Quarter Life Crisis

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2007-03-25T22:13:00.001-07:00

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You Give Me Fever.

2007-03-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

I know that when I hear more bird chirping in the bright early mornings, there will be more sneezing from me. I was born with everything my dad has. This includes a passion for bad t.v., singing along to the radio missing almost every word, and allergies. And I start thinking about every year, backwards. How, every time at this time, spring makes me look like an idiot. Spring gets to be all pretty and done-up and excited and smart and cheery and I walk around with a puffy red face and eyes that water like they are holes in a dam. See, spring has never been my favorite season. I always hated how the ground was mushy from being thawed and how on one day it will be as warm as possible and the next day it could quite possibly snow. But most of all I hated how it had, and still does have, complete control over me. The way I know that for the next month or so, as the trees get their growing on, I will get my sneezing on. Hay fever. Medicine or not. So, hey spring! Just letting you know that I think you are like the kid in school that everyone says they like but will talk shit behind your back when you aren't looking--like when it snows in April. But I've always had it out for you...since 1998 when you made my nose run doing a very important standardized test in high school. Since 1993 when I had to sing in the grade school choir and had to swallow so much drainage that my stomach got sick. Oh, and in 1990 when I had to go the doctor and get all scratched up so they could tell me I had every little bit of allergy possible in the world. Yes, this is resentment. While you go and tulip all over the place. I will be with tissues.

“No More Gay People”

2007-03-23T08:42:00.000-07:00

In a man’s lap, there is a newspaper folded in half that screams this headline—bold letters, of course. I can’t read the article, but for a moment, I imagine a world without gay people: Who will all the other kids pick on in grade school, middle school, and high school if they don’t have a boy with a lisp who likes to play with girls more than boys anymore? Who will girls who are shy with boys go to dances with when their safe homosexual boyfriends who are not out of the closet yet and want to prove to his parents that he truly does like girls go to are not there to go to dances with? Who will the media speculate about, if there are no amazingly sexy beautiful stars that could be gay but aren’t really because the media wants them to be gay. Who will the government pick on if there are no more gays? Who will they single out and make feel like social freaks? What will they fight about in their debates? What will they say in their debate speeches? What will the majority of Republicans scoff at? What will TV do without the gay sub-plots? What will the average sitcom have to laugh at for comic relief? What will soap operas do to shock their watchers? What will romance movies do with out the gay best friend to veto the outfit and make catty and shrewd comments to make the movie seem so much more “urban” than it really is? What will Madonna do? What will dance beats do? What will dance clubs do? They do know that the really good dancers tend to be the gay ones—and even if that isn’t true—I’ve never really met a straight uninhibited guy who really can dance while sober. What will all you fashion folks do? What, you think Marc Jacobs would have attention to a woman’s figure if he was straight—yeah, sure. Oh, and what will all you rich folks do at your little over priced boutiques and stores. You think Prada will be fun with a straight guy selling you sling backs? You think a straight guy is going to take the time to explain to you the highlight of a v-kneck on your body shape. No, he is going to be looking at your breasts and trying to get you in to one of the tightest shirts he can find. Most importantly, though, what will the world do with out gay men and women’s motivation? Because you do know, world, that gay people who have struggled with their identity tend to be very successful individuals. All that fighting and all the things they have gone through tend to make them great people who can teach others about being open-minded and accepting. Gay men and women are good statues of struggle. Survival. Strength. They become your favorite writers and favorite directors and your favorite activists and your favorite doctors and your best friends and people and are the ones who care and who listen and who can give advice because they have multiple perspectives. Sure they can have some rough times and have an identity crisis and have it a bit harder than other people—but if they didn’t have that than what would they be? And what would we be, as a people? Eliminating homosexuality will not cure all your child’s life problems. They will still be hurt in other ways. They will still have struggle. But gay people, they can be the brightest most beautiful most life-changing people. Take that out of our society and we will not be the same. Not. At. All. Yes, straight people are good too. Great, actually. We all are great…for our differences. But gay people…geez…look at our history. We are fighters. We are believers. And we know good hair. Let us be. Just let us be…please?

Yarn and Life, the same.

2007-03-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

A woman is making knots on a train. As she folds loops of yarn in to each other, in rows, her tongue follows each movement. There is no form to it, yet. No, “Maybe it’s a scarf?” No, “Maybe it’s a sock?” No, “Maybe it’s a fashionable body dress?” It is just rows of yarn on top of brown yarn. I watch as I sit across from her. She has her white earphones in. Each stop goes by and she doesn’t look up to see where she is at, whether it is time for her to get off. She is lost in her own world of music and looping. Looping and more music. Knot after knot her tongue and her eyes and her hands and the train all just keep moving. Then, out of nowhere, she shoots her head up and looks straight at me. We make instant eye contact. My stomach drops. But then, she looks past me out the train window where darkness and the occasional spot-light whiz by. She totally realizes she has missed her spot. You can tell by the fear in her eyes. At the next stop she shoots off her chair and runs out the door with her two bags, needles in hands, and her earphones flopping out of her ears. I look back at her chair and left behind was a ball of her brown yarn. A perfect round ball of fresh yarn. I leave it there. And at the next stop I smile as a little boy notices the yarn ball and picks it up to show his mom. He says something like “Mom, why is there yarn on the train?” And she just shakes her head in carelessness. He holds the ball of yarn and stares at it smiling...like he had just gotten something out of a gumball machine. He plays with it, bouncing it up and down in his hand, making “swooshing” noises like a baseball hurling in to space; he’s turned the yarn in to a sport. Then, he gets off and his mom makes him put the yarn back down. With a very sad face, eyes squinted like he is going to cry, he puts the yarn back on the seat and looks back at it as he steps of the train. An old woman gets on to the train. She is carrying a million bags. She looks homeless, or perhaps just a pack-rat. She sits right next to the yarn ball. Then, looks at it. She literally stares at it as if it was going to perform. She looks around the train seeing if anyone is watching her as she picks up the ball of yarn and puts it in to one of her many plastic bags. She smiles as she does this and then takes her left hand to tap the bag to almost say "there there, you're mine now..." It's amazing how we know people through what we leave behind. Sort of like history, we leave ourselves, pieces of ourselves, whether it be stories, or blogs, or conversations, or photographs, or even yarn...we leave pieces of ourselves that always keep us strung together--no matter if we know each other or not--we are still tied together.

How To Get Even

2007-03-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

My brother has a dog. I do not. I want one, but can not. Not where I live. And this reminds me of being ten. True Story: When I was a ten year old boy, all I wanted was a My Little Pony. I wanted this plastic horse with long flowing flourecent dyed hair that came with little brushes and smelled like fruit. One summer, a common thing my mom, brother and I did was go to rummage sales in our area. One particular summer we pulled up to a house that had its stuff out in the middle of the driveway. And let me tell you, this was a house that girls grew up in. You can tell this by the pink. Everything was pink. All the clothes, all the kid furniture, all the toys. Including My Little Pony. They were selling their little ponies for .25 cents! And these girls had the whole birgade. I didn’t know these little horses names, but I knew I wanted them. I had to have them. I pulled out of my pocket fifty cents and picked out the two that were the prettiest. As usual, I had to verfiy my finances with mom. So, I walked up. Showed her what I wanted and the two quarters I had between my finger tips. She looked at the horses…and shook her head no. She didn’t even use words. She just said no with her moving head. I don’t argue with my mom. Never had. So, I put the horses down and cried a little on the inside. But THEN my brother, almost 8 at the time, picked them up and said he wanted them. My mom shook her head again, but this time it was up and down. When I sputtered how unfair that was…she looked down at me and said “He doesn’t know any better…he’s younger. You’re a big boy…you don’t paly with girl things!” And from then on I knew putting Barbies on my Christmas List was a big fat no no. Don’t think I didn’t resent my little brother for getting two ponies…the ones I wanted. But, now, I want a puppy. I can’t get one because we aren’t moving like we planned to. So I think I will buy two My Little Pony’s to fill that empty void.

110 hours.

2007-03-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

This is what I will have worked by the end of next week. I write this because, today, a brain that has worked almost half those hours already can not think of anything cute and thoughtful to write. 1-1-0 hours.

The History of Breath

2007-03-20T11:58:00.001-07:00

Spaghetti breath. That’s what I call him. He’s a guy that rings up my morning coffee then smiles and obviously doesn’t floss. And, well, it took me a good week to pin-point exactly what that smell was when he opened his mouth to say “will that be it for you?” Then, one night I burned pasta sauce on the stove—cream sauce—and it smelled like…really bad morning breath—or like the guy that serves my coffee. Burnt cheese. I’ve been smelling people’s breath for years. OK, let me explain, it stems from childhood when my grandma once told me that it smelled like something died in my mouth. Picture it: I was twelve, kissed her in my awkward tween boy stance and said I had missed her. She pinched her nose and said: “You MUST be going through puberty, it smells like something died in your mouth…” I then realized that this was not a good thing having “death breath” and never could be and has now enveloped itself in to a nice little obsessive package of always having gum and brushing twice a day and flossing everyday and not opening my mouth if the aforementioned things can’ t be accomplished…and monitoring other peoples breath…categorizing it, really. And I have had many fine specimens in my day with breath…well…breath that could kill you. HAIR ON FIRE BREATH: At this office I use to work at…I sat close to this girl that had breath that smelled like hair on fire. And to cure myself of the shock, I would take in a big breath and not make it be known that I was holding my lungs in as she explained something. Then, when I got back to my desk, I exhaled aggressively with my stomach heaving for air like one does who almost drowns in water. SUSHI BREATH: Then there was the boyfriend I dated for a few months that always wanted to wake up in the middle of the night and, well, make out. Charming, really. But that was awkward seeing that he didn’t like brushing his teeth before bed and, so, say we had sushi that night for dinner…sushi in a half-of-the-night sleeping mouth is not tasty. DIET COKE BREATH: Then there was one of my professors that helped me organize a portfolio. He snacked on nuts and washed it down with Diet Coke. He had cans of Diet Coke sprawled around the trash can as he always attempted to score a three pointer but missed tragically and left the cans to sit for days. But do you know Diet Coke breath? When one drinks a lot of it—their mouth begins to smell like a grave yard of chemicals. When he’s say “your HEMming way piece is stunning and show go HEre…” I pretended I was in space and had no air to breath in. POOP/SOUR MILK/POT BREATH: There was this waiter I used to work with. His smelled like poop on fire. Then there was guy that randomly started talk to me on the train about the book I was reading…his smelled like milk when it was rotten. Then there was this old hair stylist I had, her’s smelled like a bathroom stall. Then there was this guy that had a class with me, history of photography I think, he had “all I do is pot—3 courses of pot” breath. I know breath.

Hollywood, it’s me, Byron

2007-03-19T20:31:00.000-07:00

Hey you big city full of no carbs and botox. Filed away in all that glamour there are writers—you know, the guys and girls that actually write the shows that the aforementioned botoxers/carb-less eaters act in. Hey, can I talk to a few? Great. Hey Writers in Hollywood! I just wanted to let the writers of television and movies know that, well, this is kind of embarrassing because it’s so obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway. OK, well, I just want you guys to know that not all gay men are lawyers. Now, see, I understand what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get middle America to see: “America’s Gay Men can be successful and still like kissing other men! See America! Look! He’s a lawyer. He’s productive to society. He pays his own bills and his taxes, on the side, he likes to dance with other men and eat with other men, and hold hands with other men—but America, hey, look over here! Hi! He’s a lawyer—he went to good schools and he donates to charities. Yeah! See! Now, now, you can sleep well tonight because gay men are lawyers.” But, my dear writers, I need to you to understand something. I’m not a lawyer. I have a lot of gay friends and have met a lot of gay people and they are not lawyers. So, sometimes on your drama T.V shows and your hit sitcoms there is that really attractive gay guy that barely talks about sex and never checks out guys but is a lawyer, well, it makes it hard for me to really understand the character. Some of you might not be following me. But here’s an example: You know how you guys write those cute romantic movies where the girl lives in a cute loft in the city and has great outfits and works at a PR place or a magazine and has perfect non-frizz hair? We know those don’t exist, cause well, there are a lot of women out there that don’t have those kinda jobs and don’t have those houses… especially in their twenties. I mean, come on! It’s the same for the gays. Let’s try this: Go somewhere in the middle. Let’s make a gay character, oh, something other than a lawyer or an actor or a dancer or a sales associate at a high-end boutique. Let’s make them teachers, mailmen, bus drivers, surgeons, construction workers, roofers, dentists, and dry cleaning owners. Let’s make them real people, now, instead of that safe stuff you are trying to feed those baby boomers who made us all kinda stay in our closets for much too long. I know. They watch a lot of TV and are you primary audiences…but, we(the new generations that is) are more mouthy…we get shit done. Know this: I don’t watch T.V. much already. But if the above mentioned doesn’t change soon, I will just stop watching it all together. And that is a threat.

10:55AM Central Time

2007-03-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

I’ve always liked clocks with different times on them, all at the same time. What I mean is how you walk in to a department store or in to a bank and there will be a wall of clocks that look exactly the same, but underneath them there will be bold letters that say something like “Sydney” or “Tokyo” or “Milan” or “Mexico City” and it will tell you the time it is in those places all the while you stand within your own time. It’s like magic. It’s the idea that you forget that things are happening outside of you and that you do not even realize this until you see something like clocks that have different times on them from all around the world. Somewhere someone is making dinner while you are eating a breakfast snack and while you are tossing and turning, someone is just getting in their car to get to work. Remembering that we are not the only ones living a different life in a particular moment also occurs when you see someone who is homeless. That mindset you are in…tired from work, bummed because you can’t buy a BMW, angry because you don’t have a condo; this moment of seeing someone much less fortunate than you causes you step out of your own time—where everything sort of revolves around you, like you are the sun, and you realize that you do have it good…so very good…no matter what time of day it is…no matter what time zone. We forget, often, that the world isn’t just about US. About you, me, and us missing our train by one second. It’s not about you, me, and us not able to get tickets to a concert that sold within an hour. It’s not about you, me, and us sleeping in and not getting to stay in the shower for as long as we’d like. It’s about taking the time to know when you have a good thing—or for most of us… many good things.

Lip-Syncing

2007-03-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

I pulled my neck while doing it. I don't recommend this--pulling your neck, that is. Lip-Syncing, I very much recommend.

How It IS Possible To Be Friends With A Straight Guy When You are Gay.

2007-03-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

This one time when I was really young, like eight years old young, I told another boy, Adam, that I liked Punky Brewster. When I told him this, he thought I meant “Like-Like” You know, that I would totally kiss her or hold her hand. So, he was all like “Yeah, me too.” Which made me really happy. But later I learned that what he didn’t get was that I meant, like, I liked watching her and cuddly little retriever and her old man adoptive parent dealing with everyday instances. Oh, and I loved the outfits. They didn’t make outfits like that where I came from. This was further explored one afternoon at his house. He asked if I wanted to watch TV and I said sure and then he asked me what channel and since I had the Punky Brewster two episode after school schedule memorized, I told him the channel she was on knowing that he liked to watch it too. When he saw what was on, he shrieked and spat like you do when a bug flies up your nose and told me he didn’t actually WATCH the show. He just thought she was cute. Cute like a girl in our class cute. Not, like, watch it for storyline cute. But, then, something happened. He sat there and watched it with me. The whole episode even telling his mom to “Shhh” when she came in asking us if we wanted some Teddy Grahams. I remember looking at him the way I look at straight guys now who totally aren’t gay but will do gay things like, you know, go to a gay bar. It’s admirable. It’s like me actually playing football when I hate football but then playing it because, you know, somehow footballs has something cool about it. I don’t know what that would be, but it would be like me stepping out of my comfort zone to do something I don’t normally do…and then finding a appreciation with it. See, that misunderstanding about Punky Brewster with Adam was the foundation of a friendship that ended up falling apart the next year when we went our separate ways, which meant separate teachers for the next grade. But he made me realize that there are good people out there that won’t get stuck in stereotypes or dumbness or stupidness or anything that involves judging before knowing. That goes for gay marriage. That goes for being gay and friends with a straight guy. That goes for watching Punky Brewster.

Look MA! I'm FAMOUS! Or, well, known by some.

2007-03-15T19:52:00.000-07:00

So, you know I read for 2nd Story, right? Like, with really cool and talented people? HUH? You didn't know that...hmmm. Sad. Well, now you do: Visit 2nd Story and check out what it's all about because tickets go on sale on MARCH 15th for all the readings (I'm reading for three different nights) and it is TOTALLY worth getting tickets and seeing talented writers performing their magic. One of those talented writers being ME! WOAH! PLUS, one of my stories is about boobs. And if that doesn't make you wanna be there...well, geez...you must be boring. Here are the nights I will be reading: April 15th ORDER TICKETS HERE! April 28th ORDER TICKETS HERE! May 3RD ORDER TICKETS HERE!

When You Are No Longer Just The Son

2007-03-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

I always knew my parents had an evening planned out together when music was playing through the large speakers in the living room. On frosty Friday nights in winter or Saturday evenings in the summer, music would thump through the house lending to the mood of excitement. Stevie Wonder and Hewie Lewis and the News and Chicago and Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston and Tina Turner and Paul Simon would jam like a live session in the room where our couches and school pictures framed in large frames sat. You could smell my mom curling her hair, that smell of hair spray and heat. You could smell my dad putting on shaving cream--a sharp man's scent--with aftershave to follow. I would sit on the edge of the bathtub and watch them each get ready. My mom following her lips with some color that was safe and just for a simple and clean look. My dad using a plastic tooth comb to slick back his dark thinning hair. All the while Bonnie Tyler hits a high note or Phil Collins electro-voiceness vibrates through out the house. It's when I hear these songs outside of that situation. Like, when they play at places where my parents are not getting ready at--like the movie theatre before the coming feature play or at a optical store while wating to get eyes examined that I think of being a little boy. I think of how I would see my parents as people and not just report card viewers or lunch packers. I saw them as two adults who ended up having kids and stopping their lives to raise them. I saw them as their names and not just "mom" and "dad". I saw them as a man and woman going out to live life outside of how I always saw them. Then, you forget this as they get older and get set in their ways and you start worrying and moving on with your life. Your parents become just your parents again because they don't go out as often anymore and you know what it's like to be an adult--there is no mystery of what it was like to be them...because in a way you ARE them now. This will feel like that until they call you and talk to you about life. Not just about family members and how the pets are doing and what mail you got or school loans. They talk to you like a friend. Like a real person lending their stories and their advice as someone not "mom" or "dad" but as one adult talking to another adult. It's funny when we finally realize we are not just someone's child anymore--you're all grown up--you could even have your own children if you wanted to. It is even more funny when you are totally scared to death by this revelation.

