Arbitrary Lane Changes

Tonight I'm in Seattle with my (fake) brother. We are staying at this baller hotel downtown where I can look out over the city as I type this. I would say this is the land of the beautiful people, but I think it’s really just land of the ok looking people in really expensive clothes.

My return to vegetarianism lasted three days. I was lost to a $50 steak dinner. Who could blame me? I also had some sort of weird gingerbread dessert that was such a unique and surprising sensation that I had to consciously stop myself from trying to have sex with it at the dinner table. So I took in the back and had sex with it.

Its been good to hang with my bro. He’s getting married soon and as someone who has no idea what a successful marriage looks like, I’ve been giving him lots of unsolicited advice.

My business idea as a Pet Assassin has been well received. I gotta get someone to start sketching out appropriately menacing business card ideas.

My Secret Vegetarian Backstory for anyone who cares

Most who know me would agree that me being a vegetarian is a highly unlikely scenario. Here is the brief, but unavoidably gay back story on why I became a vegetarian in the first place.

One day at work, in an effort to eat a little healthier me and my partner Mike decided to get vegie burgers for lunch, then we got busy with calls and then at about eight o'clock I realized that I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone a whole day without eating meat. So I just decided to stop eating meat. Originally I didn't have a goal or anything, I just wanted to see if I felt any different. After awhile I decided that knowing that Thanksgiving is a big deal in my family, and I would want to participate in the gluttony as fully as I am capable, I made Thanksgiving my deadline.

So never to be satisfied with doing something just for the sake of doing it, I decided to make this a social experiment too. I started by dividing up my family and friends into groups and seeing how long I could keep them in the dark about my decision to go meatless. Of course my work friends knew almost immediately and I told my roommate because he has been a vegie off and on his whole life and I needed tips. But I was able to keep my family from finding out until the day we were actually driving to have Thanksgiving weekend with the rest of the family. That is pretty good considering that I had dinner out with my parents twice and managed to order vegetarian food without being noticed.

Hey, I told you this whole thing was pretty gay.

I am tolerant, shut your stupid face

Everyone has an opinion about this, but theirs have less hot dog references than mine, so they’re not as good.

Let’s say that a group of hot dog vendors got together and formed a club. They were all different ages, races and religions but they were unified nevertheless. To be in this club you not only have to be a hot dog vendor, but you also have to hate America, and subscribe to the idea that all hot dog vendors should hate America. So this very small club just happens to get motivated enough to do something about their hatred, they take over a bunch of planes and crash them into buildings killing thousands of innocent Americans.

Even if none of the other millions of hot dog slingers in the world were on board with the whole “I hate America” thing, like it or not, the crazy rogue terrorist hot doggers represent them.

Even if it were years later, wouldn’t it be insensitive to the families of the victims of the great anti-American hot dog massacre to build say, a hot dog museum anywhere near where it happened?

Subrversive and Protect

I figured I should record this stuff for posterity, like for when the inevitable question is asked, “Mommy, why does grandpa just stare out the window and giggle to himself all day?”

At this point, I have been forced to take a job as a Paramedic/Security guard at a Steel Mill. I thought it was going to be pretty cool, what with all the horrible huge, dirty, red-hot metal thingies flying around here. I thought I’d be sure to see some new and inventive ways for people to hurt themselves. Alas, these drunk rednecks are actually pretty safe, so I just sit around for hours at a time waiting for the impalements and crush injuries that never come.

The worst part is that the bosses have noticed we seem to have a lot of extra time on our hands and have really pushed us to embrace our security guard roles. So I spend a good deal of my time harassing people who are just trying to do their jobs for paperwork or to wear the proper hat for wherever they happen to be. On top of that, they took away my internet (obviously I got around that, as I type this at work) book or magazine reading, and any sort of other fun ways to occupy our time.

