly based in reality.
The point of the story is, be wary of trusting those who are explicitly optimistic. To borrow from the late Rick James, “Delusion is a hell of a drug.”2https://youtu.be/4trBQseIkkc?t=651
As a teenager, I, like most normal human beings, would find myself picking my nose as I laid in bed trying to fall asleep. However, I never planned on doing it; it would just happen organically and naturally each time. The problem being, I was never prepared for success in these undertakings, so I never had a Kleenex nearby to cart off the golden nuggets I had just mined.
Being a typical teen inclined towards the path of least resistance, I found the easiest–and frankly, most enjoyable–disposal option was to forcefully flick them into the darkness of the night, never quite certain of their fate.
On the other hand, I was an atypical teen who was into extreme pre-planning (Youths1 these days–am I right?). I mean “extreme” as in I tended to plan for the most extremely unlikely situations–in this case it was the highly unlikely event that I would actually ever find a cute girl hanging out in my bedroom. But, as the Brothers Kratt like to say, “What if?!?”
It wasn’t long before the ghosts of all those lost and abandoned boogers began to haunt me. I was just certain that the one time all the stars aligned and said hypothetical female was actually in my room, one of those boogers would rear their crusty heads in an unanticipated location, and upon discovery by SHF, would derail all my good luck and hard work.2See Fuck Bob Ross for more insight. I needed to take preventive measures. I couldn’t risk letting any known unknowns finding me in the Alps.3See: The Alpine Stranger.
The only way to truly mitigate the situation would be to devise a strategy in which I always knew the location of those rascally snot-balls. Well, I guess I could have just stopped picking my nose in bed, but where’s the fun in that? Anyways, it occurred to me the safest place for them would be nestled cozily between my nighttime clothing and my skin.4Clearly, I was pretty realistic about the odds of a girl getting into my drawers. Ever since then, I have always tucked them securely in the inside of the waistband of my undies or on the inside of my shirtsleeve.
Its ingenious right? First thing in the morning what would I do? I would always throw my clothes in the dirty laundry and then wash my grubby ass off in the shower. You can think of it as akin to Osama Bin Laden’s burial at sea:5Yup, I’m pretty sure this one is an analogy. the water all but ensuring that they would never terrorize me again.
So, for all the single night-pickers out there who don’t sleep naked…you’re welcome for the life-tip. Feel free to use my methods to enhance the success rate of your romantic endeavors.
Pro tip for all you non-singles out there: make a game out of trying to sneak your biological by-products into your partner’s belly button as they sleep. This useful couple’s exercise will help you quickly figure out whether you’ve committed yourself to someone with no sense of humor. Fun!
A fun fact about me: I’m a physicist by training, with several scientific publications in chemistry journals. Good news, though: those factors are surprisingly irrelevant to today’s life-tip. So no worries, Mate; I won’t be spitting scientific deep cuts at you today.
The gravity I want to talk about here is the gravity of the situation when one makes a regrettable life choice by ordering a shitty beer. Especially when on a date, and the one you were hoping to impress asks to try it. At which point the only thing getting ----- that night is your chances of them trusting your better judgment. Which, I might argue, may be the worst possible outcome of the evening.
Fortunately, I have been on many dates,1Albeit with the same woman. #UberMonogamy and [surprisingly] have successfully ordered many a beer. The secret to my dumb luck is really just one stupefyingly simple rule: gravity–maximize it. The hardest part is just identifying the beers on the menu with the three highest ABVs.2ABV: Alcohol by Volume (aka “gravity”).Yes, there is the real possibility that ABVs won’t be displayed on the beer menu. You may not be completely shit out of luck, though. Try to find a Belgian beer or a stout (if that’s your thang) to increase your odds of success. You probably will be good with any of these, but choosing from those three gives you the illusion of free will and the myth of the self-made [wo]man.3Dammit, the Trainwreck of Thought strikes again…
So, here’s to an uncomfortable level of self-honesty and swindling dates into false respect for your judgement. Cheers!
ABV: Alcohol by Volume (aka “gravity”).Yes, there is the real possibility that ABVs won’t be displayed on the beer menu. You may not be completely shit out of luck, though. Try to find a Belgian beer or a stout (if that’s your thang) to increase your odds of success.