Eyes All Over

2007-03-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

The one flaw of living in the city is that you are never alone. Which, in most cases can be good. But in others, well it's a bit much. Take this for instance: So, walking home last night on one of those beautiful random Sunday afternoons where the wind isn't blowing and you can even picture summer coming where I am flashed a quick moment of a couple parallel parked to my left. Trying, you know, not to stare I all of the sudden see the young professional lean in to the passenger side of the car--towards a girl--with his tongue in attack mode. I imagined the conversation to be much like this: Guy: "I...oh...I...just wanna kiss you baby..." Girl:"Ooohh...oh please do..." And then he does. But then I see her head smoosh up against the window and I totally saw them going at it like tigers ready to mate. I know. I could have looked away and gave them that moment...but you then remember that,well, that is just part of the city--you do things in public you got a few good chances you're gonna get caught. Not like where I grew up where I could do cartwheels in the front yard on a Monday night and not get jolted by people catching me do this because in the country there is no one really do catch you doing things--just cornfields and subdivisions of sleeping people. No. That only happens here. Like this: "Dave, hey...wanna see something?" I say this to Dave. Dave: Um, K. Me: Look! (I do a dance move much like a stripper in the middle of the sidewalk late at night on our walk home from a friend's house--not drunk...just being goofy because, well, because I can). Dave: Um, those three guys just saw you do that... Me: Where? Dave: There.(In which he pointed to a direction where three guys were smoking on a porch and totally absolutely laughing at me and shaking there heads.) Me: Oh. Dave: Yeah. Me: Well, they're just jealous(and I say this because, you know, in the dark he can not see that I am red and so in the dark we can lie a bit better when we are embarassed). Dave: I know...I know. In the city, you are just never ever alone. There will almost be frat guys pointing at your strip tease. And there will always be someone who will see you make out in the car. But at least, well, at least we all can learn once in a while to be humble.

Lenting Lent

2007-03-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

I was taught to never quit. No matter what. No matter why. You see something through. This was taught to me by my father. "What you know you don't enjoy, but finish, will build character." But what it did was made me crabby. Quiting is funny, see, cause I have a boyfriend who is a Catholic. Once a year they quit. They give up something, you know, to prove they are thankful and to show they are honored and show they respect and show that the big guy in the sky's son who gave up his life for them they are happy he died for them. That's beautiful, isn't it? Right. Sure. Yeah. Uh Huh. Well, I'm Lutheran. And I don't practice it. Not at all. I think, well, actually know that I can count on one hand how many times I have been in church for the sake of routine, of actually going to church to just go to be religious to pray to be all believing and devoted in my life. All the other times were because it was Easter or because someone is/was getting married or because someone died or because I toured them in Germany. When a non-practicing Lutheran and a Catholic guy who kinda follows what he was raised with share a life together,well,lines get fuzzy. I am not here to rant on religion or to beat it up or to shake a fist at it or to be all "fight the power". I respect who you believe in. I honestly do. But I am here to say and take notice that when a boy who never went to church and was taught to never quit anything and to see it through is in love with a boy who was raised to say "Hail Mary!" and to confess his darkest regrets to some guy in a box once in a while...well, things can get a tad bit interesting or thick to get through. Like right now, with lent. Dave gave up a few things. Things that he adores. He loves. And I think that is fantastic, but strange. Not strange in the "ew, you are weird" way...but strange in the way that he and a lot of folks in the world do SAME things with religion...but not all of it. Like, he doesn't go to church as do a lot of Catholics I know...but he is giving up on his life's joys. He doesn't confess, hasn't in years...but gives up his life's joys. So, this year, I decided to join him in his lenting. Like, when documentary photographers join the society of people they are documenting...to show respect...I am joining Dave on his adventure of being Catholic. This is a first for me as I have always been a non-religious guy. I have offered to be a part of lent with him to show him I can have empathy for others. I officially announce what I am giving/and have already given up for lent: Lent. See, quiting something, dad, does build character. Just not sure which characteristic this one might be.

A Letter to myself forty-five years from now.

2007-03-10T16:32:00.000-08:00

Seventy year old Byron,yeah hi, I am begging you, please do not smell when you are seventy. You know that smell you smell on older people now? It's like, oh, mothballs mixed with wet books and expired perfume or cologne from 1957. You will not remember this, but if you forget to not smell people will pretend that they are breathing while standing next to you on the EL like what happen today, but elderly Byron, they will actually be holding their breath. I suggest keeping your GQ/Vogue/Details subscriptions until, well, the day you die so you will be able to see what people are actually wearing in the year 2052 and not think that because you have a whole closet filled with clothes they are necessary wearable because they have no holes in them. If you see your grandchildren wearing a "vintage" version of yours, oh good lord above elder Byron, do not wear it again. Nose hairs. Let's keep on those nose hairs. I know. Your eyes just might not have it in them to see them dangling, but put it on your calendar and if you can't reach up there get Dave to do this. I understand that Dave will be seventy-four and his eyes might be even worse, but at least it's not you pulling out the buggers blindly. Oh, and let me just mention money. Please, please spend it. Please don't be one of those old men that have a lot of it and everyone else knows you have a lot of it and even you know you have a lot of it but you are afraid that will spend it all. You know, don't go crazy. But spend a little--pick up your great grandson's dinner tab for his birthday. Buy stuff that makes you smell good. Yeah don't stink up the place you shop at or ride the El on or dine at. And don't forget to always use that phrase "well, in my day..." That phrase is flawless in those situations where you want people to know how hard you had it when you were young--especially when little kids are wining about how they hate their futuristic hologram video games because they are too lame. O.K. Yeah, Seventy year-old Byron...lastly, remember to be happy with what life has given you and smile--a lot-- smile a whole bunch--tons of smiling--cause life should have been really good for you--so smile, with your dentures in, of course. Always keep your teeth in. Always. Your Twenty-Four Self

How Things Don't Just Go Away

2007-03-09T08:13:00.000-08:00

Megan, she told me the saddest story ever. It involves this guy who had a son who passed away at age seven. Sad enough, right? Well, then flash forward to about eleven years later where in fact he should be eighteen. Now, now that this man’s son was going to be an adult…junk mail and government mail begins to get sent to their house—assuming he is still alive. So, daily, they go to their mailbox and open it to find things addressed to a son they had lost eleven years ago. Eleven years of mending and eleven years of moving on and eleven years of trying to do all these things without feeling guilt-- like they were forgetting about him. I just couldn’t believe it. Then I found this. Sometimes the world is much more scarier than we make of it. Much much more. **Oh, and if you are just not in the mood to read the entire article. Here’s the synopsis: We have to jump through hoops to get off mailing lists…and lying to mailing lists should be considered disrespectful(what?!) and then, legally, they have the right to bombard you will this junk we receive. So, if you are dead… you aren’t quite rid of those pesky credit card advertisements because they have the right to keep kicking you while you are down. You have to take your name off their lists before you die or else your family will be haunted with the memory of you until the day they die.

Um, Hi, We ARE in 2007 Still, Right?

2007-03-09T07:56:00.000-08:00

These are two things that make me think that I am lost in some sort of time warp...and I hate them. Wanna hate them with me? THIS & THIS

Why one should love Ira Glass even more than you might now.

2007-03-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

So, why didn't anyone tell me about THIS or THIS??!!

The Real World, Sometimes.

2007-03-07T19:30:00.000-08:00

Today I went out of my way to hold a door open out of a coffee place for a woman. She did not thank me nor even awknowledge me using my body to hold a door open for her. When she walked away ignoring my gesture I said in a very clear and distinct tone: "You're very very welcome." She turned her head, pulled her suglasses off her hair holding her coffee cup, made eye contact with me, and said: Nothing.

Mr. Livingston, I presume?

2007-03-07T15:18:00.000-08:00

My pet cat, Sam, ate powdered donuts. You’d leave the fresh box of donuts open on the kitchen counter and my Siamese kitty would jump up and peruse across the strove with his tail flipping excitedly and shoot right towards the white powdered goods. In seconds, you’d hear the fast lapping of a sandpaper-like tongue going to town on the sugary cake. Sam was buried two years after I moved out for college. He was eleven. That’s old for a cat. If you do the math, that’s like seventy-seven years old. That’s like Murder She Wrote Angela Landsbury old. But I think about Sam and his luxuries, like powdered donuts, because of Livingston…the stray cat I dubbed Livingston that lives in the alley between my apartment and my neighbors. If you met him, you’d totally call him Livingston because his grayish coast and green eyes kinda just look like he would be in the mood to smoke a pipe and discuss French literature while sipping brandy. O.K. So, to me it does. But Livingston is not a nice cat. So not friendly. Oh, and he IS a cat which means I can’t have him because I’m really allergic as we discovered this the first time Sam slept in my bunk bed with me when we first got him. I woke up with hives and my eyes swollen shut. I can be by a cat. I can’t touch them and then touch my face. I break out. Always. So, Livingston and I have a long relationship. We keep our distance and if I think of it I take the garbage out and bring a little bit of milk in this little cup I have for putting salsa and dips in to. If he’s not there, I bring it back in the house. If he is, I leave it by the building wall and watch him as he watches me from a distance. His eyes narrow and he crouches low thinking he can not be seen. Then, I will go inside the house and imagine him drinking and being really happy. But I’m not happy. It makes me sad. The idea that this cat was born somewhere without a real home. A place where he has to fend for himself and watch for giant cars and insane dogs and even starvation. It just makes me sad. And it reminds me of the first time I went to a pet shelter and saw how many people got rid of animals because they “just couldn’t take care of them” or “apartment wouldn’t allow” and then I think of Sam with powdered sugar on his nose and the cat naps he’d take by our bay window in the warm sun in the warm house always knowing there was a hand to pet him. A life fit for royalty… I haven’t seen Livingston in about a month. I try not to think of it because my head whips around to all the places he could be…you know, ALL the places. But it’s hard to stop thinking about him when you keep buying milk…just for him.

Dang you Mr. Bell

2007-03-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

I am not comfortable on the phone. This can be seen while taking messages for people, which has often been one of my worse flaws. Like, when I used to work as an assistant to this British guy and he told me to take all his calls as he “stepped” out but really just didn’t feel like dealing with people who wanted their bills paid. I would then, of course, receive these calls one after the other with people demanding his attention and I get nervousness because I can’t read whether someone is upset and I would then have to make up these farces that sounded like I was creating Mad Libs on the spot. “He’s…um…actively busy at this…um… colorful moment. Would you like for me to leave him a message?” You know, I’d sound like a spazz. So it is no surprise at all that I am not a good “texter”. You know, that’s what they are calling those kids that use typed out messages and send them digitally through the air to your phone and expect for you to punch in a message to get back to them. You’d think I’d be much better with this as I don’t have to worry about what one is saying or how they are saying it or what they meant by that tone. But it’s actually worse. Especially when dealing with friends. See. I have friends who are good texters. They, like, totally have the ability to text sentences in record times. You know “U wanna Come Here 2nite?” or “Let’s gt. Drunk.” They have the ability to break down these words in to a few consonants and all of the sudden my cellphone messages look like unsolved Wheel of Fortune puzzles. And then, that thing about tones and the way people say things, that is completely eliminated and now I am trying to figure out if that “No” was an aggressive “No” or a friendly giggly “No” Texting makes me even more insecure. I think it has to do with the whole respect thing.Like "Hey, talk to me if you want to talk to me...don't throw words at me!" Or, it could be I feel like I am talking to robots when I get this mechanic and un-emotional textual element sent at me wishing me “A Happy Weekend!” that someone has obviously massed text (you know more than one person receives the same text so it looks like you thought about people but is much like sending mass emails for money). Or maybe it’s because I like being human and like being with someone and like seeing their facial expressions and like seeing their eyes squint when they laugh or like seeing the way they blink a lot or the way they roll their eyes when something doesn’t go there way. I guess I am old fashioned. I guess I am just getting old. God, I sound like my dad.

Death and Taxes

2007-03-05T16:14:00.000-08:00

I tell people I do not believe in ghosts. Sure, ghosts are seemingly beautiful. I can even imagine their cellophane-like outlines floating through empty or lived in places or in the dark spaces we are afraid to wander through on our own. But I don't believe they are there. But haunting. That is real. That is there right in front of you. In those moments where we are reminded of those who have come and gone in our lives. Leaving only feelings or resentment or heartbreak or fondness or memories. It happens with a scent or with a reoccurring dream or a taste of a certain wine or certain type of cake or even a certain flavor of gum. But, then, it is like they vaporize out of pure air, back in our lives. Those people you don't think about that often are there in front of you and staring you in the face. We are haunted by our pasts. This happens at the oddest times. The haunting. You could be on a date with someone new. You could be at the bookstore. You could be on an airplane. You could be doing your taxes...like me...today...when I was haunted. Seemingly harmless, entering your w-2's in to a calculator is where you will be. It is a dull moment...people do not write novels about these moments nor do they write songs--when you are doing your taxes--people tend to not want to even mention them. But taxes can tempt the haunts better than any thing other. Almost done with them I clicked to my next screen while smiling at the tax return. I was happy. I was ready to sign the dotted line and sigh in relief that I didn't have to do this again for another year. Then, one more list of questions came up. Sorta like when you'd play Mario on Mario Brothers and the princess...she was so close...but there was Koopa spitting pixelated flames at you for that one last test--and right then on that screen was that one last obstacle: "Please claim any death inheritances for 2006" And then she appeared...my grandma...staring me in the face. Laughing about something. Smiling about something. Growing flowers and signing birthday cards and pulling rolls out of the oven and holding a glass up to the light to make sure there were no more spots and her accent and her collection of books in German and her German cassette tapes she collected after many years of recording "German Hour" on an AM radio station in Milwaukee and her perfume and the smell of her house and her off colored rugs and carpets and her bedding and her tea preferences and her lawn decorations and the tree house and the big backyard and the Christmas presents and... Of course, this is all in my head. Seeing her again happens often in my head. Like, when I find the last card she gave me with a very shaky hand that wrote: "I love you and proud of you." barely legible and understandable. Or, when I see that flower, bleeding hearts. Or when I hear someone with the same accent she used when she called her sister in Germany. She comes to haunt quite often. But there was something about that question. Something that made is scarier than usual. It was as if this was it...that it was official. I was supposed to "write her off"...literally. We lost her in 2006 and that was the year we lost her and now...well...now it was 2007 and it was time just face the future and file those memories away along with your w-2 forms and deduction sheets and tax print outs and the money that was given to you as a gift from her...to help go on without her. Finally, I filled the amounts in to the empty boxes...while I cried and sniffed my nose and pressed next to finish the process. When I tell people I do not believe in ghosts...I am lying. It is much easier to tell people that I am above believing the dead do not rest and that there is an after life and that people exist in spirit forms. But, deep down I am haunted by that lie...as every time I think of my grandma and ANYONE that I have lost from my life...I, me, myself feel like a ghost...so absolutely completely see-through.

On When It's Just Right.

2007-03-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

In the bedroom, at night, cars drive by our apartment outside on the street. When they do this, you can hear a car coming and then reflections from their headlights scribble across our ceiling. It will start on the left side of the room towards the closet and then dance across to the right towards the bedroom door. I watch this before I fall asleep. I never had that before. Lights from cars on my ceiling. The house I grew up in sits far back from the road behind trees and branches and grass and people don't drive late at night. That's when you're supposed to be home and not driving...at night. But that's how I knew I loved the city. When I first moved in to this apartment. The fact that even though you are going to bed, there are other people going out for a night on the town...or starting out their night shift working to pay the bills. Lives continue on while my life takes a rest. That's why when I hear people who live in the subrubs in houses that sit back from the road and do not have headlights in their bedrooms running across the walls say things like "how do you live in the city...it's so expensive..." or "well, I have a three million story house here in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin and you...what? You rent still because it costs a million dollars to buy?" or "I drive to work everyday and go through drive-thru for my breakfast" or "I love my attic and garage." I don't get jealous. I don't get disappointed that I don't have what they have. Because I know that those headlights mean more that late night lives. Those headlights mean I live in a city and living in the city, for me, where resturants and stores and museums and great people like the people I know are readily available... always in the city. The reason why I live here-- for a life uncommon. The reason why I like it here.

Because it is "Get to Know Byron and His Neighbors Week!" Apparently...

2007-03-02T17:26:00.000-08:00

I'm usually anti- get to know me through questions... but it is Friday and I worked all week and I had to do the dishes twice and that, my friends, makes it hard to think of pretty things to write. But my hands smell like Method. I love Method. I hate dishes. Megan Tagged me!! 20 years ago (1987) Age? Four. Were you in school? If so, where and for what? Geez. No. Maybe Sunday School where you color in those color by number Jesus pictures. Where did you work? on the playground Where did you live? Racine, WI What were your regular haunts? Franksville Park swing set and The Petersen's house (or neighbors) where we would split ice cones and take naps on the deck in the back yard. Did you wear glasses? Never. Who was your best friend? Henry, my stuffed dog. How many tattoos did you have? Oh no. How many piercings did you have? ha. What did you drive? Big Wheel Had you been to a real party yet? Just birthday parties. Heart broken yet? Probably close, but you know...young hearts heal. Status on the market? The only thing on the market was this little piggy. Ten years ago (1997) Age? Fourteen Were you in school? Freshman in high school Where did you work? Chores. I had to crush the soda cans and put them in to a garbage can so we could take them to the recycling center. I also had to feed the dog and dust my mom's Precious Moments collection. Where did you live? Still in the bedroom across from my parent's bedroom in Racine. Small room with two windows. One window faced our inground pool and the other faced in the Mccauley's backyard where their dog chased their tail a lot. What were your regular haunts? Hollie Byra's parent's house by the lake. She was my first girlfriend that I met in German class. We would go to her house. She lived by Lake Michigan in an old Victorian house. We would walk up the the main street in downtown and go to this ice cream place and sat outside by the fountain and licked away our moments--on the ice cream cone of course. We talked about what books we were reading in freshman accelerated English class and how many times we wanted go to Europe. Did you wear glasses? Nope. Who was your best friend? Hollie, the girl by the fountain. How many tattoos did you have? Maybe some rub ons What did you drive? Some sweet loving roller blades. Had you been to a real party yet? I think I went to some sixteen year olds party that they had in their backyard. Wait, no. That was my cousins. Heart broken yet? Hollie and I broke up five times in that two years. Status on the market? Totally heterosexual. Five years ago (2002) Age? Nineteen. Were you in school? If so, where and for what? Oh yes. I had JUST moved to Chicago and I was going to Columbia. I was one of those kids. You know, Naive. Very Naive. Like, I thought the subway was like coolest place ever and paying rent was like the most adult thing ever. I also ate cheese sandwiches because I couldn't afford anything else. Where did you work? Urban Outfitters MAN! Yah, I was punk-rock dude. I totally rocked the alternative-like "vintage" t-shirts and cute slip on shoes and the awesome Levi's and I folded clothes until I got Mono and had to quit and well I actually got fired because apparently Urban Outfitters doesn't like people with Mono or really care what mono is and decided Mono-me just wasn't up to par. Where did you live? Well, in a studio by Wrigley Field. I moved in that area to be closer to some friends and they ended up being big poop heads and being all involved in going out to bars and not including me because I didn't do fake I.D.'s because,well, I couldn't get one that really looked like me...and just sorta like me...but I wanted someone to be stunningly like me. I know, high expectations. So, I ended up being in Boystown which ended up working out great...because well...duh. What were your regular haunts? Well, finally I met this guy who could sneak me in to Kit Kat. This is some Drag bar that (BY THE WAY: I work at later in the future as a waiter) I would go with this really cute guy named Johnnie that had a boyfriend in another country which after drinking only two martinis I would find out that THAT didn't apparently matter to him as he would want to kiss me and then he would want me to buy him waffles at the local all night diner place by my place. Then he would wake up the next morning and want to spoon and then I would be like "um, shouldn't we NOT be doing this" because at least when we were drunk we had that whole stupid "drunk is not an excuse" thing. And then that night he would call me and say he missed me. See, when I was nineteen my other job was being a home wrecker which apparently I was good at as, well, home wrecked this guy as he stopped calling me. Did you wear glasses? Nope. Still lovely 20/20 Who were your best friends? Sarah, my brother, Hollie(I know, my first girl friend!) How many tattoos did you have? None. But I did walk in to one with every intention of getting one and then I started sweating a lot and then really really really really freaked out. Haven't gotten one since. But I want one. Any ideas? How many piercings did you have? nil. What did you drive? Red Line. All the way. I was a Sheridan Stop and then an Addison stop a little later. Had you been to a real party yet? Oh yeah. I did keg stands. A whole one minute long once! Wait, that isn't something to be proud of. But I did them. Heart broken yet? Yah, remember Johnnie. Then there was Reeve. Then there was Jeremy. Status on the market? Well, I was out there. I was just too out there and just did fun stuff with fun people and then did dumb stuff with dumb people and I had a major heartbreak and then I healed and then I became cool me...not that I wasn't cool before but then there was a different cool...like Jake Ryan cool. As of today (2007) Age? I’ll be 25 in August. Are you in school? If so, where and for what? No, but life is a lesson--so living must be school...right? Where do you work? I work at a cool gallery with cool people selling great stuff. Where do you live? In a one bedroom apartment with my boyfriend of three years(in April--yah us!) and with a pot head neighbor and someone who steals my name off our mailbox and with our cool bamboo plant and my giant paintings and a nice bookshelf and all those pretty things. What are your regular haunts? Penny's Noodles, Sushi Wabi, any coffee place that has a fantastic Mocha, Whole Foods, Piece, Mini Bar, trying any where new...I love that whole new feeling. Do you wear glasses? Um. I could lie and say YAH! 20/20...but no. no not at all. Designing on computer screens reading a lot and writing on small laptops. Technology and literature are insane on the eyes. Who is your best friend? My brother and Dave. I love them both in very different ways. Do you talk to your old friends? Totally! Hollie. Sarah. Do you have a crush? Oh my god I have the biggest crush on these shoes I saw at this store in Wicker Park. Must have them. How many tattoos do you have? None. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE ME? I just can't go by myself! How many piercings do you have? Still Hole-less. What do you drive? Well since I moved I now drive nothing. But I am now able to take the red line and the blue line and the purple line. I also can take the 146 or the 145 or the 151 bus. How lucky am I? Have you been to a real party yet? Oh yes. Oh yes yes yes yes. So many parties. Good dinner parties. Then there are those insane Halloween parties and then there are those parties where you get to see cool art called gallery openings and there are parties called slumber parties where you and your boyfriend blow up the air mattress and totally snuggle up while watching bad t.v. and eating pizza. Parties can be good. Status on the market? Minus. Besides ones of the pet variety, any dependents? No. Not yet. Except Dave and I are starting to adopt a little boy in Africa...not like to really have and to hold but to send to school and that is JUST TOO FUN! I want a puppy. sigh.