Keeping all that in mind, here are some things I’ve done at work to keep my mind from exploding due to boredom

1. Composed a very long Powerpoint presentation over quite a few shifts that included things like:

• a zombie hierarchy, “regular zombie, zombie leader, zombie cop, zombie dog, french zombie, etc”
• charts and supporting data reasoning why bears are actually much more swashbuckly than pirates or cowboys
• comics that I painstakingly drew in Paint illustrating important facts such as “Dinosaurs can’t breathe in space” and “Robots hate figure skaters”

2. Written a memo for internal use that included the use of the phrase “butt fucked” no less than three times. Bonus: the memo was about the use of carpet runners over an area rug.

3. Had a discussion with my new supervisor, who is making all the policies I find so disagreeable, which included the following dialogue:

“You know that memo I wrote about people needing to change their attitudes?”

“yeah”

“I wrote that about you”

“oh”

and also

“Do you have a problem with me?”

“No, I have a problem with this job”

“And what is that?”

“This isn’t the job I accepted. I’m not a security guard, I’m a paramedic. The thing you need to understand is that unlike the security guards, paramedics tend to be A-type personalities.”

“I understand that.”

“I don’t know if you do, because paramedics’ tolerance for bullshit is minimum. And as A-type personalities, we tend to think that stupid rules do not apply to us”

“is that so?”

“Well… it is for me.”

“I get it, you’re a firefighter, you save lives every day, girls love you, and this job is boring. By the way, I found your powerpoint…”

“…” (looking innocent, because I wasn’t going to take credit of it, it didn’t have my name anywhere on it. And I had left it on the desktop inncuously labeled “Awesomest Powerpoint ever” right next to all the other presentations we use for training. I knew it was going to be discovered eventually, when most of the guards couldn’t wait to check it after I’d had a shift)

“You’re just…very proud of yourself” she said while actually smiling at me.

I just shrugged my shoulders, and she left. Ever since then we’ve actually had a good working relationship, meaning I show up on time and she pretty much leaves me alone. I guess I just had to prove to her that I really am as awesome as I think I am. Also I found it funny that she deleted my Powerpoint, but she took the time to print it out and put it in her mailbox. I had to wonder if that was because she liked it, or to use it as evidence against me later. From now on, all my clandestine writing on the work computer is password protected.

The Nickelback System of Love

I don't want this thing to become about dating, or god-forbid my love life. But I've had some interesting conversations since my last post. Most of those conversations that weren't about which animals are the most racist were about dating. And I've come up with a few theories that I would like to share, or stolen a few theories and claimed they were my own that I would like to share.

Recently I was talking with a friend of mine, we'll call her Laura, we were discussing why we could never get two of our friends James and Janine to hook up. Basically it came down to what a person's worth is when it came to dating. When we say "Janine is out of James' league" or "Janine is way too good for James" I felt like we had to quantify what "too good" meant based on some objective criteria. So I came up with a system.

I'd actually been working on this system for a long time, it kind of developed when I was trying my hand at internet dating. And before I present this, I want to clarify that this isn't my system for picking a woman, this is just a list of the most simplified and shallow categories that I think all single people take into account when sizing up a potential romance.

Here's how it works, if you're a man or lady person out there looking for love, you either get a point for each category or you don't.
1. In Shape
2. Employed
3. Demonstrable skill
4. Doesn't smoke
5. Doesn't have kids

Now that I've pissed everyone off, I need to reiterate that these are not the definitive list of things people need or should have in order to find love. My little system here doesn't take a lot of factors into account, things like personality, body odor or one's proclivity for talking to stuffed animals. In fact, most people in their thirties are not 5/5 or "fivers" as I am calling them, and that's ok. I'm sure not a fiver, and I definitely don't expect the women I date to be fivers. Breaking it down...

1. In Shape. This could also just be broadened into the looks category. Looks is one of those early on, yes or no kind of things. It can kill a relationship before it even starts. And to get the point for this category you don't have to be a model, or have six pack abs. And while I said earlier this is an objective system, in actuality its all relative. To put it bluntly, if she is thin and you are fat, she gets a point, and you do not. Which pretty much sums up my current relationship, but moving on...