That was my reaction when I read the clickbait article today confirming that Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure 3 was REALLY, TRULY HAPPENING. Sure, we have to wait over a year before it actually comes out, but we’ve waited 28 years thus far, so who can complain?
I was 8 or 9 when I first experienced Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and I was in love–hello, Joan of Arc! Hello, Bill’s stepmom! Seriously, though, how can one not be ape-shit over a cinematic masterpiece that features none other than George Carlin as Rufus? I wanted to name my hypothetical son “Rufus” because of him, for god’s sake!1I just realized…this whole time I had thought Rufus Wainwright was the inspiration for my Rufus predilection. This makes way more sense now. I don’t think I’ve experienced any of Mr. Wainwright’s catalog… Both Keanu’s and Alex’s acting careers where ripe and in season, good to the last juicy surfer/dumbass drop. Truly, it was a bygone golden age to which Keanu has yet to return. *Sigh* But! There is hope at last…I mean, Alex (aka Bill S. Preston, Esquire) came out of 25 years of acting retirement for this. This calls for a celebration…with a tangentially relevant tale, perhaps?
I wish I could lie and say that I was a true fanboy who has watched it over a 100 times, but hey, let’s be real. This was back when my family had to rent the VCR before we could argue about which movie to rent. So I saw it twice, maybe thrice, tops. Nonetheless, I still think it would be most righteous to count me as a fan. However…
However, I have to confess that I never saw the sequel. Some fan I am, right? Well, that just didn’t happen in a vacuum. You see, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey came out late in the summer before I started fifth grade at Christian Schools of Springfield in Springfield (duh), Missouri. Now during the summers, my brother One Skinny J (aka 1SJ) and I would live with my “easy-going” dad on his farm in Kansas…pretty much the exact opposite of “Christian”, “Schools”, and “Springfield”.
The inferred point being, if we were going to see it, it would be with him. By my estimate, we would have had a 2-3 week window to make it happen. It’s no surprise that we never made it to the theater, with the farm and all…and also because I’m pretty sure that’s about the time we got grounded for stealing $20 out of our step-brother’s wallet. Which, by the way, was complete bullshit, because I was an unwitting accomplice, having been told that it had been miraculously “found under the couch” before I had agreed to help spend it at our local Corner Stop. Injustice, I say! But I digress…
Though I didn’t see the movie then, I, as a fan of modest proportions and an avid reader of the regional newspaper, had at some point picked up this little nugget of trivia: the original title was “Bill & Ted Go to Hell” (a fact true to this day–see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Proof that my memory is at least somewhat reliable.
Fast-forward slightly to Mrs. Greene’s 5th grade class a few months later. We had a fun class project where we split up into pairs and each group would write a chapter of a book, and then we would come back together to combine them into a single class story. My guess is that it was a joint English/history project, because the theme was time travel to the past. I was paired up with my best friend-girl, Katie, and we tore that shit up, traipsing all over the old west in our made-up adventure. It was good times.
Then it came time to name our book. Since it was time-travel themed, it reminded me of Bill & Ted, and I casually mentioned Bogus Journey’s original title. The Student Teacher, who was in charge of the project, gave me a slightly stern look, but my comments otherwise went ignored. Name after name after yet another contrived and uncreative name, I grew restless with the democratic process. I decided to finally connect the dots for them. Thinking myself rather clever, I raised my hand and proudly proffered “How about: ‘Mrs. Greene’s Fifth Grade Class…Goes to Hell’? Yeah, pretty good, huh?”
No. It was the opposite of good times.
Now forgive me for thinking that Ms. Student Teacher had plenty of context to understand what I meant: basically, our class <==> time-travel <==> Bill & Ted <==> “go to hell” (used in a semi-literal sense), therefore: our class <==> “goes to hell”. All the pieces were right there. Despite a logical and well-rounded defense on my part, I got my ass sent to the principal’s office and was lucky I didn’t get suspended. Once again, though, I gotta say it was complete and utter bullshit. Injustice, I say.
Anyways, the point of the story is: that’s when I realized that I could never be with someone who has no sense of humor. Cuz I sure the ----- didn’t have a crush on the Student Teacher after that.
On a side note, often I kill two birds with one stone and use my 6 y.o. daughter’s request for a bedtime story as an opportunity to workshop some of my narratives. For example, I was feeling pretty good when Lawnmower Man totally killed it with her a few nights ago.