Now, you see me.

2007-03-01T20:01:00.000-08:00

So, I fell in to peer pressure. Doesn't take much. I've had a few peeps ask me to share some pictures of my life. Hesitant at first, because I have a lot of pictures and I'm not sure what to share and then what to say...then I read some blog that takes place in New York(which of course I can't find again after google) and this guy picked like 10-12 pictures of his life that described parts of him and then told stories that went with them--like stories you wouldn't expect to come out of a picture. I like that idea, so I "borrowed" it. The stories for each picture are at the bottom. 1) Hi, my name is Byron and I learned how to surf. This is me on my board giving a hang ten. Later, though, I am giving a hang five as I crashed in to the water in front of me 2) This is me and my boyfriend, you know, Dave. The guy that has to put up with me. This is us hiking in the desert of Nevada. I don't hike, but I did that day. I did it because they bribed me and told me they'd get me icecream after we were done. Wisconsin kids are easily bribed by ice cream. NOTE: I never got icecream after that hike, but did get this picture 3) Yes, I have shiny friends. I'm lucky like that. They have suns that glow out of them and they dance really well and this is one of those friends that have colors glow out of them. They are cool people. 4) I like to travel to places. This is London. It's at the Tate Modern. It's one of my favorite pictures because ten minutes after I took I realized I really was in London and it was one of those seconds when you have a realization--like, woah, I'm really here doing something really cool and I am really lucky and I am happy. Ever get those? 5) I like going to museums--especially ones with art in them. I make Dave go too. He will lie and say that he doesn't like them as much as me but I caught him looking at this painting in New York MOMA for, like, ever...for so long that I had enough time to take this picture with low light and shudder then to read what the painting was about and then plan out what I wanted for lunch all while he looked at this painting. That's why he is cool. He won't admit to things he likes but he will show it...only when you are paying attention. 6) I have flaws. Sure. Physical ones too. Like this one. When I drank too much on Christmas Eve and passed out at my grandma's house holding one of her fine China pieces and then having my knee land on the broken shards. Did I mention it was three in the morning and I did this in the dark getting up to go to the bathroom? Did I mention my brother sent Dave a text saying "Byron is bleeding to death all over the house..." and then fell back to sleep so I have fifty missed phone calls on my phone the next morning(on Christmas) from a boyfriend thinking I had died. Oh, and I got twelve or so stitches put in my buy a doctor wearing elf shoes to "get in to that jolly spirit." 7) I read A LOT. This proves it. Those are only half my books in a bookshelf I used to have at my old apartment. One afternoon I was jumping up and down to try to turn on my ceiling fan and then the already tipping bookshelf tipped the rest over and a million books landed on the ground that sounded like someone dropping drums. Yes, I have read them all...at least twice. Now the books are safe in an "adult" non-Ikea bookshelf. They are happier there. 8) I grew up in the country. I was also a 4-Her. This means county fair. This means interesting people. This means good pictures. This means good pictures at night. This means memories. See, if you know me you know that the county fair(no matter how passe it is considered) will always have a special place for me because it is the place where I realized I had a slight cowboy fetish. It is the place where I was told I was going to be "someone" from a photography judge who wanted my work in magazines. It was the place where I had to break three girls hearts in one summer and tell them "I was too busy to have a relationship" and or "summer flings never last and I don't want to hurt you" when really I wanted their brothers. It is a place that I sweated at a lot and it was the place where me and my three best friends have the most best memories. You. Can. Be. Jealous. It's OK. 9) I like sunsets. Especially when you are in cars and it is summer and there is a great song on the radio and you roll the window down and you take this picture and you get those thoughtful glares that make the redish-orange sun look like a smudge in the sky. Smudges are pretty. 10)I like people who see things in things. Like, this was supposed to be the Virgin Mary when she just popped in randomly in Chicago a summer ago. It was under the express way and when my friend and I got there to "pay our respects" (which really meant go document this Elvis in a potato chip similarity) we were actually quite surprised to see a million people bringing flowers and burning candles and praying and crying and touching the wall and whispering aspirations and cops blocking off certain sections so you couldn't get to close and news reporters...all this in 80 degree fun and the smell of tacos in the distance. Religion. Is. Fun. 11) This is my oma. She passed away from cancer. She was and is my hero. I think, if you got to know her too, she would be YOUR hero. And if not your hero...you'd still would have loved her for her accent. The way she tried to chase deers in her garden away with plastic bags flapping in the wind and how she adored watching golf and Rick Stevens Travel shows on PBS. I miss her. She was beautiful.

You know, to continue with a theme of sorts that I have thoughtfully dubbed “And this is why, Dave, we need to get out of our stupid apartment"—take 2

2007-02-28T13:52:00.000-08:00

Dear Person Who Keeps Ripping the Name Plate Off Our Mailbox in the Foyer, Hi-ya, punk. O.K. I just, you know, had to get that out of my system. I apologize for my language, but you should know that this will be the seventh (at least) time that I have to replace my boyfriend’s and my name-plate sticker on our mailbox. The first time it happened I was all sweet about it and just decided it was because you were drunk or because you were jealous that I actually took the time to print out a really great one that I designed in PhotoShop that wasn’t gay but was sorta gay but gay in a modern way and not in a powder puff swirly italic font way. I could accept that, too. I could totally understand you were jealous. People get jealous of things like that. I get that. But then it happened again a week later. Then a third then a fourth… At a fifth time, I got testy. I mean, I gave up trying to make the dang thing look pretty and just used one of those Avery self-adhesive labels you can buy at an office place which if you even knew who I was you would know just totally pissed me off because anyone could use a label from a store…and you made me lower myself to a dang label that everyone uses. Not that those labels are bad…they are just not me. But now, at time 7, I’m not really feeling the prank anymore. Sure, you might just hate the names and be jealous that yours is something like “Smith” or “Johnson” and not something cool like mine or my boyfriend’s and then think it’s funny to get us all upset every time a mailman leaves me a post-it note saying “please put names on box or you will not get your mail” but then you might do it cause you hate who we are… yet can’t really know that who we are because it’s just our last names unless…oh Jesus, unless you are pot head guy then if you are pot head guy this is the reason WHY you should stop smoking the doobie because DUDE you do stupid things like take people’s address labels off while on the reefer! But if this is not pothead guy, I’m gonna say this once with a warning: “Keep the paws off my name.” I know. I know…this is hard for you to, you know, not be a meanie…but I just want you to know that it was funny the first time and maybe even the fourth one but if I find out that YOU are the reason why I haven’t gotten my “Dwell” magazine and my “New Yorker” for the last two months…then you are gonna have a fist full of gay in your face…and when I say a fist full that’s like five girls pulling at your hair…all. At.one. time. For serious. Got it? O.K? K. Just saying. Thanks so much for your time and stay warm! Xoxo B

Dear Mr. Neighbor next door to us,

2007-02-27T08:18:00.000-08:00

Hi neighbor! You smoke a lot of pot! And, really, the only reason why I am bringing this up is because of my grandma. See, my grandma used to smoke (no, not pot) a lot and I remember when I would watch her blow out smoke from her nose as she talked about a recipe or how she kept her celery crisp, I wondered how it really worked. You know, smoking. Like, the fact of it all was…you were taking in something that basically people blew out of the house when they burned something on the stove or if coughed at if a fire in the fireplace started filling the room. But to suck that stuff in and hold it in a mouth and then sort of swallow it…that was just, well, weird. But the worse of it was the way it smelled on me. Like, she didn’t even have to smoke that day and her pores would smell of it when I kissed her. Not a horrible smell. More like a mint gum because she chewed it a lot/sunflower perfume/hair product/facial cream/tobacco smell. But it was there. Also, when you’d visit her house and leave, you would smell like a local dive bar covered with scented candle sent as she used those to cover the stench. It made me angry because I loved my grandma, but I didn’t like smelling like a tobacco depot after a visit. So, yeah, like I said, neighbor who smokes a lot of pot. Since you live in our apartment you know that pretty much anything that smells in someone’s apartment is going to smell up, at least, the entire floor. So every morning when I go to work and every night when I get home from work and every time I go out late and every time I come home late or basically anytime you are awake there is the stench of that sweet almost berry like pot hovering in the hallway. Sometimes, if I tip toe quietly I can hear you laughing to yourself or listening to soft music and coughing. On other days you have your high friends come over and share the experience as I know this because there is a pile of their winter wet shoes out in the hallway—at least five pairs--that we have to step over to get past your place. And I can hear them laughing and singing and then later there will be a pizza delivery guy accidentally buzzing my door when he meant yours because now you got the munchies. Why I brought this up? Well, I left my jacket hanging on the door outside because it was wet and now it smells like a hippie. And not that I have a problem with hippies, but because I am not one I don not want to smell like one. So Mr. High All The Time Neighbor can I just ask you to, like, well get a job? I know it’s a lot to ask and I am sure you are some college student or you work part time at a Starbucks or at a Pet Supplies Plus place or even at a Borders…but I beg of you to just get out of the apartment once in a while and allow our building to air out a little bit. If not for me then for the clothes of all our people and for when OUR parents come visit and sniff the air and say…”do you guys smoke pot?” because it is quite awkward to tell my parents or my grandparents or my little cousin that it is YOU smoking pot and not us and that smoking pot is dumb and smoking pot makes you smell like a hippie and because I am not a hippie I don’t want to smell like one. Thank you Mr. Pot Head Neighbor. xoxo B

The Secret

2007-02-26T14:02:00.000-08:00

You know how everyone knows that if you want to keep vampires away...wear garlic? It's funny how we totally know things that are so completely useless and rarely come in to play. It's funny that it's sort of the same idea with home remedies. You know, when you had a cold mom or dad would take care of you and do those certain regimens that you weren't really ever sure if they did something or if it was just nice that someone was taking the time to do it for you. Like, my mom would put warm oil in to my ear that was throbbing to calm it. Apparently it broke ear wax and gook and helped let the ear clean itself out until I had my doctor appointment the next day. My mom insisted it worked and it was her belief. It's things like that, our personal beliefs, that lead to the reason why I have Crest Whitening tooth paste on my forehead...on my zit. We can thank Mary Lennistein, Avon Representative circa 1997...my mom's best friend of fifteen years. Mary came to our house once a month to pawn off her latest products that insisted on defying age and shrinking those pesky wrinkles. My mom was no fool and would only buy some of the products because "her husband is outta work and I saw they had to sell their second car". My mom used a beauty on her inner beauty. She's a sweet lady. Anyway, it was when I was in 8th grade and came out of my bedroom looking for a snack when mom and Mary were going over the new catalog when Mary looked up at my face smiled and said: "Hon, you need to take good care of your skin--those zits are gonna turn in to scars!" I was horrified for two reasons: 1) Don't point out a teens acne, God! 2) Scars! She tried selling my mom products for me. Buffers, creams, exfoliators. I wanted them. I liked the way she said exfoliators...like it was winning on a scratch off ticket--a pleasant surprise! But Mom said: "He's a boy. He can use soap and water." And with that, Mary lost the sale. But that kind Mary, well she was so worried about my skin that she insisted on making a comment that changed skincare for the rest of my life. "At least use some tooth paste on the ones that are coming in. Something in it makes makes them go away...or at least not get as bad. I think I read that somewhere...I think..." And with that "sound" advice, I adopted the belief that toothpaste was my personal Jesus. After all, it was Mary's word. To this day, I really don't know if it works. I'm going to lay my cards out in front me and say this though: I use it every time I feel I get a fresh one. So, really, I can't tell you if they could get worse or if she was full of it. She was probably full of it because she got fired from Avon a month or so later. It was something about not paying the company for their orders they sent her. But I like to think it was because she was a secret agent for tooth paste companies giving out the real secret to good skincare: Mint Toothpaste.

Hot For Teacher....

2007-02-24T15:23:00.000-08:00

I think about it for a second, if I could fit in a desk from my old elementary school to prove that I once was one of his students and then I shudder a little bit as regressing back to fifth grade isn’t something that should be done that often and should not be done when you are twenty-four and seeing your teacher…at a gay bar. It’s like seeing Mickey Mouse taking off his big foam fake head at a theme park and revealing just some sweaty under paid worker’s head and watching him smoke a cigarette. It’s not real. It’s too unreal to even be close to real. But it’s so real. My fifth grade teacher drinks Corona Light and leans against a brick wall. He is wearing glasses and he has a light blue collared shirt tucked in to his jeans and wears loafers and a belt. He looks like he hasn’t aged a day. Except for lighter hair color and the fact that, you know, now he is gay instead of teaching me long division and exchanging fractions in to decimals. But I think about any possible way to go up to him and say something. Anything. I mean like “So, remember me, yah, I was the little boy that did that science fair project on car exhaust effects on plants in a jar? Oh, you don’t remember me?”…hmmm, let’s try “I was the kid that sat next to the girl that peed a little on the floor when we were taking those scholastic tests where you had to fill in bubbles to answer…remember her name was Maggie?”….Still don’t remember me…hmmm… “Oh, I got it… remember when you yelled at me for drawing on my desk when I wasn’t really drawing on my desk but just with the eraser part and not the lead part and I was drawing a heart because I imagined being in love with Kendra Mileson and….you?” Yeah, see, that just can’t be done. So, from a far like watching a constellation from a telescope, I sit in absolute amazement that right under my ten year old nose was a guy that was totally in to, well, guys…yet, I never knew. I just thought I was the only one in my entire elementary school (and at that time I thought in the entire world…)that liked guys and thought it was a horrible thing to be doing…you know, liking guys. What was weirder—was he was my offical first teacher crush. Completely innocent. I liked the way he wrote his “q’s” on the chalkboard. I know what you all want me to say. You want me to say that I finally went up to him and said something…but I didn’t. I laughed it off and took another sip of my drink and totally started to forget he was even there. Some things need to stay in the past. It’s safer that way. Especially if they are from your yearbook.

Stepping Up To The Soap Box

2007-02-23T07:17:00.000-08:00

I started writing my new post like I do, from a distance, telling stories from moments of now or from my past. And as I started in to my second paragraph I stopped and starting writing this: Sometimes my blog scares me. Sometimes I feel like I don't explain something well enough and only give the frosting and never the cake. I don't enjoy talking on a soap box on the blog. It's more of place that people can come to and get to know someone they may have otherwise never taken the time to know through stories and vignettes and realizations. But, I feel, after the post of February 22nd...I need to sort of step on to this box and say a little something about blogging. What I wrote about yesterday happened. I watched a man get beat. I heard the pounding of fists. I heard people push out of doors and rush towards the man. I heard my heart beating harder than ever. I felt my stomach pushing up out of my mouth. What is strange about blogging is how we can make the posts as episodes. We can tell a story and the very next day tell another story without referring back to anything else we ever have talked about. We can put something fresh in to minds and then skip away from it. That's not how I work. Just because I don't mention something again in the future doesn't mean it just went away in a poof of clouds. Just because I mention I am going to do something and don't mention that I accomplished it in another post...it doesn't mean I never accomplished it. I guess I just felt like I needed to explain that one person can't explain everything that happened in a moment. And a person can't divulge everything in his life. And because of what happened and that I don't say something about it again...doesn't mean I can't get it out of my head and stop getting upset about it. I do have one more thing to say about blogging: To all the anonymous people out there. I understand you. It's scary to tell people what you are really feeling while at the same time showing who you are. It's like robbing a bank leaving finger prints everywhere. Sure. I get that. But if you are going to send me emails/comments that say things like: "Stop bitching and do something about it?" OR "Maybe the guy deserved it." Then I prefer you move on from this blog or leave your name. Actually I'd much more prefer if you'd leave your name... because if you have all the answers in the world and if you think you know what's better for people or if you think I'm a bad person or not doing enough or giving in too easily then I would like to get to know you so YOU can help me understand why some things happen in the world and why some people like you have the answers to heal them but prefer to leave them anonymously on a blog and not YOU do something about it. I'm just saying... Sometimes my blog can scare me.