2. Employed. Pretty straight forward. And I will point out, in my own sexist way that I think this little point is much more important for women than it is for men, but either way its something we both take into account.

3. Demonstrable skill. Everyone may think they have this, but they are painfully wrong. Really this category is just unfair. I need to make it very clear, this is not "I can fix your computer" or "I make a killer brisket" this is more like "I'm the lead singer in a band" or "I'm a ballerina" or "professional kickboxer." It's a stupid thing to base a relationship on, nevertheless it really seems to get things moving in that direction.

4. Doesn't smoke. Pretty straightforward. Even people who smoke don't want to date smokers. Because it's stupid and gross.

5. Doesn't have kids. Ok, everybody calm the hell down! I know that in this context kids are portrayed as a negative, and I know that all the mothers and fathers out there love their kids and wouldn't trade them for anything, even a jetpack. But let's be honest, even if you have rugrats of your own, you're probably not looking to go out there and take somebody else's little projects on as your own.

So, getting back to why Janine can clearly do better than James. Janine has a professional job, is is in decent shape, doesn't smoke and doesn't have kids. James is in terrible shape, is unemployed, is socially awkward, and smokes. No matter how smart he is or what nice hair James has, a 4/5 has no business being with a 1/5. If he was a 3 he would be fine, and even a really good 2 might be able to pull it off, but not a 1. So James continues being lonely and bitter, and a big fat stupid 1.

If you find yourself going "Aw, poor James," just stop it right now. James has to do very little to get back into this game. James gets a job, stops smoking, and BAM he's right back in there. Maybe James picks up his guitar and goes down to open mic night at the Beanery and rocks the house with his rendition of Sweet Caroline, if he does really well maybe some poor naive 3 might give him the benefit of the doubt. You never know with 3s, they have the power to shock you.

I'm a 3 and I don't think anyone was more shocked that I was dating my girlfriend than she was.

Love in the Time of the Undead

"They say when God closes a door, He opens a window. And sometimes, that window is nicer, taller, and way smarter and hotter than that stupid bitch of a door" - Me

Dating in your thirties is weird. It's really not any less cripplingly awkward than I remember it being when I was in my twenties, but it's different. There are some interesting things I've learned during my short semi-successful foray back into the dating game, some of them good, some of them not so good. So one cool thing I've noticed is that girls in their thirties (yes, I'm still calling them girls, I think it's cute when I say it, but it also might be part of the reason I'm only "semi" successful in the dating game) have stopped looking for that bad boy they can rehabilitate into the charming prince. Which is really good for me because I am neither a bad boy nor a prince.
One recent glaring exception to this idea is Sandra Bullock and her thing with notorious bad boy Jesse James. Everyone is freaking out about him cheating on her, like it was some kind of huge surprise. I'm sorry, but who saw him and did not think he was a complete dirtbag? The only thing that is surprising about this whole thing, is how surprised women seem to be by it. So I guess some things never change, no matter how intelligent and clever a woman might be, there just might be a small part of her that still wants to date the guy in the band, or the criminal, or the motorcycle mechanic.
On the flip side, I am finding that while that small part is still there, it seems to be a much smaller part. Where girls were once like, "I want a guy who plays lead guitar, and drives a Trans Am" now they're more like "Oh wow, you can string together a few coherant sentences and you can do a pushup or two!?"Remember that show "My So-Called Life?" Everybody loved that show, I hated it, and because of that show I still hate Jared Leto. Everybody loved that show because apparently it was SO realistic. And that is exactly my problem with it, I was in high school when it was out, and I didn't want to watch a show where people were pretending to do the same stupid things I was doing in real life everyday. There was a character on that show played by the hateful Jared Leto, I think his name was Jordan or Brandon or some other vaguely gay popular kid name. Well anyway, the main character on that show played by Claire Danes was this intelligent, bright, totally attractive and complex girl. All throughout the show she was totally in love with this Jordan character who was an idiot. When they wrote the show they purposefully made it clear he is an idiot, and she is unapologetically in love him.