Well, earlier this evening I decided to run this one by her. When I got to the part where I first mentioned “go to hell”, she asked what hell was. I was actually a bit surprised she hadn’t already been scared shitless by the idea of it a la one of her grandmothers. So I told her it was the “opposite of heaven”–nothing about eternal suffering, gnashing of teeth, lakes of fire, Satanic pitchfork sodomy, etc.–just the “opposite of heaven”. That was it.
It didn’t go over well. She kept plugging her ears, making it difficult for her to hear me trying to share yet another layer of context on top of what you’ve already read here. Needless to say, I bombed.
On top of that, she apparently ratted me out. Later in the evening the Boss Lady2aka my wife chided me, noting that she heard from a little birdie that “Daddy told me a very scary word tonight”.
Oh, for fuck’s sake people…CONTEXT!
Nonetheless, I would say that overall it was a pretty good day. After all this time, the Wyld Stallyns shall finally ride again.
I just realized…this whole time I had thought Rufus Wainwright was the inspiration for my Rufus predilection. This makes way more sense now. I don’t think I’ve experienced any of Mr. Wainwright’s catalog…
I love Venn diagram references. Not Venn diagrams themselves, just referencing them. The more asinine, the better, I say.
So why am I talking about them today? Because, my very important thoughts today reside in that magical intersection between the 3 circles comprised of: –Unsung Human Achievements; –Things That Are Best Said Upfront; and –Projects That Are Really Not Worth Anyone’s Time Yet Ima Invest My Time In Them Anyway (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: A Venn diagram that I spent way too much time on instead of getting a decent night’s sleep.
You know who I have utmost respect for? Those few lucky bastards whose job it is to “edit movies for content” so they can be shown on regular old TV. Have you ever watched a movie [on TV] where the line spoken is a tad incongruous in relation to the situation portrayed on screen? And come to think of it, the pitch of the voice doesn’t quite match up either… Sometimes, it might be so subtle that it may just sit in the back of your brain, quietly scratching away at your sanity. If so, then those bastards are doing their jobs right.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m talking about the thoughtful art of trying to censor a movie without the viewer noticing. This isn’t the brain-dead bleeping and blurring produced by the vast majority of FCC-Compliance Officers. No, this is where obscene words and phrases are gracefully rewritten and dubbed in over the naughty bits. You’ll even occasionally find a master truly dedicated to their craft who will go beyond the call of duty and photoshop frames in the movie to maintain consistency.1https://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/7-hilarious-ways-badass-movie-lines-got-ruined-by-tv-censors/,2https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePB8ZOv–bE (NOTE: this clip somehow missed the visual censorship. See: 4) The truth is, though, that they usually fail, and when they do, it is wonderfully, stupidly, SPECTACULAR. Personally, I don’t think these achievements are celebrated enough.
For example, do you know what happens when you find a Stranger in the Alps? Take a look for yourself:
Ahhhh! It kills me every time! Anyways, it might be confusing if you haven’t seen the Big Lebowski, but that’s what happens when you ----- a stranger in the ass. (Sorry, mom! #NSFM) Makes more sense, right? Right. Whoever wrote the censored line? A ----- genius. Now at this point, we’re no doubt asking ourselves, “How can little ol’ me make a difference in this world and help this humble hero become more widely recognized for what they have achieved?”
Well, I’m glad you asked that. I’m not going to answer that right now, but I’m glad you asked nonetheless.
Since we all already know the importance of context,3See: Lawnmower Man we can turn our attention to Circle #2 to see what insight it might provide.
Y’all should just know right now: I’m gonna cuss up here on this distinguished website. Hide your children, get out your earmuffs, clutch your pearls. Do whatever you feel you need to do. You’ve been warned.
“But why must it be this way?” you ask. Well, I will answer that one for you.