On Seeing Hate In Person

2007-02-22T16:04:00.000-08:00

It is not until moments when you are so completely scared when you become aware of your heart. When you can visually picture it in your mind beating insanely against the rib cage. When you can hear it bouncing around in your ears. When you feel the flush from blood shooting through your body at rates that seem faster than light. Your heart, this muscle that does everything for you, it is so fresh in your mind because it doesn’t feel like it will slow down. You picture diagrams of your body that you’ve seen in encyclopedias or in biology books that show this red fleshy massy thing in the center of your chest with all these lines swooping to the rest of your body. You picture all the surgery shows you’ve watched—where doctors use their latexed gloves and massage it or remove it or poke at it or cut around or clean it out. This will happen to you at least once in life. This terror that makes you think of yourself only as cells and blood and organs and proteins. It might happen when you discover someone you love has been in a car accident. It might happen when you can’t find your toddler in the grocery store. Or it will happen when you see someone get tackled on the street late at night and see the guy that got tackled getting punched in the head and hearing the guy that got tackled get called “faggot” over and over again on a street where being gay is more than O.K…it’s a lifestyle. The you will see people running out of restaurants and bars trying to help the man being tackled…and the guy that was tackling…he gets back in a car that speeds off down a one way street leaving the guy on the ground limp and what looks like bleeding. In that moment, when you are so terrified, your heart is the only thing that you can think about because it isn’t quiet anymore— not silent like a house plant you ignore watering. It’s a drum. Then, when it finally slows down, the momentum and rhythm it had before will be replaced with a slow sound of breaking. It is the same sound of fragile things broke in a box. It is the same sound of losing faith in people.

My First Time Was With Kathy Lee Gifford

2007-02-21T08:27:00.000-08:00

The first time I learned to shave, I learned it from Kathy Lee Gifford. It was 8th grade and I had a mustache. And when I say mustache I mean that I got tired of people asking me if I had dirt above my upper lip or if that “cute peach fuzz” was going to ever come in a little darker. I had come to the breakfast table where my mom and brother were going over some math problems before school and announced it to the family: “I’m going to shave.” My mom had this look on her face: It’s described best at worried and embarrassed. Like, my dad had just left for work and she didn’t know how to handle this one. Like, was there some sort of initiation for manhood that my dad shouldn’t miss out on? Was she supposed to applaud that I have officially announced I was to begin a regimen of grooming that would be a pain in the ass until the day I die? So, she just said: “Don’t bleed to death.” And then asked my brother what some two numbers added together were. As I stood and looked in the mirror with my dad’s razor in hand I realized I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I decided to go one more day with the little furry patch and wait for my dad to show me the tricks of the trade. You know that bonding thing dads are supposed to do? I thought maybe this was one of those times. But that night, when he got home, he was “too tired” Like he was very often in his early thirties from a job that he hated. So, I took matters in my own hand. Redbook, you know that women’s magazine, was always in our magazine rack in the bathroom. It had safe covers of normal housewife “models” posing with cute aprons or close ups of Lifetime Television for Women actresses with airbrushed under-eyes and highlighted hair. As I paged through after discovering a headline on the cover saying “shave and save!” I found what would be a lesson of life. A lesson to hold on to. How to shave your legs properly instructed by Kathy Lee Gifford. You know, now that I look back at it…not too sure why she got roped in to that one. But, it was here in a fake bubble-bath bathtub with a razor in her hand and shaving cream in other and a giant “I’m gonna get paid a billion dollars to do this and you, boy, are going to have haunting memories of learning how to shave from me, Kathy Lee Gifford, for the rest of your life” smile. And then I swear she muahahahah’d (like evil doers do when they tie people to train tracks) at me from the page as I read on about each step in order to not get “razor rash” and “ingrown hair pimples” and even how to keep the hair form not coming in as often. And I did it. I heeded her advice and for five years of my pubescent life. I shaved my face like how Kathy Lee Gifford shaved her legs... with much success. Sometimes we learn things in places we dare not tell, but hold close to our hearts. This is one of those times. See, I would have liked to tell a different tale. My dad behind me in the mirror telling which way the blade goes and how to rinse the razor after each cut. But instead it was me and Kathy Lee and my mother's "Gentle Glide" cream and years of Vanilla smelling babysmooth skin.

How I Got The Periodical Blues

2007-02-20T05:55:00.000-08:00

You know, when you don't think about something for awhile that you have been pleading the gift gods for, then out of nowhere...you get it...you get things when you least expect it. It's something that teaches us patience and hope and humanity--you know, we have to learn these things...suffer, if you will, in order to appreciate what you get. I don't believe it. The mailman has a hard job. Especially, in winter, when the ice is as thick as deep dish pizza crust and the cart they cary has wheels that could slip on velcro. But, I have no remorse for a mailman/person/people when they don't bring my magazines on time and I am at the store and I am drooling at the collections of magazines that have been out for WEEKS and I am still waiting to get mine, but like a Christmas present, I wanna peek at the magazines at the store--to see what I am in for...but like a good little boy I just grab my pack of gum and say "patience is a virtue" and wander home lost without a good magazine. There are bigger problems in the world. I know. But how am I supposed to know if I can't read about them?

Going in Circles

2007-02-19T14:04:00.000-08:00

As a Valentines' Day present many years ago, my boyfriend had bought me this giant black book with acid free blank off-white pages stuck in side. Literally, this book is like as big as one of those giant cards you can buy at the drug store. Like, huge. Like 24x36 huge. I had first seen the book when I was a photo student. It was in this catalog of high end photo conservation stuff. When I used to work at the museum, we would get magazines like this. Magazines that had stuff on sale for like fifty two million dollars for a photo album or a frame that was a gazillion dollars because it was one-hundred percent archival. Nothing, fame or lame, was going to fade in this expensive piece of wood and glass. Four years of your paychecks would have proved this. But, like a good Midwestern guy, I circled my dream stuff through out the catalog. Cause, well, that's just what you do. It came from Christmas with my grandma. My mom's mom would hand us over the JCPenny's Christmas catalog and my brother and I would go through each page, turning them and licking our fingers to make sure we weren't missing anything. She would give me the red marker and my brother the green and we would go through each page and circle what we would liked. My ten year old brother, he'd go straight for toys. He'd start circling Lego sets and fake food collections--for his fake kitchen he had set up in his bedroom. The stuff that kids usually wanted. But me, I went straight to bedding. It's every twelve year old boy's dream to own the complete duvet, sheet, sham set, and dust ruffle collection of a certain designer. It was even better to get the matching shower curtain...even if you didn't have your own shower...that curtain was still worth the designer price. My red marker would bleed over towel sets and toothbrush caddy's and even the magazine racks. I wanted everything in my home to be style. But, I didn't have a home. I had a small bedroom with a closet...in my parent's house. In the end, I always just got toys and really, it's actually a big surprise that I'm not bitter towards making lists or circling ideas for things I want...because I always invested a lot in to that JCPenny catalog circling...to have no success--just Legos and random board games. But, as I sat there circling stuff in this photo magazine...just for the heck of it...I saw it as important as I did back in JCPenny days...the best prices for the best of things. So many fancy cool things to have...that most likely, I would never get. Well, somehow Dave had gotten ahold of this magazine and picked out this large huge archival black blank book and gave it to me wrapped in a big bow on our first Valentine's Day together. It was a huge surprise, too. I use it as a memory book. Everything that I keep in piles or in boxes or pictures I don't know where to put or posters or ticket stubs from concerts or movies go in to this book. This huge book. It's seriously as big as I am tall. But the other day I pulled it out and sat it out in the middle of our apartment and started gluing more things in to it. And as I sat there and remembered where the huge book came from and how cool it was that someone finally had gotten me something that I really wanted that I had REALLY circled in a magazine...I was just so happy. I was happy that I had a cool boyfriend that paid attention to me and my wants. I was happy I had a cool book that I will show young people when I am super old and weird and I was happy that...well, I grew out of my whole JCPenny catalog phase...because if Dave was that good at getting ideas from catalogs and I still liked JCPenny's I would sure have a lot of "Sonoma" bath towels--and that's just...well, me so like ten years ago.

Paul Revere was a dentist...really?

2007-02-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

When you look at a person. I mean, really look at them...there are still things you just can never know until you talk to them. Then there are those that never tell you things. Like, you don't get to know them because, well, for whatever reason. It's like in history, you know, the history that your teachers decided to teach you and then the real deal. Like, Pocahantis never fell in love with John Smith. She was like eleven when they met. Or how Pocahantis was captured by the white men and taken back to England then flaunted around to show off their power over the savages. Or even how Alexander Graham Bell didn't have anyone to test his telephone invention on because both his mother and his wife were deaf. Or even the fact that Paul Revere, made hero, was a dentist. There are those secrets people keep to themselves that aren't really secrets but are things that some people don't find interesting enough to let it be known. It's like we are writing our own stories with the vignettes we choose to tell or with the interesting facts we are willing to share. Like broom ball. Yes, like the tennis shoe wearing on the ice hockey-like rules aggressive game. I played it. I got mean. I jammed my thumb when a stick whacked it while going for the puck. I got sweaty. And I said naughty words. See, if I chose not to tell you any of these things you would think that I was just whatever image you have of me...what? Arty? Writerly? Nice? Sappy? But, now history is changed and you now know that I grunt when I whack the puck into the goal or that I have a huge bruise on my side from falling on the ice so hard because, really, tennis shoes are the hardest things to wear on ice. But that's what makes people, well, people really. We all have our histories. We all come from somewhere. It's the stories we chose to share and the ones we put out there that make people decide who we are. And that's kinda cool.

This is what happens when you keep your old high school newspapers at bay.

2007-02-17T10:18:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, my life was threatened by a sonnet. In a far off land called high school years, I was the editor and chief of "The Eagle's Nest-Case High School's Gazette!" my high school newspaper. I wrote the editor's letter and I dished out hot new places to take out dates. I also wrote book reviews, the opinion section and even "Ask Byron" a place where students could write in and ask me those hard to reach questions--you know. I mean, there was a staff, but they were taking this class to just get a few extra credits. I was the only one taking it seriously--like Clark Kent seriously. Like Murphy Brown seriously. They all usually napped and used it as a study hall or to make-out in the corner. One even wrote sonnets during that class. Sonnets she tried to have published. Sonnets that had to do with sex. Introduction: "Sonnet Girl" O.K. her name was Elizabeth Markkey and she looked like Sara Gilbert, you know, from that show Roseanne. She was dark and she dyed hair black and one time I saw her pressing needles in her hand with ink on the tip and I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was giving herself a tattoo which I really didn't get because, well, how can you do that to yourself with just a pin but then when I saw a little black heart not go away from an entire year...I was scared of her. I mean, she was tough. Homemade tattoo tough. Sonnet tough. So, one day she asked me to publish one. I read it. It was about putting things in to her vagina. I said no. For many many reasons. And then I was on her "shit list" Introduction: "Shit List" A girl that tattooed herself put me on a list of shit. Need I say more? I was going to be hurt. Not because I didn't like the sonnet and not because I didn't publish it. It was because after I read it I very clearly said: "Gross." So, for a good two weeks I watched my back. Which, really, wasn't that hard because aside from writing sonnets about putting things in her vagina and tattooing herself and picking her nose with her nose ring...she also skipped school a lot. So, really out of those two weeks I worried about, like, two days. Then, it happened. I came outside to my parked Ford Escort in the student parking lot to find a note under the windshield wipers and on that piece of paper was a sonnet...a threatening sonnet I was terrified. Mostly because the paper she wrote the sonnet on was a flyer for a lost dog--and ANYONE who takes down a flyer that is trying to save or find a lost animal and use it as a threatening sonnet was dead. ass. serious. I published that sonnet of hers. I did it because I wanted people to see how scary she was. I did it because I wanted people to see how she threatened me. I did it because I was not going to be scared by a sonnet writing "Darlene" from a hit sitcom girl who wrote words in meter counts. I also thought maybe it would get people to read the paper. No one ever said anything. She didn't win a prize for great poetry. I got a lecture about newspaper content from the principal...something like "sonnets and poems about hurting others or people who are hurting isn't hard news" and I ended up backing down from my editing position because I wanted to be on the peppy-er side of life-- you know, be on yearbook. But, when I think back to my days as an editor I think of Elizabeth. I think of her tattoo. I think of her black hair. And I think of her sonnets. The sonnets that still haunt me when I page through my archived collections of newspapers from 1997-2000. The sonnet that saved my life...after I was threatened by it.

Faux Daddying

2007-02-15T19:19:00.000-08:00

Me:"Parle à mon cul, ma tête est malade" (parl a mon cul, ma teht eh ma - lahd) More Me:"Oui, J'ai faim" (wi zhay fin) Then some more of me:"Je pense que la robe est trop petite pour vous" (zhe pens ke la roab eh troa pe - teet poor voo) I'm learning french. You totally believe me,too...right? Like, you can totally picture me with my ipod in my ears and walking down the street and mouthing the words but not really saying them aloud because that would be quite odd for someone to have headphones on and saying french words to himself when he is clearly not french as french people don't look like americans. They just don't. What I should say is that I am attempting to learn French. Just, you know, oh... because. O.K. Well, really, it's for a boy. I'm learning French for a boy, there...I said it out loud. O.K. Let me explain. Cause,well, it's not just for any boy. The other night I read statistics. I know...that's not something one does before bed. But I was reading statistics about Africa. And when I read these things I got insanely sad. I've always known what was happening...but, then, like when you forget the taste of something you don't eat very often...I forgot how horrible the flavor of living is over there. I did research then...on how I could help where I tripped in to a website that is a program that allows you to "adopt" children to help them get vaccinated, receive clean water, and to go to school. I know the horror stories of these programs. The people never get their money. You know, they don't get the supplies they need. But that didn't stop me. So, while listening to my french classes on my headphones I say: "Dave, I wanna do this." (I said this in English, naturally.) I show him the website. "O.K. Let's do this." He says. It takes a bit of time, but we are in the works of "adopting" a little guy over in Africa. Not like, you know, he lives with us...but that we help him out financially. The greatest thing about it is that if you have ichat and a web camera you can talk to them. You can actually schedule a meeting and chat. Usually, they don't know English. I don't know French. So, I am learning French for a boy. And I love it.

Why I'm In Love Iris Glass EVEN MORE than I was before.

2007-02-15T16:21:00.000-08:00

I think it was that from where I was sitting, one of his shoes seemed longer than the other. No. No, that's not it. Maybe it was because he used his hands as wands when he would tell a story. No seriously, like, when he talked he would use his hands like they carried magic powers and when he wanted to accentuate something he would press his pointer finger and his thumb together,like when we move our arms underwater while we swim, he fluidly guided his hands to highlight that part of the story. Like dance. Like ballet. Maybe it was because of his voice. So. Fricken. Memorable. The way he sounds so different compared to the way you'd imagine him to look. Like when you meet the pizza guy in person, you know, the one you imagined would be a total hot Italian stallion when you call in your pizza order.Turns out, he's some dude with too much facial hair and sweaty armpits that doesn't look like a stallion...but more like a cow. Or perhaps it was the great readers/writers/poets(ahem, Megan Stielstra)at the event that came before him that set the feeling of awesome exploding inside of awesome with little itty bitty awesome shrapnel pieces shooting all over the place. Whatever the reason may be, I now know I would like to be on his show just once in my life. Like, seriously, reading one of my own stories and having him narrate with me. Oh. Man. I just got butterflies thinking about that. This MUST mean love.

My Sweet Sixteen

2007-02-14T16:17:00.000-08:00

Sixteen years ago, today, I got the chicken pox. It was this day, when I was eight, I woke up to find little red dots attacking my body. It was itchy. It was dotty. It was Valentine’s Day. My absolute favorite holiday. On that same day, Amy Perkins, she didn’t have the chicken pox…anymore. See, she came back to school that day. She had been gone for almost a week and a half. And it was on the second day of that week and half when Rene Lieeners raised her hand and in the most worried tone an eight year old girl could use asked "Mrs. Leonard, our second grade teacher, "Where’s Amy?" In which Mrs. Leonard replied: "She is very very sick right now, kids. Later we can all make her cards." Now, being a boy at age eight…well, you don’ think of things that you think of now at age whatever you are that is much more mature and adult than age eight. So, it did not come to mind anything about germs. It did not pop up in my head about anything contagious. I did not even realize I was next…because of what happened three days before Amy’s absence. We had totally and entirely gotten it on. O.K. O.K. Not, like, "did it" Good. God. We were eight! But we had kissed on the playground…under the slide. It went like this: We had mutual friends, as I tended to hang out with the girls more than the boys. As we had mutual friends we also had ways of watching out for each other…like if someone accidentally spilled pizza sauce on themselves from the hot lunch they just had and we all know how embarrassing that can be…well, then we would all hover around that messy eater until recess was done so no one could make fun of that stain. See, that’s how it worked. We all watched out for each other. So, it was no surprise when Amy announced one lunch period that "after I eat my cheese sandwich, I’m gonna kiss Byron." All of our mutual friends would be all about this moment and do anything possible to keep it from stopping…and would watch our backs so NO one stopped it. And as we were under the slide, we kissed for a full four seconds, maybe five if you count how long it took for us to find each other’s lips to actually kiss. But for a full four to five second radius we had lip lock. And I hated it. See, I knew way way young that there was no interest in the girls. I think it was after the movie "Cocktail" where I realized that it was destined for me to marry Tom Cruise and there was no other reason I was put on this Earth. So, with that thought it mind, it was awkward to have Amy’s lips all over me…and not Tom’s. But I worked with it and the whole playground cheered and I could taste the flavor of her lunch box on her lips—grape. And now that I look back, I think I could even taste that brewing flavor of chicken pox. That flavor popped up a bit later and a lot stronger. It was no surprise that after about a week or so of Amy being gone, I started feeling a little run down and tired and like I was getting a cold. But instead of a cold, I got spots. I got spots on my favorite holiday. While Amy, she probably got my rations of Valentine’s Day conversation hearts and my cupcake that Mrs. Leonard had promised to bring to the class. Oh, and of course I got no little cute Valentine’s cards in a decorated shoe box that year. It was as if I had been deleted out of the calendar. It was as if it were Amy’s plan. It was probably in that moment that I learned that kissing a girl would not be in the cards for my future…for good…that and Tom Cruise. Obviously. But it is funny as I learn that this Amy doesn’t even remember who I am. At all. As if when we kissed it put a spell on her or as if her first kiss spreading her infection (and her "love") was just as casual as shaking some random persons hand at a benefit that you will have to be reintroduced to in the future. It’s sad that I didn’t leave an impression on her like, well, like she literally left on me… See, I have a scar near my left eye from that kiss. Not from the actually kiss, but from a pox that I scratched to the point of permanent. It’s indented and when I tan in the summer, stays pale white. It’s with me forever. And everytime I wash my face or stare at myself as I get my hair cut or when Dave reads my face and asks where I got each scar on my face from. I have to tell this story. That SHE left an impression on me. A permanent mark. The girl that doesn’t even remember my name…but every day…not just Valentine’s Day…I remember what her lips taste like... Grape juice and chicken pox.