"Sometimes the only thing that comforts me when I lie awake at night, is knowing that some day Jared Leto will be dead"

.

The few episodes I was able to stomach came around the same time that I was gathering up the courage to ask this girl to prom. I'd been friends with her for a year or so, and I'm sure it was obvious to everyone that I was crazy about her. Well anyway the day finally came where we were alone long enough for me to toss it out there while I was driving her home "So, Sarah (that's her real name, she deserves to be recognized and punished for this) will you go to the Prom with me?" A long, long silence ensues. "No..."
"No?"
"No, I can't (insert long explanation about how I should ask another girl)"
Like our Claire Danes character, Sarah was a bright, beautiful girl, and about as complex as one can be when you go to a high school that has problems filling both the "Valedictorian" and "Salutatorian" slots at the graduation ceremony. The truth was, she was holding out hope that this football playing, pot smoking cretin that had been hanging out in our circle of friends would ask her. I asked her once much later on what she saw in him, she said "he was mysterious," to which my best friend Darren said "Sarah, still waters do not always run deep." Which I've always thought was a brilliant summation.
It seems the general consensus is that women are soulful and guys are shallow, and I understand where that idea comes from, but I think it gets played up a bit too much. I watched a reality show where they paired up couples based on some vague sense of compatibility. One of the couples was a guy in his thirties who was this well built, healthy guy and since the date included rock-climbing he was able to show off his athleticism. His date seemed nice enough, but she was pretty heavy set and as such, did not fair so well on the rock wall. The couple seemed to have a good time on their date, but it was obvious they weren't really going anywhere romantically. At the end of the date they were interviewing the couples and when the guy came up you could tell he knew what he was in for. He tried his best to be politically correct, but whoever was interviewing him off camera kept pushing until they got what they needed, finally he gave in "Yeah well, I would say that she wasn't really my type, you know physically..." still the invisible interviewer pressed, and he reluctantly answers "Well, I guess her figure was kind of a turn off" and at that the camera goes to the three friends who've been watching the whole time who errupt into boos and hisses at him. I mean, how dare he!? What an outrageously shallow bastard, right?
While I was watching this, I kept thinking, "they are so going to dick this guy for not being into the chubby chick" and I was so right, The thing that gets me about this is that he could have said anything else about that girl; her feet stank, she had a lisp, she was dumb, she had a bad personality and nobody would have beat him up for it. But he makes a comment on her appearance, mind you, one of the few things she can actually do something about and everyone goes crazy. So is he really the shallow one in this equation?
I don't mean to imply that guys aren't shallow, because we totally are. I could go on, but my little column here is about things I've learned, and I always knew that guys were shallow. So moving on.
This part is just for my stupid roommate, who doesn't think zombies are funny or relavent anymore, and I think that might be a good reason why he is still single. I don't want to say that women consciously think "How would this guy fare in the zombie apocalypse?" but it's definitely in there somewhere way down deep in the subconscious part of our brains that knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the robot apocalypse is an "if" while the zombie apocalypse is a "when." The same idea could be passed onto a general evolutionary instinct to look for a mate that is compatible with long-term survival, but that's way boring unless we're using that logic to justify why guys love huge breasts.
But I really think that whatever value I may have in the dating scene might directly correlate to my value in the zombie apocalypse. I am a big guy, I am in good enough shape to be able to run a few miles without stopping, and I can fix household appliances. No matter what horrors await me in the coming apocalypse, I know that my toilet will still work, and that kind of thing is important to the modern classy single lady.