For the longest time, one of the key factors holding me back from going all-in on being a writer was how to handle the urge and/or necessity to swear. I was seriously conflicted on this point. On one hand, I didn’t want to displease anyone, the least of which my mother–God knows she would find a way to read anything I’ve written that has found its way to the public domain.4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTRKCXC0JFg
On the other hand…well, a key tenant of my whole schtick is unnatural levels of honesty, and to be honest, I cheapen my vocabulary and lose the respect of my peers by spending my cussing currency so freely . (FWIW, my Spirit Animal is most definitely a pirate. But I digress…)
One can’t be lukewarm in such matters; I’ve been down that road before (Figure 2a). My take-away from those early blogging days was that you don’t half-ass this shit. You go for the gold, or you keep your ----- mouth shut. “Friggin”? Seriously, what was I thinking?
Figure 2a: Lessons from blogs past: sometimes you just need to choose a lane…Figure 2b: While we’re here, I just wanted to dispel the notion that I branded this blog on a whimsy.
Anyways, the point of the story being that if I was ever going to truly write at the level of which I dreamt, I had to stop being a panty-waste5https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTRKCXC0JFg (or is it “panty-waist”?) and commit to one side or the other, even if it meant offending the sensibilities of a significant portion of the potential readership. If not for me coming to peace with public displays of profanity, this blog would never have happened, so…you’re welcome?
Now, finally, let me tie this all together. Included in my dreams for this little adventure upon which we find ourselves embarking is the documentation of many an endeavor of dubious value . One such time-sink happens to be the answer to the question which I posed to myself on your behalf a few paragraphs ago. I am moderately hopeful that I will get around to making a handy little WordPress plug-in for all you Parties6The censors missed a spot on the license plate (Figure 3). out there who would find the absence of potty words to enhance your experience here. I envision a button you press in settings that will, thanks to the power of technology, 1) identify the dirty words scattered throughout my writings, 2) compare those found to a database of TV censorship substitutions scraped from the internet, and 3) replace the offender with its Travestic7Yes, this is actually proper use of the word “travesty”. Don’t believe me? Look it up in a dictionary. I’ll wait… Doppelgänger (TM), randomly selected if more than one option is available, of course. Bonus feature of no value: include footnotes citing the source movie. Sound good? You bet it does. So, which of you fangirls wants to get the Kickstarter setup? Thanks in advance!
Welp, that’s all for now, talk to you Melon Farmers later!
Figure 3. The censors missed a spot on the license plate…
One fine Saturday morning many moons ago, I found myself taking a shower with the bathroom door open. Now, the door opens in towards the shower, so even with it open, it would be difficult for anybody in the hallway to actually see you showering.
Anyways, afterwards, as I turned off the water and began to dry myself off, a distant sound caught my attention. Off yonder I could a hear a medium-level buzz as a neighbor mowed their lawn.
Feeling footloose and fancy free (after all, ’twas a fine Saturday morning), I decided to seize the opportunity to test out my pitch-matching skills. Without much thought, I lowered my jaw and let out an impressive “Ehhhhhhnnnnnnn!” Basically what any normal human being would have done in that situation.
I had resumed drying myself off, when I heard vigorous, yet stifled, guffawing coming from behind the crack in the door. I look up to see an eyeball in the crack, undulating in time with the suppressed laughter.
Unable to contain herself any longer, Natosha busts into the bathroom, barely able to spit out “What THE HELL was that?!?” in between irrepressible snorts.
“What? I heard a lawn mower so I was just mimicking it. Duh.” I stated matter-of-factly.
After she finally got done howling in mockery, she was eventually able to calm down enough to tell her side of the story. Which was basically as follows.
“I was lovingly watching you through the crack in the door, when all of a sudden you stopped what you were doing, got a really glazed look in your eyes, and then out of nowhere: ‘Ehhhhhhhhhhnnnnnn!’ You looked either possessed or…special. And we all know you’re a little bit of the latter…”
Believe it or not, we’re still married to this day.
The point of the story is, CONTEXT MATTERS. If you don’t know the full story, maybe don’t be so quick to be a judgy asshole, yeah?
More recently, I was doing fall yard work and needed to blow some leaves out of our driveway. We have an electric leaf blower, so it is a huge pain in the ass to get it out, unravel the cord, get everything plugged in, blow leaves for 90 seconds, then proceed to undo all of the hard work I put into setting it up. Instead, its much more efficient to use the lawnmower to blow stuff around, since I had it out to mow the yard anyways.
Of course, a neighbor drove by and saw me mowing our driveway.
Again, the moral of the story is: sometimes genius looks like a ----- idiot. Don’t judge.
The latest word on the street