How We Never Grow Up

2007-02-13T08:29:00.000-08:00

So, I enjoy a good daydream. I'm not going to lie. You know, the ones where you aren't where you are supposed to be and no one else knows this except you. I think I like this because involves a little mystery and it involves a lot of being on your own. Not that I like being on my own a lot, but it's sort of like when you play hide and seek and it's just you in that space for a short period of time and it seems like the whole outside world doesn't matter because it's all about where you are hiding, or daydreaming, in that moment. I like daydreaming because I can make up things for others too. Like, if I don't like someone I'm going to imagine your name be something ugly. Like, if your name is something pretty like Thomas Michael I'm going to name you Bud. I don't think the name Bud is pretty and if you are mean I don't think you should have a pretty name. This is important because it will make or break the daydream. But if you are nice and I like your name...you are safe. I also like daydreaming because you can pretend that you aren't who you are normally. So, say someone doesn't hold a door open for you at a restaurant or you hold a door for them and they don't politely acknowledge this gesture...the You you might say nothing. But in a daydream, the daydream you, is going to say something like "Hey, Mr. 'I got nothing but rude up my ass' your welcome for the door. It's just what I do, man." You know, you would stand up for things like that because in daydreaming...you can't get punched or have people scare you. YOU do the scaring. Lastly, I like daydreaming because it makes things like the EL a not scary place. If you know the EL you understand that it can be a scary place. If not for the smells for the pure fact that someone you don't know keeps staring at you which makes you think you have a booger hanging from your nose or that your face is breaking out. So, in a daydream an EL is a private car driven by someone named "Driver" and you don't have to worry about anything but whether "Driver" is going to open your door from the right side or from the left side and since "Driver" is a gentleman he will never open the door on to traffic or over puddles. "Driver" is better than the EL...he also doesn't stare. I like daydreaming because sometimes it's all someone can have on a day when his feet are really wet from snow soaking through. When someone burned his tongue on his coffee and when the hot water in the shower didn't work. Day dreaming is like teleportation without that whole sticky physics stuff. I was never good at physics as I was always daydreaming during that class.

Why I Enjoy Dry Cleaning

2007-02-13T07:23:00.000-08:00

My dry cleaning lady does not believe in Oprah. She tells me this and other stuff while she sews buttons back on to men's shirts and hems pant legs for business suits. When I walk in to the closet sized place, she looks up from her whipping sewing machine and then smiles and asks me if I watched Oprah. Every. Single. Time. See, I don't know this lady. I mean, just through dry cleaning. And when I see her it's like twice a month...if that. So, to walk in and have this nice lady smile at me like she raised me since I was born and then ask me if I watch a certain television show that I usually don't but will if I am home that day or catch the late night replay...well, it's just nice. But my dry cleaning lady doesn't believe in the things that Oprah says. "I think she full of shit." I'm told today as I pick up my dress shirts. They look so dang perfect you don't want to take them out of the plastic. I nod at her because that's what you often do to someone when you know they are stuck on their thought and, really, it's not worth fighting about. "I think she has too many money." I nod again. She smiles. I think it's because she thinks we are bonding on our distaste for Oprah. Little does she know I often find myself paging through Oprah magazine at office waiting rooms or while I wait for my carrot sticks and gallon of milk and bread to be rung up at the grocery store. And I like it. I mean, I like the magazine a lot. Like, I actually bought it....once....O.K...twice. I pay for my shirts and as I do this the lady keeps turning around and watching the t.v. behind her and shaking her head at a close up of Oprah using her puppy eyes to get her point across to the audience. The gist of what Oprah is talking about is remodeling homes to better make your life more organized or something like that. To me, it sounds kinda nice. To my dry cleaning lady, it sounds like "horse shit." "She talk too much. I don'ts believe anything she say." I grab my shirts and leave. I tell her to have a good day and she says the same with a nod of a head. I kinda wonder why she really doesn't like Oprah. I mean, I think about the place she works at full of other people's clothes and other people's boo boos(stains, missing buttons, you know boo boos) and I think of how hard she probably works to make the couple dollars it costs to get a shirt pressed and cleaned. I also think about the hours she works. No matter what time I'm there...she's there. It could be before work or after work or on a saturday or anytime...but it's just her there. I wonder if Oprah said something to her once while she was scratching out a coffee stain in some stuffy laywers shirt. I wonder if Oprah offended her with just one line of dialogue...and in that moment that dry cleaning woman said to herself "I hate her." I wonder if it's the obvious? Like, Oprah probably doesn't even know what it takes to get a stain out of her shirt or sew a button or hem a leg or work with nasty chemicals. I wonder if my dry cleaning lady is jealous? That's why the world is just so mysterious...you just never know what people are going to believe or how they come to believe it. But, I can believe in one thing and count on it everytime. She's going to get my red wine stains out of every shirt I wear to parties and events and she's going to hate Oprah everytime she does it.

Only By a Thread

2007-02-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

I share lint traps with my neighbors. When I think of this, I think of underwear. I know, that's weird. But, in my mind, while my fingers drag across the lint catcher screen I think:"I'm cleaning the lint of other people's clothes. Like, literally, I'm touching socks and sweatshirts and jeans and towels and underwear." The thing is, I don't know my neighbors. Not sure how that really happened. I suppose I can blame it on no backyards or garages or driveways like I had back where I grew up. Those places where people get together and make small talk while washing the car or trimming the bushes behind the shed. Someone will cross the property line and maybe even bring over a beverage and introduce themselves and before you know it you realize you have things in common and that your kids are in the same grade at school and that you both went to a certain type of college or bought a certain type of watering can or certain type of dog and then that leads to stuff like cook-outs and birthday party invitations and phone calls to ask for "favors" like a spare egg for a brownie batch you're making for the kid's band practice which both your kids are in together and are now bff's as they call each other ever night and want to have sleep overs and want to go to the mall or the park or to a party. Then the kids get older and it's just about the adults again. And you start going to dinners together and you start inviting each other to the kid's weddings and to graduation parties. You share your life together all because your houses are right across the street or next door. People you may have really not had taken the time to get to know in other circumstances, but since you totally share the same street address you've totally created life long memories together. It's intimate. You will realize this, too, when one of those neighbors moves after being across from you for twenty some years. It's like breaking up. It's like a divorce. It's so personal. Which brings me back to lint. I mean, think about the things you share in apartment building in the city. Water. Hallways. Foyers. Dryers. Lint. Literally, we share the threads of our lives. I mean, that IS intimacy. But nothing. Sure, I smile and I'm polite and say hi to the same faces I bump in to here and there. But I have no idea who these people are. It's funny. We are so close and then we are so. dang. far.

SEE! This is what happens when you watch Adventures in Babysitting.

2007-02-11T14:49:00.000-08:00

Say it with me "Baby-Sitter". It's such a strange word. Like, I get it. You're sitting in to watch a baby. Great. But, like, when does it stop being a baby and become just a sitter? I think the 80's and early 90's were all about anti-political correctness. I know, for a fact, that when I was thirteen and my parents had date night (which consisted of every other Saturday night when they would escape parentville and dash off to the local movie or Applebee's and stay out til at least eleven thirty and leave us behind with a neighbor girl or just once a guy) I hated the fact that on the calender it said "Babysitter here at 7pm": Reason 1: I wasn't a baby. I was thirteen. I was sprouting. My voice creaked at times it shouldn't. My shoe size was getting bigger monthly and I had to start wearing deodorant after gym class. Reason B: It's not like the babysitter did anything. I hadn't worn a diaper for many years and I got my own ice cream scooped out of the freezer and when I needed to brush my teeth I did it with out someone telling me. My two year younger brother did the same thing. But it's funny how you don't call a flight attendant a "stewardess" any more or "secretaries" or assume Mrs. when someone is 40. But you still call someone who watches kids who are not babies, "babysitter". I get it, I'm not thirteen anymore. I've got bigger fish to fry and other things to worry about. But I'd like to think that there would be one feisty kid who got an A+ in "political science for kids" at some prep grade school who would stand up for their rights against bedtimes and PG movie material and the simple fact that you are being told to clean up after yourself by someone who is supposed to be feeding a little tiny baby green goo and watching it burp up on itself. But, then again, when I was thirteen I had crushes on my babysitters. Well, actually I just really liked their outfits. And politics goes down the drain when you like someones outfit. Oh my God, especially when it's from the 80's and it's worn by Elisabeth Shue!

Pookie.

2007-02-10T19:36:00.000-08:00

I have this Polaroid that I use as a bookmark. First, let's talk bookmark. I don't know how I feel about those fancy kinds. You know, the ones you buy at important stores with flashy handled shopping bags and with receipts with large numbers with dollar signs in front of them. I'm old fashioned. I like using things in from my life to mark the pages of my imaginary life--you know, the life you borrow for a bit in the pages of books. So, this Polaroid is a picture I took of Dave when he was brushing his teeth. But it's not one of those kind of pictures that are cheesy and are what us photo kids liked to call "wasters" on the rolls. It's a real picture. It's of him staring in the mirror not even knowing that I am there. He's wearing his glasses, which he doesn't do in front of other people often. He's got his pajama bottoms on. The greatest part of the picture is the lighting. If I was in front of you right now I would bring my fingers to my lips like Italians do when something tastes good and blow a "muah" at you because the light is that good. But this story is about someone seeing this Polaroid as a bookmark. See, strangers talk to me. My mom says it's because I look like a face people can trust. I think it's because I floss. But, strangers...they like me. So, as I am reading my story and have my Polaroid tucked in the back of the book...I turn a little bit and the bookmark falls to the ground. There is this woman next to me and she is much older than even my grandma and she sees this happen and she leans over in her puffy pink down coat to pick it up. I feel a tap on my shoulder "Hon, you dropped this." "Oh! Thanks!" I say in this sorta embarrassed like...I have a Polaroid of my boyfriend brushing his teeth. Weird. But then she goes: "I like that picture. It's arty." I say: "Oh. Thanks! I like it too." She says: "Is he someone special?" I say: "Um." And she says: "He's your Pookie?" And I say: "My huh?" And she says: "That's your Pookie!" And she winks at me. And I nod. And then she smiles and clasps her hands together like she had just taught me a lesson of life. Then, she just looks out the window and doesn't say anything else to me. But I can tell she is smiling. I smile too. Because I'd like to think that at one time in her life she had her "Pookie" and at one time he brushed his teeth and at one time she probably carried him with her whether it was in a book or in her purse or in a locket. That's what you do with Pookies... keep 'em close.

How Anna Nicole Smith Actually Made Made Me Think?

2007-02-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

Are you one of those people? You know, the ones that have everything planned out? So, like, say you die tonight...what would it be like without you here? I don't mean, like, where your money will go or who will get your fab cars or what will be done with your house. I mean, what would people feel like? Sure. They're gonna be sad. And sure. They are going to at a loss. But, what will people feel from you. What I'm trying to say is this: If you were to just not wake up one day or be found in your hotel room floor, would the people in your life know exactly WHY they were a part of your life? Would you have ever told them how much they mean to you...or why you want them to share some of the moments we live with them...or would they even know how special they are to making you succeed or feel loved or feel missed or feel appreciated or feel warmth? I didn't think so. Cause, it's not normal for us to go around to those who love us and say things like "So, you know, if I totally lose my life tonight I want you to know that the way you make peanut butter sandwiches make eating lunch so much more wonderful." We just don't do that. But maybe we should. Maybe we should just thank that lady at the corner soup place that she does such a good job stirring the soup. Or maybe you thank your mail person for breaking your Netflix DVD's when she shoves them in to the box because maybe you just didn't really need to see Scream 3 for a fifth time. Maybe you should thank the EL driver for all the stop and go action you get when you are just tired from a long day of work. Maybe we should just be a little more thankful and a lot less...well, dead. Just a thought...but I kind of like being prepared for things. More importantly though, I want people who take the time to care about me to really know how much I care about them. Even if Scream 3 is a movie that they will totally make fun of me watching for a fifth time. It means they care.

The Color Red

2007-02-08T15:40:00.000-08:00

[Josh is being all scholarly over at Berg With Fries and wants you to write a 500 word essay on M&M's. Dudes! He's even going to give you a free pack of M&M's if you send it to him! I did mine and I'm sharing it for some inspiration. Get to melting(that's, um, writing in M&M language).] If you ask my brother two things about his life that he will never ever forget, he will tell you this: 1) The first time he accidentally walked in on our parent’s having sex and 2) how M&M’s scarred him for life…literally. Growing up in a small town for a kid doesn’t leave too many opportunities for excitement. So, it was no surprise that when my mom would offer me and my brother a little something in the candy aisle while we a had a long day of errands ahead of us, our excitement could not be contained. The catch? We had to SHARE what we picked out. This involved, of course, making a unified decision and understanding that the sharing of this chosen candy would be 50/50 if not 60/50 for the simple fact that I was the oldest. It was always a high as we ripped open the wrapper in the backseat of our parent’s Ford Escort. It distracted us and taught us how to really appreciate the small things in life. But on this particular day, there was something in the air. It was on this day where I decided it was my authority to demand all the red M&M’s. If you know anything about pop culture, you know that all M&M’s are created to taste equally. With that, it was insane to demand such a thing…you know, one color. But, hell, I had two years on him and had just learned how to upper cut that summer from a neighbor kid who totally tried that punch move on me. And I KNEW that red had that special flavor. I. Just. Knew it. “All red are mine.” I demanded. “Nope.” He responded. With that, he dumped the bag in to his palm and licked ALL of the colors. Even the red. In that moment, when his tongue went back in to his mouth and the M&M’s were glistening from brother spit, I knew I had to defend my right as eldest. The problem: I hadn’t really practiced my upper cut on…well…anyone…and when my arm swung out and smacked him in the face…I had accidentally used my nails and dragged them along the left side of his cheek. He shrieked. My mom pulled over and smacked me right back in my face. And now, at 21, my brother has three pale white scars on his cheek from the day M&M’s took ahold of me. If you ask me if I feel bad about it, I will lie and say “Of course! That was a very immature thing for me to do and I regret causing physical harm over such a petty situation.” But, that’s a lie.. I don’t regret it. See, some great people in history fought for freedom. Other great relics fought for individuality. I’d like to think that I’d go down in history as being “the prick older brother who totally stood up for what he believed in.” And this older brother believed in how much better sweet revenge and red M&M’s taste compared to all those other sissy colors.

On Making Sense

2007-02-07T07:06:00.000-08:00

"Well, are you a light or a dark?" "Excuse me?" I say...I mean, I didn't know this was like picking out coffee. "Well, sweetie, do you like low hints or high hints in your scents?" "Wait, they have heights?" I respond back to him. "Like, inches, feet?" The cosmetics guy is NOT amused. Then Andie, not Andy, goes on for at least three minutes about the science of cologne. He describes the work and devotion that goes in to designing a smell that will be carried by millions while they are on their way to work or going on a first date or trying to impress a client or just plain trying to get laid. He then describes that there are different "tones" in scents. The first layer is the layer you smell right away in the instant. The second is what sizzles why you wear it. The third is sort of where you linger when someone smells you as you walk by or what is left behind hours after you wore the scent. I mean, I'm not a complete imbecile. I do know the difficulties and science that goes in to concocting a designer cologne or perfume. I once read in Vogue that Sarah Jessica Parker, you know in her after Sex in the City and really need to get myself out there before people forget how cute and wonderful I am days, describes her passion for creating the perfume she designed. She would walk the city and in stores and on vacations and take notes on scent tones remembering which ones went well together. She even made her own at home using oils. I sort of feel cheated. I don't know about you, but there is something about scents. Some people will tell you that you don't have to wear anything...a natural scent is the best. Some will tell you to own many so you smell different for different events. One person actually told me on my seventeenth birthday that I should choose ONE scent and stick with it the rest of my life...as it would be the smell that everyone would remember you by...which is actually quite scary at age seventeen. But when did picking out scents ever make any sense? But as I wander department stores and boutiques to find my new perfect scent... the one that will keep me light and airy and almost natural and fresh only leaves me feeling(and most likely smelling) pressured. "I like light and fresh and almost orange/citrus smells..." Trying my best to beat the pressure and sound smell smart, I tell Andie this back at the cosmetics counter. "Scents, love, scents...smells are what come from the garbage." He replies back. SEE, I can't even talk about smells...I mean scents...let alone pick my new one. I know, I have it so rough. Such pressure.

The Grape Escape

2007-02-06T09:12:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago, I watched a girl shoplift. I watched her open her purse and put three different shades of markers in to her purse. The low volume of the music that played over the loudspeakers and the hum of the lights and the gentle pushing of carts in aisles next to ours was all that could be heard. That and my conscience. For the next ten minutes I wandered through the art store with that voice that attacks your head. The one that is sometimes high pitched and whiney and annoying and makes your stomach turn and then helps unsurface the guilt. I left the store with my paid purchases and didn’t say anything. I tell people that story and they do one of three things: 1) Get upset that I didn’t say anything 2) Agree with me that I did the right thing and stayed out of it 3) Start telling me THEIR versions of when they shoplifted. And it’s that third thing that I just don’t get. I don’t have a shoplifting story. Not. One. O.K. Well, one. But it only involves grapes...and a fanny pack. See, there was this small private own produce market right down the street from my parent’s house. It’s one of those places established way back when where the people who established it are stilling running it even if they are in their early seventies and just don’t know the idea of inflation. Which, you know, is good for you and your watermelon obsession but bad for them when you know they have four kids that they put through college and that this store was their only income. Anyway, it was one of those kinds of places. No “value cards” to get discounts and definitely no bruised and ignored fruit. Their fruit was amazing. It had detail. It had charisma. No, seriously, these folks knew their fruit. And growing up, it was one of my favorite places to go. They called me “son” and told me that when I got older I could work at the store with them. Which was a charming idea in theory, but I knew that I hated doing manual labor and watching them wash the fruit by hand was too manual for me. But it was in August when my mom took me in there to pick out what kind of fruit I wanted for a fruit salad she was making for my birthday party. I perused the aisles with a list I had made in my head. I wanted watermelon, of course. I wanted pine apple and cherries and blueberries. And then it happened. I got hungry. We hadn’t had lunch yet and knew that if I didn’t eat anything soon I was going to pass out. Dramatic? Yes. True? No. But there were these grapes and…they were just so purple and amazing. I yelled for my mom. She was too busy, though, talking to the owners of the place. They were talking about azaleas or some sort of flower. So, I took it upon myself to feed that selfish hunger. I took a huge bunch of grapes and stock them in my fanny pack. I mean, it was the early 90’s. Those were in. I looked around for any possible cameras the old folks may had invested in to…and when I saw nothing but old circus posters they collected on the walls…I zipped up that fanny pack and stood by my mom waiting to go. In the car on the way to our next errand stop I asked my mom wanted grapes. “We didn’t buy grapes.” “No. but I have some.” And I opened my fanny pack to reveal those delicious purple circles. My mom slammed on the breaks and gasped. “Did…did you take those? Did you steal those?” I hadn’t really thought about what it was called…but now that she had mentioned it…yes, I suppose I had borrowed them without asking. Then she said this: “If they lose their business and their house and you never get a fresh watermelon again…all you can blame is yourself…and no one else...just think about it…you may have just put them out of business. They might actually live on the street because you just stole those grapes. That’s it…you just ruined their lives!!! My mom will now deny the fact that she deployed the guilt factor on to my so thick-like. She will tell you she probably shamed me and told me never to do it again. She probably will lie to you and tell you that she drove back and made me return them. But, I’m the truth when she installed a forever guilt on taking things that do not belong to me. I never borrowed anything without asking, again. For a good month or so I just kept thinking about this dog those produce shop owners had in pictures framed behind the counter. It was a collie and I just imagined me starving him because I had stolen their profits and they had to feed themselves and not dog. And worse, I totally got karma that birthday when I didn’t get my new bike but I did get a savings bond. So, when I tell people that I let the marker girl go without turning her in, I realize that I am probably being a wuss…but I also know what guilt does and I also know what karma does and I also know what fanny packs can do…and I know that people learn from their mistakes and people can be blinded by stupidity. I only hope when that girl uses those markers she accidentally colors outside the lines and ruins her entire project. Karma and grapes are a bitch.