Musn't Love Dogs

They say that dogs can sense evil, and I believe them. And it's not because I have any special affection for dogs. In fact, I don't even like dogs. A lot of people in my life have accused me of hating dogs and pets in general which is not the case. I think I summed up my position pretty clearly when I recently put it this way: Pets, to me are a lot like homeless people; I don't hate them or wish them any special ill will, I just really don't want them in my house touching my stuff.
So when I say that I think dogs really can sense evil, its not to further along any agenda I have about dogs being good or bad, or better than cats or whatever; it's just a conveinent notion for me. If dogs are an acceptable diagnostic tool to figure out who is or is not evil, I'm going to try and take advantage of that. So even though I don't particularly like dogs, I find myself going out of my way every once in a while to be around them. Every time I do it, I think I get at least a small glimpse of what people who have just taken a blood test for some horrible disease feel right before they get their results. When I go over to one of my stupid dog-friend's houses, I find myself subconsciously psyching myself up before I go in and have to face my accuser. As if I could somehow pull myself over from the dark side by sheer will.
So far every time I've subjected myself to this test, I've been happy with my results. No dog has ever taken specific offense to me, and usually they seem to like me, which leads me to believe that while dogs may be able to sense evil, they cannot sense anti-dog people.

Post Traumatic French Fry Overdose

So in keeping with my tradition of documenting my huge embarrassing failures. After two years of school with relentless studying, testing, and evaluations all passed, if not with flying colors, at least passed without severe emotional trauma. Until now. I had my very last Paramedic test yesterday, the most important test yet. And I failed.

I did pretty well in school. I was in at least the top 75% of my class, haha. Its weird to have my first real college degree in Paramedic science, but still not be an actual Paramedic. After school is over, you have to pass two tests to be certified as a medic. Before this test, I'd already passed the written knowledge test.

This test is a practical test, where you have to demonstrate actual skills in the appropriate order. I had to demonstrate 15 different skills. Some of the skill stations I was pretty comfortable with, and some of them I was more nervous about. All in all, I felt like I was prepared. Nervous, but prepared.

Well after eight hours mostly spent waiting to go into the testing rooms, I can't say I was feeling very confident. My saving grace was knowing that if I'd only failed a few of the stations, that I was allowed a second chance at those stations. Finally when the results finally came, it turned out that I'd failed two stations. One of them I knew immediately what I'd done wrong, and was ready to correct my mistake of administering one drug, and saying it was an entirely different drug (don't let this scare you people in the public, I'm usually pretty good at this stuff, and almost never kill my patients) The other skill I failed was cardiology.

I thought I was good at cardiology, until two days before the test when I was practicing and started struggling. I spent some extra time studying and managed to make myself believe that I had my mojo back. Well I didn't I guess. The first time I tested at that station, I actually felt confident. The second time I went up to test, I completely fell apart.

They hand you these sheets with cardiac rhythm strips and ask you what you would do. Four cards, four different patients. When I went up the second time, I just sat there staring at the sheet, sweating, mumbling to myself about things like P to R intervals, and sinus rhthyms and whatnot, and just panicked. I managed to finish, somehow, but I knew it wasnt my best work.

After another hour or so of waiting for my results, still sweating the lady came down and gave the rest of my class their result. Everyone passed, except one. Me.

The worst thing was I rode over to the test with three of my friends, who were all struggling not to show their elation at finally being done. They're good friends. I could tell that they were bottling up their joy for my benefit. I kept telling them that I was proud of them, and that they should be happy. But they stayed mellow, and I stayed mad at the world.

So, as usual, I am struggling to find the lesson here. I guess what I'm thinking is that if nothing else, it keeps me humble. I worked hard to get through school, but it had come relatively easy to me. This setback is making me more determined. When I went home and tried to drown my sorrows in an extraordinary amount of french fries, I started focusing on the next two weeks. Before my next test, I am going to be the world's foremost leading expert on cardiology static strips. Maybe one day, because of my newfound motivation I can help somebody I wouldn't have been able to before. How's that for some positivity?

Sorry this isn't a funnier post, or better written but my sister always tells me I should write more. And I figure this is a good place to vent, and recenter my chi.

I know it isn't healthy, but I tend to few my accomplishments as big fat middle fingers in the faces of those who tore me down. But I view my failures as just another kick in the crotch by the same people who took away everything I once loved.