In Response to a Friend Who Said : "How Are You Always So Optimistic?"

2007-02-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

Do you remember your first kiss? No, really. I mean it. I mean, do you really remember THAT first kiss with the one you love? With that one that made you just start beating to a different drum: You know. You're at the front step of your apartment building or you're in the hallway of your foyer or you're inside of your car and it's chilly out. But you're so close. It's like magnets attracting as your faces beginning to wade in to each other. I mean, your noses are pratically touching. You can feel the hot breath of the other person shoot out of them. Then, your neck tilts...and their neck tilts. And then you close your eyes. And they close their eyes. And the lips touch. They press on to each other.You can taste their chapstick or not. You can taste their red wine or not. You can taste that taste you only taste when your lips are on skin...on soft fleshy skin. And...and then there is this feeling of dropping and of trying to stay in that position for as long as possible. And then feeling yourself start to blow apart from each wing of your body. Like, from the botton of your heels to your finger tips to your spine to your heart and then just like colors start exploding through your eyes and you are gone you are just absolutely...totally...gone. All that matters is that you are sitting right there in that moment being so close to that someone that you have had a crush on forever or fell in love with way back when and now something is coming out of or, hell, you just got home from a bar and are high as a kite wasted and are just making out. But there is something in that moment that is so irreplacable. That explosion. That feeling of beats inside of you sorta of coming together and making you flutter and making that few seconds a song. Sometimes, people say to themselves...why live? You know, they're the ones that are hating that they are broke or hating that they don't have the best job in the world or hating that they have too many windows in their house to wash or too much work or too many calls to return or too many bills to pay. Life gets complicated. Life gets dull. But we forget that there are little explosions in life. The ones that don't hurt, but look fantastic as they blow apart--like fireworks. It's in those moments...whether it's a first kiss or in finding out you know exactly what you want to do with your life or just hearing a song that you know will change your life...those moments are the moments we live for we can call them... Happy Explosions...

On Being Careful With Certain Things

2007-02-02T21:40:00.000-08:00

The day I lost my grandmother, I was holding her hand. She was breathing very patiently as if with each bit of air she brought in to her body were extra seconds she could hold on to life... to hold on to my hand. I am remembering this because I bought flowers. See,growing up in my house, you had to understand a few things. We weren't rich. I mean, we weren't poor...but we didn't spend our money on things that we could make ourselves or get our own of. This included things like pillows and paintings and dinners and flowers. We never bought flowers. It just was something that wasn't done. So, in the winter our vases would be stuck behind the crock pot and waffle iron--you know, in cabinets where things go that do not get used often. There would only be the smell of things cooked in the oven or of candles that my mom had made and burned. But never fresh flowers. No, fresh flowers came in the early spring when tulips arrived. See, my mom had many gardens and many flowers planted all around our yard. If you were in an airplane and hovered above our neighborhood, our house would stick out with blotches of pink and yellow and red and purple--tulips and roses and flowers crawling from out of the ground. My mom learned all she knew from her mother-in-law, my grandma. When she married my dad, my mom sorta started bonding with my grandma. My mom has a mom, but this was a different kind of mom--my dad's mom was attentive to things. She had a way to keep things alive. She had plants all over the house. She gave advice to my mom on how to succeed in raising an orchid and they always "split" plants which basically means sharing the bulbs and roots of a plant and replanting to have a new one grow. My mom and grandma talked about plants and talked about flowers and trees and grass and anything that ate those things. Like my mom had a deer problem one summer and all my grandma and mom talked about was ways to "get them deer back!" So, in the summer...every summer I can remember...was the time we were eccentric and expensive and glamorous. We had fresh flowers all over the house. In the bathroom and kitchen table and we even made bouquets and took them to our teachers. The house always felt so alive and so colorful and smelled like long nights out in the back yard...and no school...and swing sets...and ice cream...and just being crazy young. But then like going in slow motion: These things get taken away...or it becomes difficult to look at these things and not have your heart break every time to take a sniff of something. This past summer we had no fresh flowers in my parent's house. Every visit I made...there was never one vase or one arrangement. It was the first summer of a flowerless house. It was the first summer with a grandma-less life. But, sometimes something just comes over you when you are shopping for wheat pasta or for tortillas or for coffee beans at the food market. You turn the corner to head towards the bottle water where a cooler of lillies are blossoming and you just can't take your eyes off of them. You just know you have to have them in the deadest coldest day of winter. You know that it would just do something to the coffee table that needs something to be done to it. And there they are. On our table. It smells different in here. Sorta like summer. Sorta like when I was little and didn't have to worry about anything. It smells sort of like when my grandma was still alive. When I lost her, I was holding her hand. She was wearing her white nightgown and there was soft music waving in the room. The room smelled of lilies...some of her old co-workers had sent her a bouquet of them...they knew those were her favorite. It's funny how smells and love and memories never REALLY go away...

Live from the Red Line

2007-02-02T14:42:00.000-08:00

So, I'm on the train this afternoon and I hear this: It's coming from a girl. She's, like, in her early twenties. She has her headphones on. Her eyes are closed and she's bellowing this out of her mouth. Like, if she was in her bedroom all alone with the doors locked. Like, if all her roommates were out of the house she lives in while she goes to college and she had the speakers screaming this song and she is singing to it word. for. word. And nothing stops her. Nothing. She sits in the corner seat against the window. Her head resting on her reflection and every time she hits the high notes. "AND YOU AND YOU AND YOU" she squints her eyes. She crunches her forehead and she crinkles her nose. It's like it is being forced out of her. She sounds AMAZING. Like a reincarnation of Jennifer Hudson. People are staring at her, too. Her full on concert and rendition of Dreamgirls is grabbing people's attention. Like, business guys leaving work early for a Friday are stepping on the El and then they look around hearing this song coming from somewhere and then they realize it is someone singing from their headphones and they smile. Some high school kids get on at the next stop and see her in the corner and they kinda laugh at her. But then they stop when they realize how good she is. And this keeps happening at every station stop. But the girl, she keeps singing. Over the crunching of the shaking train against the tracks and the guy over the speakers saying "Doors Closing." "And I am telling you...I'm not going...." She vibrates her voice to the music. I, I am fascinated. Not by how well she can sing. Not the fact that she hasn't missed one note. Not the fact that she doesn't even seem to miss a word... like she had written the song or had to memorize it for a show she is in or an American Idol try out. It's not because I am getting chills from her breathes in between each long note where I close my eyes and remember the exact scene from the movie. I am fascinated by the fact that she doesn't care one dang bit about who is on that train or who is hearing her or who is looking at her or laughing at her or making fun of her. It's like she is on stage and with one spot light shooting down on her from above. The audience is blacked out and hushed. It's like her eyes are closed and she is there performing and in her moment and nothing will stop her. Absolutely. Nothing. My stop is next and the song is rounding to its end... "Love me. LOVE me. Love meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, you're...gonna...lovvvvvvvveeeeevvveeeeevvveeeeeeeeee meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..." And as she hits that final note, I step off the train and head for the exit. I smile...I literally tingle in admiration. I feel like I've been the luckiest guy to hear someone just let that out...I feel happy that there are people out there who aren't scared to be who they are. I feel good that you can learn from that...those people with such confidence...life is all what you make of it. It's all about who you are and has nothing to do with what you do for a living or how much money you make or what thread count your sheets are. It's knowing no matter what, the belief, that people are going to love you no matter who you are...and trusting that. Believing that. KNOWING that... "And you and you and you ....you're gonna love me...."

I like chocolate cake.

2007-02-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

Today is this blog's one year! Happy Birthday to it! And thanks for all the support to everyone that reads. I've met and gotten to know some great people. I do have a birthday wish list that I can send if anyone is interested and I love chocolate cake. I mean love it. Like, love it too much. Like. A lot.

On not going crazy

2007-02-01T08:23:00.000-08:00

Lists are everywhere in our apartment. Like, everywhere. Like, the other day Dave is cleaning his desk and he had to make a specific pile on the floor just for lists...next to the other piles of bills and unsharpened pencils and photographs and magazines unread. And, so, I start going through the lists and reading them out loud. Which isn't annoying to Dave at this moment because it's actually helping him remember why he is making these lists. Like, apparently he has to make a list of reasons why he made these lists in his head in order to keep these lists in manageable order. There are lists for the obvious like grocery lists and cleaning supply lists and lists of things he wants to accomplish in a day. But then there are other lists. Lists that are more like...philosophical. They usually incorporate diagrams and doodles and things that look like they belong on chalkboards in large university classrooms with some wirey haired man sketching them out while the rest of the students try to copy down the notes before the wirey haired man erases the board to start fresh. So, I am reading these lists...like "re-invent magazine subscribing" and "tailor pixelated images" on this one list. And I am lost. Confused by what he is trying to mean. And I read it over and over and over again and it sends me back to trying to learn German when I was in seventh grade. Seventh grade, in my middle school, was the first year you were allowed to pick up a language as an elective. I could hardly wait. Like, it was the biggest deal ever. I was going to be one of "THOSE" people. Someone who could speak TWO languages and not just be one of those "NORMALS" who could barely grasp the idea of one language. I was just. so. cocky. Anyway, the first couple of weeks were fun. We had to pick out our German names. And heck, I met my first "girlfriend" in that class. We sat next to each other and had to practice dialogue to each other. She was all. "Hallo, Ich heisse Maggie." Which means "Hello, my name is Maggie" And I was all, "Guten Tag, Ich heisse Byron." And then we started practicing counting and then when Valentine's Day rolled around we learned how to say we loved things...in which on that gracious Feb 14th I received a folded notebook note with a big heart that said "Ich Leibe Dich." I told her I loved her too. But things got harder as the semester progressed. No more counting. Now, it was time to learn how to tell people where the pies were. Or how to pick up your socks or what time it would be in an hour or how to get from the library to the discotheque. These things were not easy to do. There would be words on the page, like just letters that looked like they weren't arranged properly to what I was used to. And we had to not only say these words out loud properly but also know what they really mean. Like, totally understand what the words really meant. Me and Maggie, we were like a foreign language too. I didn't understand why we had to keep passing notes during class when in 45 minutes would be in the hall on to our next class we had together. I also didn't understand why she had to call me after school when we both had just gotten off the bus. I also didn't understand why she expected me to buy her a birthday present that was more than a gift certificate to an ice cream place. "I want jewelry!" And that was it. I stopped trying to get German and I stopped trying to get girls...for good. So, now I am back at Dave's desk reading this list of just foreign ways...like adjectives with words I would have just never used myself and I put the list back on the floor with the others and get ready to walk away and go start cleaning my desk when I realize that was what I have always done...just let things get by me...if they were not what I was used to or what I was accustomed to...I would set them aside and do things I KNEW I was good at. So, I bit the bullet and asked Dave to translate his list. And he did. And it was understandable. I now speak boyfriend.

On Going Extinct

2007-01-30T09:12:00.000-08:00

I feel bad for kids these days. They don't get enough Snow Days. See, Snow Days were like life's spontaneous gifts. Like, you know when some relative or a friend of yours totally realizes that they missed your birthday and send a card with cash or gifts past due. One day you got to the mailbox and you have a package or a pretty stationary envelope and you open it to find that you have received an unplanned surprise. Snow Days, to me, were just like that. It was a day given to you at random. Like, you'd go to bed prepared for that stupid chemistry quiz and book report on Wuthering Heights...then the next morning you get up to pour a morning bowl of cereal to have your mom and her messy hair inform you that " the news lady said your schools are closed today...go back to bed for a bit!" And that is just what you'd do. It felt like an extra Saturday was handed to you...or another President's Day or even a freebie sick day. It was on these days where I would call all my neighbor friends and invite them to come sledding at the hill up the street. We'd get our innertubes and blow them up heading to the hill. There we would race and connect our tubes together with scrap rope and then slide until our faces were numb for diving in the to snow when we flipped over on our sleds. Then we'd go over to some neighbor kid's house and his or her mom would make us some hot chocolate or warm up some cider or totally just give us cookies on a warm plate and we would recap the day with who did what and who liked who and which teacher sucked the most and how we all hoped the next day would be another Snow Day and another day just like the one we had. But that never happened. We would get up and just like anything that life that is thought of too frequently or planned too much or just supposed to happen, it didn't happen the way we wanted to. The roads were clear and it was sunny and the temperatures of that day were supposed to melt some of the ice and snow away leaving a mushy brownish color along the roads from all the dirt from tires that collects in the fresh snow. I think, if we should be upset about anything when it comes to global warming and big companies destroying the planet and farmers using chemicals they know they shouldn't be using and even people who drive too much,we should be upset about the Snow Says and how kids these days just...well...they just don't get it. Snow Days, those are going extinct like the mystical animals we read about in encyclopedias or in science journals. Snow Days, will only be something of the past with no room for new memories...like mine...to form in.

Happy Anniversary To Us, Mr. Chicago.

2007-01-29T09:43:00.000-08:00

I once told someone this: "I do what I say." We were at a cookout in someone's backyard. It was summer and I was nineteen and I was naive and I could hardly grow serious facial hair...but THAT, "I do what I say" was something I knew 100% about. Like, I knew few things at that time about myself and about life and challenge and struggle. But as I bit in to my veggie burger and chewed on it, I realized that from then on I would HAVE to live by those words. Or, well, I would be a hypocrite. So, when I was twenty and while sipping on an illegally consumed cocktail at some bar I had snuck in to when I was going to college back in Wisconsin, I had told one of my good friends, "I'm moving to Chicago." Keep in mind.I had not even thought out details. I just knew in that moment of cocktail buzzing and explosive ideas and all that fun stuff that comes out of talking to people with drinks in hand that I was going to do it. I was going to pack all my young adult things in to a few boxes, I was going to transfer my college credits to a REAL art school and I was going to be what I have always wanted to be. A city boy. And with that, I did it. I hunted for a studio apartment in a city I had visited four times in my life. I went to at least seventeen properties. I cried when I took the train home thinking if I could not find a place that this could quite possibly not be in my cards...like, if I can't even find a place to live...maybe the city isn't right for me. Maybe I was a dope for even making this happen. So, then. It happens. I find it. A literal hole in the wall. This place that always smelled like the mixture of pot and cheap girl perfume. A place that dripped lots of water from the ceiling. Within these four years things like this happen: 1)I found my first job. 2)Then, I found my first group of friends. 3)Then, I found my first date. 4)Then, I found my first heartbreak and then another heartbreak and then I had to find it in me to break someone else's heart. 5)Then, life continued on...in this city. See, today is is my five year anniversary living in Chicago. I have lived in four cities and have only stayed in those places for, at most, 7 months. I've never found a place that made me feel like I could evolve. Or even feel comfortable in. But it was here, in Chicago, where I have learned so much about life about people about living about growing up about understanding there is so much out there that you may not ever experience all of what is out there...but it's out there and you now know it. It's funny how some people say things they don't mean. Sure, we all do it at some point. BUT, there is just something about succeeding in doing something that you SAID you were going to do. There is something awesome to the feeling that you have seen yourself become a new person in a place you moved to not knowing a dang person. It's perfect to look at this snowy and cold and crabby January day and totally say to yourself.... "I love this city".

How Saturday Can Be Good On An Air Mattress

2007-01-28T08:48:00.000-08:00

My boyfriend is great for the reason that he knows how to make a mean cup of french pressed coffee and he knows how to program our remote when it goes on its own fritz and needs to have some secret code typed back in to it when it goes on this fritz and this code is something I can never remember and therefore boyfriend is great for this reason. Also, my boyfriend throws great slumber parties. I like slumber parties. Every since I was in early teens, a Saturday night could not be any better than crashing in your BFF's basement watching T.V. super late and jumping on his dad's mini-trampoline that they kept in his workout room while playing air guitar to The Cranberries. But, there is something more fun about a slumber party with your now boyfriend at the ripe age of twenty something. You know, no parents around. It goes like this: The air mattress(this one we got for a great deal so that when friends and family come we can toss ourselves on that and let them have our bed instead of trying to spoon on a couch because if you have ever tried spooning on a couch for too long you will realize become anti-spooning and that is anti-cool) comes out of the closet and finds its way in our living room. "What ya doing" I say. "Nothing" Boyfriend says. But that nothing is totally something that is up his sleeve. Then the electric pump goes on and he fills it up to the brim and then plops down on it and goes "Wanna have a slumber party with me?" And of course you say, "duh." And so the rest of your Saturday night does not involve bars or paying a lot for drinks or eating out or going to crowded movie theatres. It involves Netflix, magazines, laptop computers, humming theme songs to t.v. shows and having each other guess which songs they are. See, sometimes Saturday nights have such pressure. Like, you live in the city and you have to do something so freak'n cool it's insane how cool it is to constitute a Rock'n Sat. Night. You now, you go to work the following week and everyone goes "what did you do this weekend?" and you all compare and contrast war stories and everyone ALWAYS goes "WOOOOOOWWWW" when someone says "I was out til 630 dancing at Crobar with all these movie stars and hot models and I like threw up all night and had a hangover the next day but MAN I wouldn't change it...ever." But, me, sometimes that can be fun. You know, hanging with movie stars and all. But sometimes hanging with my french press coffee making boyfriend on an air mattress in the middle of our apartment is like being in a movie of our own. And Jake Gyllenhaal would totally play me. Right.

So, this is weird...but...

2007-01-27T06:44:00.000-08:00

I'm on the train the other night reading my new book which is super good. You know, your nose tucked in between pages. Occasionally, you look up to see if anyone you know has gotten on at the next stop...or even to to try to lock the voices you are hearing chattering around you to faces--and most of the time the faces are NEVER what you imagine those voices belonged to. Anyway, so the rumbling of the train as it hops on the track and the vibrations and shaking as the old pieces of metal speed downtown. Then. Then, there he is. You. Well, not you. He...looks. He looks just like you. You know, you'll be meeting up with friends at some sushi restaurant or pizza place or Indian joint and you guys will be sitting down at a table and then to start up some convo one of your friends goes: "Oh my god, by the way, I thought I saw you the other night at the bar...but it totally wasn't you...but this guy looked JUST. LIKE. You. No, seriously, he looked just like you. " You know when people do that, right? And you usually just laugh it off and be all like...well, I'm one-of-a-kind and I guess my friends just don't know me because if they knew they would know that NOBODY looks like me. And then, you know, you move on and never think of this moment again. But, back on the train, you can't help but be in shock. Because the guy who just got on and is across from you listening to his ipod literally looks just like you. Like, when you look away and then look back it scares you because you think you are in a a room with a giant mirror in your face. This guy, though, not only had my nose and my hair style and my way of hair growth on the face and my creases in the forehead and even my height...he did the same things I did. So, keep in mind...I'm not starting at this guy...technically. I am looking at him through his reflection of the window of the train. Sometimes, at night, reflections bounce back perfectly so you can spy on people...to pass the time. So, not only does he look like me...but he answers his cell phone like me...and listens to voice mails like me...like...like he takes the phone while waiting for someone to answer and taps it on his ear! And then the guy stands the way I stand when I am standing on the train. And then he gets off at the same stop as me! And then he...well, goes down a different street and I most likely never see him again. BUT. It's funny how in that moment you can experience so many things...like jealously...like...wait dude...I'm me...not you...and you experience excitement like...woah, this is what it could feel like to have a twin. Then you experience weirdness...because it's like...what if there are copies of us all over the place and we aren't really supposed to meet them...and what if we accidentally do. Then, it's time for a nap. Because some days of seeing someone that looks like you can be so mentally exhausting to a guy who always kinda wished there was two of him to go around.

Imagine Me & You

2007-01-25T16:48:00.000-08:00

I know. I'm a little behind the times. But go rent this movie. Please. Then, think about how good it is even if it is cheesy. Then, let's cry together.

Dude.

2007-01-25T14:52:00.000-08:00

I received an anonymous email from someone the other day through my blog that said this: "Dude. Your posts are too long. Good,but long. I get bored." So, this morning I am flossing my teeth and then I am putting my shoes on and then I am walking to get my morning fix and and I start getting rowdy...cause I keep thinking about this anonymous. I'm all(in my head) Well, Dude! Maybe your laziness has nothing to do with me and maybe it's not my fault that that that maybe you just can't finsish something that would be like two pages on a word document or maybe you just don't get that sometimes a story should be longer because there is a lot to say or maybe then you just stop reading my blog because you make me wanna go back to writing in my notebook where I hide all my good stuff because of people like you that write weird things that don't make sense because its my blog and they are YOUR eyes so your eyes don't have to get all busy on my blog if they don't wanna and I don't mind because sometimes you just shouldn't do something that you aren't good at...like when I was a boyscout. I wasn't a very good boyscout. I was never prepared. I hated camping. And the idea of getting dirt under my nails from building a campfire (FROM SCRATCH!) See, I accepted that I wasn't a good boyscout and I stopped being one. Not that I want you to NOT read this blog, but if you aren't good at reading long things then you should stick to non-long things--depending on what "long" means to you. But then I feel bad because, well, what if it hurts the eyes of anonymous to read on a computer and instead of admitting to his/her faulty eyes he/she just said it was boring when it was too long and I don't ever pick on people with handicapps and then I felt bad that I called someone handicapped when I didn't really know if they were or not. So Anonymous, thank you for reading and thank you for your advice...and thank you for reminding me of my boyscout failures and thank you more making me say handicapped when I am not sure if you are handicapped. But I like certain long. Long walks. Long talks. Long arms for when things fall behind the fridge and I need long arms to grab it for me. Long vacations. AND long blogs. (Wait, so are my blogs too long?! What constitutes a long blog? Am I breaking blog rules!?)

.25 Crisis Kid, Age 17

2007-01-24T07:09:00.000-08:00

On my seventeenth birthday,I was asked what I wanted from my parents and I said: "I want fame." My mom, a quiet country girl with just as quiet morals...and my dad, a conservative corporate guy who loved watching war documentaries looked at me from across the dinner table the night they asked me that and responded with this: "What else is on your list?" But what they didn't get was I didn't just want, oh you know, a big box full of fame with a pretty bow wrapped around it. I DID want to work towards it. So, with that...I asked for guitar lessons. I don't know if any of you have ever taken music lessons at your local music supply store--you know that place you drive by that's usually in between a Cost Cutters Hair place and a Subway sandwich shop. But, if you haven't...it goes a little like this: The place smells like, well, guy sweat and maybe a bit of oldness from the refurbished instruments and a bit like spit...dried spit. Usually there is rock music playing or classical music--never country though. Then there will be three to four guys working there and they will either have long hair or tattoos or be in college with no goals and just love pot or be all three of the aforementioned combined in to one person. And, of course, when you want to buy your first guitar they are going to take you to the "tough shit". And, let me tell you, shopping for the "tough shit" with your mom is like having the sex talk with her...you can just feel your testicles kinda hide inside of you--fearing. "Tough Shit" of course being an electric guitar. But, you had the dream of being like a folk singer and broke the dreams of your father and best friend and the three to four guys at the guitar store when you told everyone and them that you wanted an acoustic guitar..."like Jewel's, please!" You know, the singer? You buy this guitar there and you buy a case and your two intro books that you can not stop paging through and on the car ride home your mom goes "Well, what kind of music are you gonna learn?" And I look at her and I go with the toughest voice a boy who just bought the same acoustic guitar as Jewel could have and say "I'm gonna write my own!" As I drove me and my Jewel inspired acoustic guitar to my first lesson at the same music store, I day dreamed about how big I was going to become. I mean, I had just made the biggest decision...and I had just gotten one step closer to my goal. TWO STEPS, if you counted that I was on my way to my first lesson! I pictured this: Tour buses, money, L.A. with a house in the hills, starting my own charity foundation, red carpet events, and even...well, even some hot arm candy--guy arm candy of course! But this...this vision would soon be Windexed out of my heart as I stepped in to my first lesson with Al Morris. Al Morris looked like he had partied a lot when he was, well, my age. He looked like he kept that partying up until...well, last night. A forty year old man with bags under his eyes from too much partying is sad...it's like seeing a great pair of shoes on sale and then finding out the only size they have left is a five for men--and no one wears a five in men's. Anyway, I bring my guitar and sit it next to me in this small small room that is the same size of an average dressing room at a department store and Al looks at me and he coughs a little in to his shoulder--a smokers cough--like chunks kinda. Then flexes his weak muscle to pick up his guitar and says: "So, how long do you think you're gonna last at this?" "Excuse...excuse me?" I asked. I was shocked. I mean, shocked and offended! How dare he thinks I give up my dreams on the first lesson. "Well, I know your kind--you see Bob Dylan or Nirvana or...whoever the fuck you kids listen to and then you tell yourself your gonna be them...so you tell mom and dad to get you those lessons and then...you don't come back after a month...some of yous don't come back after the first lesson!" Well, I was just beside myself. I mean, how dare he think I wanted to be Bob Dylan or Nirvana?! I mean, Dylan? No way...he was like perfect--no one could be him...even I knew that...and Nirvana--ew! They weren't cute...they weren't cute like Jewel was cute--blonde hair messed up teeth and cute songs about flowers and love and being poor and saving the world. "Well, AL." I say firmly. "I am here to learn for awhile...and the only person that has gotten me to this point was Jewel...not Nirvana." And at that point I take out my guitar and start strumming it to tune it. Tuning, I taught myself. Al said this: "Um, Jewel?" I said this: "Um, yah." Proudly. I mean, he probably thought I was going to be like the other guys he taught--all macho and head banging and tough and you know, chick friendly. He was all: "Jesus. Christ." And shook his head and taught me how to read a few notes which I caught on quickly because I had played the trumpet before...and then he taught me the notes on the guitar. At the end of the lesson, Al says this: "You're gonna have to spit on your fingers so when they callouses start, they don't hurt...you know, when you play." When he said THAT...it was as if we were at war...and he was ready and armed to shoot anything at me to get this Jewel wannabee out of his class for good...like he was going to rocket punch me with anything he thought a Jewel wannabee would never want to know about the sport...the sport of being a rock star. "Wait, you...you have to spit on your fingers?" I said...making sure I was clear with this disgusting suggestion. I mean, SPIT ON YOUR FINGERS?! I mean, ew! Seriously...who does that?! Jewel...she doesn't do that...she didn't...did she? I mean, no...flowers and love and poor people...she would never spit on herself...and callouses! I mean, that's not gonna really happen, right? Your fingers aren't going to be rough and tough like a workman's hands are they? I took pride in my skin moisturising technique. "Cool." I said back...with the pit of my stomach queasier than ever. I did not go back to my next lesson. I told my mom that Al had farted in the small tiny room we learned in reeked of gross and I just couldn't subject myself to such horror. She just nodded...nodded like she knew this was coming and nodded like she knew there was going NOW going to be a guitar in the basement. And, so what. I thought about it while on my way to my way to the last day of my junior year of high school. I'm seventeen, I think to myself, I can marry in to fame. Hell, I could be famous for just being me. It's funny how naive you are when you are young. You think you got it all planned out. You look at your parents and you say to yourself--"Yo, guys! Why didn't you get together like I can? I mean, geez...who dreams about living in Wisconsin and working all the time? Let's be famous!" But then, you see a picture of your mom holding her guitar at sixteen...like two years later when you are home from college for the weekend. It's in a photo album you've never looked through...and the look...the look in her eyes in that picture--the same look I probably had when I approached her wanting to be famous. Dang.

How Alarming.

2007-01-22T12:31:00.000-08:00

The other night I'm making something on the stove and because we don't live in one of "those" places(those= places that have hoods over their stoves so smoke collects and therefore makes the rest of this story not happen to them) we have to open windows so smoke can get out and we have burn candles so our clothes do not smell like chicken sausage sauteed with a fine pepper sauce. Sometimes, though, this whole cooking with ventilation thing is so unsuccessful...like, I'm cooking this chicken sausage and then the whole place starts filling with smoke and then Dave's eyes water and then we are flailing around with dish towels and coughing and then...and then the smoke detector goes off. "Oh my gosh!! AHHHHH!" Is what Dave says when it goes off. "Ah! What do we do!" I ask Dave. So, the stud that he is, it comes to Dave's mind to just remove the battery--which, you know, is totally cool cause then it's quiet and I can stop feeling like a bad cook which I totally am not, but you get that vibe when there is a lot smoke hovering in your apartment. Well, that was two weeks ago. Now, I don't know about you...but I don't look UP in my apartment that often. You know, like to the ceiling. So, this morning when I was drying my hair and brushing my teeth at the same time and I just so happen catch the angle of UP towards where the smoke detector is I notice it was still unplugged. FLASHBACK: When I was little and in fourth grade we had safety week. Each day a different community helper(i.e. officers, firefighters, paramedics) came in to our class and told us a bit about how to take good care of us and others. Well, on firefighter day, we would do the following: 1) Practice crawling on the floor with the lights off to show what it would be like to be in a dark room with smoke above us. 2) Practice STOP DROP AND ROLL! 3) Talk about fire extinguishers and smoke detectors. So, the firefighter decided to go around and ask each one of us if we knew where our fire extinguishers and smoke detectors were located in our house. Annette, this loud-mouthed red head girl...she was all: I'm perfect, I know where they all are. Mark, this short big glasses lisp kid...he goes: "Here and there and here." Everyone before me knew exactly where these contraptions were in their house Then it gets to me. Mr. Firefighter goes: "So, do you know where yours are?" And I'm all: "Well, um...yes...yes, I know there is one right outside of my bedroom...I think...yup...right outside in the hall...but it doesn't work." The firefighter leans in and literally gets his face in to mine. "And why is that, son?" He asks. "Well, my boombox died the other day when I was roller skating in my basement and we were out of batteries...so, I went upstairs and pulled one out of the detector. It was the kind I needed!" I was proud. I was using my resources. The firefighter. He, he wasn't proud. He got in front of class and stood in front of the chalkboard and asked me for my name. I told him. Then he wrote it on the board. He went through the rest of the class...and everyone knew where their detectors were--and never had taken a battery out. So, after all that...the firefighter walked up to my name on the board. It was spelled wrong, too. And he goes: "We do not want to risk the lives of others like BRYON has, now do we?" He stared at me. "When we do stupid things with safety devices...we risk our mom's and dad's and siblings and pets and even other houses around us." He stared at me more. "When we touch things that don't belong to us...we get in trouble and we have to learn this lesson." He stared at me. "Byron, shame on you." My stomach dropped as did my confidence in safety...as I had just gotten a sticker from the Sheriff of my county yesterday saying I was an "Honorary Deputy for the safety knowledge I had." Now, that sticker meant nothing. So, now, I'm back in my apartment with a towel wrapped around me and my toothbrush and I am about ten minutes late for heading out to work...standing on a chair searching for where Dave put the battery thinking about everyone I'm risking and having my name on the chalkboard and and and just freaking out because that firefighter installed a guilt I've never felt again...the guilt of almost killing people. The guilt of being...being a CRIMINAL! I find the battery. I put it back in...feeling like I was going to save some lives. Did I mention I don't really like firefighters that yell at children? They're mean.

On being high

2007-01-22T09:04:00.000-08:00

O.K. So, now I know what Madonna feels like when she gets people to like stand up and applause and and like be like..."woah, you like did awesome!" Not, that I'm like...her. But, last night...I just thought you should know...the reading for 2nd story went something like this: Me in front of the audience: "Hi, I'm reading a story!" The audience when I was done reading my story" TONS OF APPLAUSE AND HOOTING AND YAHS AND CHEERING AND LAUGHING AND MORE CLAPPING! And people are so super supportive when you put yourself out there. I had people come up to me and just describe their stories and how they related to what I wrote. And I had other people just give me a hug...I mean, people I've never met...(well, the wine probably helped that department) and I had all my friends there just egging me on to keep being who I am and I had the best team of writers there doing such an amazing job. Sometimes, you are part of something that is so big you can't wrap your arms around it enough to hug it at least as much as you'd like. Do something like that for yourself. Do something that totally makes you just so damn happy. Because it makes everything else that sometimes doesn't make you 100% happy a little higher percentage of happier.

When You Are In The Dark

2007-01-20T11:59:00.000-08:00

There is something beautiful to the way a television screen splashes color at you when you watch a movie in the dark. The way, when you are watching something, the dark allows you to experience a moment in a much different way than if you were in bright room lamps or if it was sunny out. It’s as almost you are more private. The dark, it’s like your bedsheets when you were little…when you’d cover your head during a lightning storm or when thunder cracked. You were instantly protected by these blankets, or by the dark, even though anything could still get you. It was easier to believe that it was no way harmful…that there was nothing there at all… if you just closed your eyes and hid. This is a beautiful thing in a bad way. See, I saw a movie last night that was about Africa. It was about how there are prescription drug companies testing and poisoning the unsuspecting population. Actually, the population believes that this drug company is their God. They actually believe that these people are there out of the goodness of their hearts. When they are there for their wallets. The movie rotates around a mystery plot of who is doing what and how they are getting away with it. But, that…that didn’t get me. What got me was this: Paris Hilton O.K. Not just her. But the likes of them all…like, Nicole Richie, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Star Magazine, Access Hollywood…etc. What I mean is, like, we all sit around and watch T.V shows and dish about who is gay and who is coked up and who is single and who has a nose job and who barfs peanut butter at her new boyfriend…it’s so easy. It’s all over the place. Oh my god, I know all about it. I’m just as guilty as knowing all of it…and being interested in it. But, while watching this…this African story…I just couldn’t stop thinking about Paris Hilton. How…how…she has all this money and she has all this fame and following and photographers and did I mention lots of money? All this stuff…this whole world…and she doesn’t do anything. She didn’t work for it. She didn’t bust her ass to get there. She got it from daddy and mommy. But what’s worse? That “Nothingness” she has in her life…she doesn’t even attempt to replace it with good stuff—with stuff like helping people not die. Paris does not even try to save lives? I don’t …I just don’t get it. So, please, don’t get me wrong. I know I could be doing more with my life and with my money and with my extra time and I know I am just as interested in these people if not for the laugh factor for the pathetic factor…and I am just as guilty as not educating myself on what is REALLY going on all over the world… but, I guess, I just couldn’t stop thinking about this one scene: This girl is twelve years old. She has no parents because they both died of A.I.D.S years ago. The only one she has is her ten-year-old brother. Well, this twelve-year-old is pregnant and she has a baby and he has to walk his sister 40-km to get to the nearest hospital to have the baby and then die. A twelve-year-old had a baby…and then died. Now, her ten-year-old brother takes care of it. While fighting A.I.D.S and hunger and even lies from a drug company. Meanwhile, Paris Hilton wore the same $10,000 dress twice. It’s in the dark, whether you are watching movies or oblivious to what goes on outside all you know…it’s in the dark where things are much different than the light…where it is just easier to believe there is nothing there at all.

So, Let's Talk About The Now

2007-01-19T13:40:00.000-08:00

The other night, Netflix did not show up. I had just finished reading another book and didn't really feel like getting up to start a new one right away(I mean, you have to let those kinds of things absorb--like the end of a good movie or a bad date...some things need breaths between them!) Anyway, I was paging through Time Out Chicago on the couch with Dave, at the other end, staring at me. He does this. Stares at me. Often, I will be rinsing the dishes or flossing my teeth or slurping on my latte when I look up from my own little world to see him staring at me. And it's not that creepy weird stare that people give you when they are off in a daze and using you to look at, but aren't really looking at you. It is stare of "yeah, he's mine." So we are on the couch and as he stares at me he goes " I totally can picture what you would have looked like as a little boy." I stop paging through "movies" section in the magazine and look at him and then look down at myself. Like, to check myself over. Like, was I wearing a little Snoopy t-shirt or did I have spaghetti sauce on my lip(or chocolate ice cream glued to my chin) or did I have my thumb in my mouth--all these things were me when I was little. So, I ask him..."How?" And then kinda wanna look at him like he's being rude to tell me that I look like a kid right now...and he was all "No, just how when you are really in to something you don't move anything on your face...or when you finally do move something on your face, it's like just your tongue or you bite your life. I can see what you would have been like doing your homework." If you know me, you know I like talking about when I was little. Mostly, because it is so funny how I survived being little. It wasn't like I had the life of Augusten Burroughs who had one hell of a childhood. But, you know, your kid-hood is like where you come from. And if it was a good one...you like looking back. If it was an awkward one you want to tell people the funny stories because it lets people see how you got to be who you are. It's just the way I like to do it. So, after Dave starts on the kid-hood thing...I start on the kid-hood stories. "Oh, my God, did I ever tell you how I threw a piece of ice at my brother when we had to shover the driveway in snow and totally got away with it because I lied and said the shovel slipped and it was hilarious because my brother had a black and blue eye for the next week and knew it wasn't an accident but I bribed him to not tell by letting him play player 1 on Nintendo instead of having to play player 2 which anyone and everyone who has ever played a video game knows that being player 2 might as well had meant you weren't playing because player 2 never had any control. " I wonder if that's why he always wants to go second when we have to decide who goes first. Like it was pounded in to him. I wonder if that's why I always feel like I have to do the first with everything out there...first to get a masters...first to live in the city..." "Hold it!" That's what Dave said to stop me from talking. "All I said is that I know what you totally looked like when you were a kid...it's like, you love being in the past. Like all you talk about when you want to relate something to me in the now...you have to go back to the then...and tell me this...and don't get me wrong I love hearing your stories and they are cute...but sometimes you talk more about the past more than you do the now." I sit on the couch now paging through the horoscope section in the magazine. There is a woman with a suitcase boarding a plane in the advertisement on the opposite page. She looks happy. She looks like she is ready to board that plane and jump ahead to her future...with only what she has in her hands. Nothing will hold her back. She is ready for anything. "O.K." I say this firmly...like someone had just demanded for me to take the trash out. "O.K. So, more talk about the now..." He smiled. But then he said..."Well, you can talk about the past...but I like you in the now, too. I like knowing what you're thinking in the now..." "I'm thinking I wanna go on vacation and you can pay!" I got inspired from the ad in the magazine. I mean, he wanted me to have now stories. What better way then to go somewhere and have all kinds of now stories to barf up at every conversation--especially if they take place in OHHH SAAYYY Paris? "So, Paris, right?" I say to him. He says, "It's cheaper for me when you think about being little. How about I get us some ice cream?" He says this like a dad offering a bribe. And of course, I took the ice cream offer in a heartbeat.

On Dropping the "F" Bomb or the "C" bomb can really be quite offensive.

2007-01-18T13:30:00.000-08:00

"My Fiance." " "Oh, yes, he's my Fiance..." "Who? My Fiance?" "Where is my Fiance?!" You know, when you are at someones small dinner party or backyard cook out and or in the grocery store or well, you are just anywhere where this is a very happy lady who just loves dropping the "f" bomb all over you. "Fiance." You know what I'm talking about. She's the one that can not have a conversation WITHOUT Fiancee in it. She's the one that can't use this said Fiance's name when she speaks of him. You even think she might actually call him "Fiance" when they are making spaghetti together. "Fiance, can you grab the flat noodles, please." or even while they are doing it "Oh, yes! YES Fiance! That's it! That's it Fiance...or you are so BAD fiance!!" You're happy for them...you really are. But when you JUST meet someone and they are dropping that "F" bomb all over the place...you just kinda wish not to meet them. So, now. You're sitting at work. Like me. At a gallery where you get to meet all kinds. I mean ALL kinds. Old and young and alternative and drugged up on prescription meds. Well, you are minding your own business. Reviewing some back stock orders when a guy with horribly offset teeth marches in to the space on his cell. "O.K. Well, I'll fly in just for your bday party. I'll fly into JFK airport. You'll pick me up, right?" "Oh, don't you worry..." he continues. I just did a film shoot for CBS...they'll pay for it.!" "Oh, no, CBS will totally cover it. CBS is good like that. It's good to work for CBS. They really take care of people....O.K. I'll see you then." After I roll my eyes, I ask the guy wearing a horrible unflattering suit if he needs any help. "Um, Yah, I'm flying to New York for a friend's birthday. Any good gifts? I go on to show him some great pieces. "Huh, well...I just got done with a photo shoot for CBS. I am so tired." "Oh, that's cool..."I say this with NO interest. "Yeah, CBS is great. It's a great company. I mean, CBS paid for my flight here. All my meals. Hell, CBS is going to pay for my watch repair. I love it. I love CBS." "Well, let me show you my favorite piece over here..." I try to change the subject. His phone rings. He goes on to tell who ever he is on the phone with that he is going to fly to NYC for just four hours and fly back because "it's on CBS" and "CBS paid for his lunch" and "No no no, CBS isn't like that." He turns around winks at me and leaves our space. Now, it is your turn to decide: Do ya think he has an inadequate tiny penis and drops CBS to show he is "worthy human being" or is name dropping CBS to him the same as a woman boring me to death with her Fiance talk at a summer afternoon barbecue. You be the judge. BESIDES! Who even watches CBS! Seriously.

On how to be a Push-Over...all in one week. (also, how to pray something doesn't break in your house again).

2007-01-17T12:25:00.000-08:00

"Oh my god. The guilt. I know. I know. I just...god, feel so bad about it. But, trust me ...we tried. We tried so so so hard to fix it...and to have it fixed and to, geez, just make it stop...but they don't listen to us!" I say this to my "Earth Conscious" Friend. She's sweet. Likes hemp. But wears leather shoes. You got me how that works. But, for her it does. "But, I mean, a dripping bathtub wastes a ton of water...I mean, just so much water...how long has it been doing this?" She says this as she pulls out her organic chapstick and then puts it back in her cute Gucci black purse. "Um, for a month...or maybe, a bit more." I sad this like a pup who was about to get swatted with a newspaper. I coward a little. O.K. a lot. Cause my Earth friend, she has a lot to say when it comes to saving the planet and to sexy new lipsticks that I always ask her if they are animal tested and then she always something back like "why don't we look at all YOUR hair products and face products and even your toothpaste and see who is calling the kettle black." "WHAT! A whole month! Oh my god. I need to leave and we need a drink and um you need that fixed pronto, asshole!" Gucci Earth saving girls are the best friends to have. They MAKE you finally MAKE your boyfriend call the landlord for the sixth time this month and FORCE him to come fix it. Boyfriend tells me: "Landlord says the water has to be off...he has to shut pipes off to fix it." I say: "Well, so?" BF. Says: "Well, he made it sound like that wasn't going to happen anytime soon." I say: "I'll call him." So, after I call him. He comes. I have the morning off and I know he is on his way. See, I've met this guy. Grumpy. Old. Smokes A LOT. Matter of fact...he was smoking when he knocked on my door. "Hey, you called about the leak?" He said in a tone that sounded like he would have rather asked me "Hey, you BITCHED about the leak?" I said yes, but couldn't keep my eyes off his cigarette. I mean, he was going to put that out before he came in, right? WRONG. He did not. He actually smoked it as he assessed the situation. (Get this: This assessment led to five minutes of "tap tap tap" on the shower head and "Tat tat tat" on the tub pipe. Then he was done). But he wasn't done talking to me. And he wasn't done smoking. Matter of fact. He smoked the entire conversation. ASHING, yes ashing, inside of my toilet and on the toilet seat. So, you're asking yourself this: Why didn't you ask him to stop? My answer: He was scary. Your question then would be: SO! That's gross and rude and wrong why didn't you stand up to him?! My answer: He wore stone washed jeans and spits in to a cloth and is missing a couple of teeth and called my bathtub a "god damn fucker" and left HUGE steel toed bootprints on my clean white tile floor and reeked of booze...like the tough shit...like scotch...like 100% vodka...and he called me "pal". AND AND!!!! He sounded like he would do voice work for scary movies--you know, the voice of the killer over the phone. Your next question: That's what I thought...you don't have one.

On Getting Your First Press Release

2007-01-16T07:59:00.000-08:00

So, in case you didn't know...or well, in case I really wanted you to know(through, of course, self promotion) I am reading at 2nd Story...which incase you didn't know this is one of my top fifty things in life to be a part of( because in case you didn't know...it's that great) and now I am a part of it. You should be there. If you can't. That's totally cool. Send some vibes. But I just wanted to show you that a little bit of hardwork(ha, ok. a lot of hardwork) and positive karma will get you places. It really does happen.

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Next 2nd Story: Sunday, January 21, 2007

Webster's Wine Bar / 1480 W. Webster / $10 at the door
(doors open at 7:00)

Featuring stories by Megan Stielstra, Ric Walker, Molly Each, and Byron Flitsch.

For more information on this and other Serendipity Theatre Company projects, please visit us at www.serendipitytheatre.org. Also take a quick peek at our 2nd Story Video, to learn more about the 2nd Story experience.

On Spurting.

2007-01-15T17:27:00.000-08:00

I used to have this thing against asparagus. Like, when I was a kid. I was so not in to it. When I'd walk in to the door after a long day of fifth grade and that smell of hot asparagus flapping in the kitchen's air...well, I'd gag a little and stomp my little fit in to my bedroom where I would pray that pizza would fall from the sky crush my kitchen and have thick crust as I always hated thin crust. "Eat it...now!" My mom barked this at me from the table. It would be just her and I at the table as we were not allowed to leave the table unless we finished our plates. And if asparagus was still on my plate...I was not leaving the table anytime soon. But quite literally...a year or so later...I was eating asparagus like it was green licorice. I couldn't get enough of each piece. I mean, to this day I am still like that. I love it. See also: Beer. Wine. Milk. Hemingway T.V. Snail Mail See...I went through phases...or spurts if you will...where I couldn't stand something and then I am obsessed with it and then it evens out to a nice long field of equalness. Like, I hated reading Hemingway in high school then about two years ago I picked up one of those books I HAD to read for high school and fell in love with it. It works like this: Sometimes, some things just aren't ready for us when we think we are ready or we have to be ready for them. For some people this involves love...for some other people...this involves career. For other people this involves pretty much anything. We think we will never have these things either. Like you say "Well, if it's not here now...then It's never going to be here." or "If I don't like milk at this age what makes me think I am going to change?" Well...you do change. That's the cool thing. Especially when you notice this at places like bookstores or when looking for places to vacation or even at a high end grocery store where you have a huge craving for a type of fish when back when you were a young guy who thought fish was the devil. We are weird like that. Us people. We have this spurts in life where we sit numb for some time and then we shoot off like grass in a well watered and sunny yard. It's fun too. You know spurts are coming...you just don't know when. It's like finding a song on an album that you have listened to but just didn't really get...until later...it's cool just to rediscover something that you thought you hated.

How Things Can Be Forever Strange

2007-01-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

The restaurant is tucked somewhere in a Wisconsin woods. Near a lake, that is dubbed an honorary sea for it's lack of fresh water type fish, but for it's exotic aquatic life often not found in other lakes in Wisconsin. And it is in this place: A guy playing a piano in this lodge-like bar. Waiters wearing black thick ties and vests as they lean in and deli ever drinks to the patrons who are wearing pearls and pressed slacks. They leave a napkin first, drop the drink down gently and nod to each receiver as if saying "is that all" but not having to say it because you do not talk in classy restaurants near faux seas. You just use your head. Also, there are candles lit at the table where you will be seated with your closest family members. Also, the menu is bound in leather to ensure permanence. Also, the piano music once heard in the bar now in the restaurant drifts through reminding you of that this estate has taste and culture and coconut shrimp and hand made rolls and salads with only the freshest ingredients. But in this place, this place of luxury, you find that it is still not perfect. There is still a large flaw to the spotlessness of the bathrooms tiled with what seemed to be chiseled out of ancient stone. There seems to be a huge problem in the absolutely stunning silver pieces they serve after dinner coffee on. The flaw? The reason why you are there. You are there to celebrate the life of someone who is no longer there, on her birthday. Your grandmother. On that day you gather together at one of her favorite restaurants and you share stories about her and you look at each other with watery eyes as you sip more wine as you once knew her favorite dish, but now that is memory of what her favorite dessert once was starts to fade...dissipate with how she smelled when she hugged you or how she smiled when you made her laugh or how she sighed when she had to say goodbye to you as you go home...leaving her house empty with her and her day old bananas. A perfect restaurant is never perfect when you are there to celebrate someone who can never join you again. But it's nice. Nice to be with the ones you love. Nice to know that you still talk about her like she is sitting right next to you. Nice to know that the circle of life can be forever strange when you try to fit it at a squared table minus one chair.

The WE Syndrome

2007-01-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

Oh my god! Stop me if you’ve heard this one: O.K. So, a guy walks in to the store by himself. (oh my god, this is hilarious) There is no one with him. Not a soul. The store is completely empty. The sales associate says something like “How are you?” The solitaire man goes, “oh, just fine…thanks.” And then a little time passes and this said sales associate goes… “So can I show you how anything works or answer any questions?” and the completely alone guy says this “well, no…we are just looking for a new wine opener and we love yours!” And sales associate goes… “Oh…” and looks around back and forth…under shelves and inside of boxes looking for this guys “we”. Then the guy goes. “Yeah, we love your guy’s products. We just love looking online at all your stuff. It’s just so cute. We own like a ton of it!” The sales associate is still looking around for this “WE”. Then the customer goes “We’ll come in again to buy the wine opener. We’ve been eyeing it up for while…” and just walks out…walks away in to the sunset…the guy and his “We”. You’re waiting for the punch line of this joke, right? Like one of those “a nun walks in to a bar” kinda thing. Well, this is no joke. I’ve heard of the fable of “We”. You know, how some people who become so fused together with their significant other that the previous years of “me” get turned upside down and in to a “we”. No longer do “I” go to the bathroom to take a pee. “We” go to the bathroom to take plural pees…except there is only one person peeing. See, the “We” guy…there is only three explanations for his “We-isms” 1) He is so whipped… it’s scary how whipped he is 2) He doesn’t really have a “We” and just didn’t want me to hit on him because that’s how the world works…people always hit on you when you say “me” so make it a “we” and you will never have to worry again 3) He has some sort of mental problem that makes him “we-we” all over himself. Don’t get me wrong…love is a beautiful thing and “We” can be great if used properly. You get to share time with the person you love, “WE time”. You get to have those moments where you look at this person you are with and totally go “man WE are so great together.” And love lets us fly up where WE belong. But this mis-used “WE” business. That’s gotta stop. People who want to help you in stores don’t know who this “WE” is…people at work have probably only met your “we” once and don’t care if your “We” is sad when it’s lonely. We were born as a “me” and we should always be “me” Unless, you know…you’re right next to your “we” Then “we-we” all over the place.

On The Love of My Life

2007-01-10T19:57:00.000-08:00

When I was little I looked at my mom’s smile and just thought, "wow…what keeps her like that. What keeps her smile so beautiful." I asked her this often, too. Like when she would be flipping my grilled cheese to the uncooked side. I’d go, "mom…how do you do it?" She would just roll her eyes and laugh. I suppose an eight year old eating Doritos really doesn’t know what he is asking when he is that young. But then you get to THAT point. Where, it is you…and you are finally getting there…happy with the smile. It just glows, your smile that is. You just never think you are going to stumble upon something that will make you a better person. You know, you just think…oh, just enough is going to have to do and make the best of it and in the end you will look back and go "yah, I think I did the best I could…" But, then, something comes along. And it just blows you out of the water. Like, at night when you are sleepy and you just need that jolt of greatness to keep happy through the night. Or in the morning when you have a long day ahead of you and all you can think of is having it in your mouth and you just can’t get enough out of it’s vibrations. It's my new toothbrush. A tooth brush. It’s a toothbrush. I am in love with my Sonicare electric toothbrush. And recently, it has come to my attention that THAT is the reason when my mom smiled she looked so dang good. She used a good toothbrush that wiped stains away. This toothbrush, the love of my life, is just too damn good. I’m anal about teeth. Like, obsessive. Like I dated someone who had really bad teeth, yellowed by a bad habit…and when I look back it makes me shudder a little. I mean, it shoots pulses though your mouth to break up tartar and totally goes between the teeth and makes you feel dentist clean. I can’t even tell you how exciting that is. I can't even tell you how good it feels... Apparently, so damn good... Last night, I was in the bathroom watching my face make faces while I brushed and out of a NEW habit I started moaning. Apparently, I had started making like "good sex" moans…because my new love is that good. Dave was all: "Stop." And I was like…"What?" He was like: "You’re making me jealous…" And I was like… "Well, if you are that jealous I’ll buy you a new brush head and we can share the toothbrush…it will change your life…" And he was like: "That’s not what I am jealous of…" And I was like… "What then!" He was like: "I don’t like how your new love makes you moan…like…that…" And I was like: "Oh." Well, it happens.

How The Cat and Mouse Could Go Extinct

2007-01-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

That's it. That's what life is all about. The cat and the mouse. O.K. So, this is how it goes: You see him. Or Her. You see him or her at a bar or at a store or at a bookstore or at a coffee place or at an amusement park or at the gym or at the park or in your apartment building. So you see he or she at these places and instantly fall for them. But, see, they don't even know you exist. Well, that's what you think. But, that person you have been keeping your eye on...well, they have been doing the same thing. See samples: Meredith and Mcdreamy Carrie Bradshaw and Big Harry and Sally O.K. So, then FINALLY you say your first words to each other. And it's all cute and coy and uncomfortable but so sexy you might just burst. You sip a drink or bump in to each other in the spice aisle at the market and exchange glances and maybe even give a tip of what spice to use with that night's chicken. Then there is the date. Goes amazing. Great convo. Great laughing. Great touching. So. Dang. Smooth. But, then there is the curve ball. Usually it really hurts or it really sucks or it's a shocker. See samples: Mcdreamy is married to another doctor already Big isn't ready for Carrie's commitment Harry is too snarky for Sally So, anyway, these shockers usually curve the relationship or detour it or make the plot move in a sad and somber way. People get frustrated and sad music might hover above you...a soundtrack to your life. Then, usually the mistake maker (see above list of guys) come to their senses and try to get back the love of their lives and… da da daaaaaaaaa There is love. Hence. Cat and Mouse. So. Here's the funny thing. That's what people love. That's it. They love those romances that are chasing and crazy and quirky. But what happens after the mouse is caught? See, think about it...really look at it. What movies are about married couples who have been together forever. What movies are all about long lasting love and the everyday of life with long term couples--no t.v. show concentrates on orange juice making together or Saturday afternoon cleaning session where one person cleans the tub and the other person in the relationship does the dishes. It just doesn't work. Oh, I know. There’s some hit t.v. shows that totally made this work. And there are some books and some movies that make the aftermath of catching the mouse a sweet success. But, is that what we want? Or do we want the excitement and the thrill and the humor and the sadness and all the human emotions that come with the chase? Sometimes you think of these things when your boyfriend is asleep in the bedroom and you are finishing some work up on your laptop in the living room. The t.v. is on and it is showing you previews of upcoming favorite shows and movies that show interest to you. They are all the same. Boy get girl. Girl get guy. Catch me if you can And you sigh, because you’re not chasing your boyfriend around trying to figure out what he is thinking and when will you see him next and does he have a secret life or does he love me or doesn’t he. It’s all there. Crystal clear. Apparent as apparent can be. And sometimes, sure, you miss the chase. Wanting your life to be the next hit drama on night-time t.v. It’s exciting. All the running around. The manic beating of the heart. But…you know what, I get enough work out at the gym. Running around for the one you love… I’ll leave that to sitcom writers, screenplay makers, and people a little younger than me. (Then, I’ll steal their stories and use them as my own.) (because I can.)

How "Volver" ,the Penelope Cruz movie, makes me want to be every culture ever invented. Especially Spanish.

2007-01-07T20:21:00.000-08:00

O.K...I wanna be Spanish. It's official. Don't try to change my mind. It's stuck. God, just imagine it: You live in a small town that has a bakery and deli and a lovely wine shop all a block away from you. And in the morning, when the sun comes up, the orange color that the morning light produces highlights your white exterior stucco house. You will hear guitars playing at the local bar and at night people light candles in their windows or have patios with lanterns. You'd have a lot of local friends that you grew up with who'd make you fresh bread and who would water your window garden with tea pots when they were done with the left over water. The air will smell like Spain, too. Like cooking and like perfume on sweaty bodies and like the produce centers up the street. It would smell a bit like the ocean on the coast. People will smile at you because that is what you do when you are European. You smile. You share you moments with each other. You watch children grow up and stay in the same town they were born in. And, of course, the colors...the bright colors that they paint the walls of their homes...that would be everywhere. EVERYWHERE. See, we don't have things like that here. We don't have buildings that are that old. We don't have people who polish their cemetery stones every Sunday to celebrate and take care of the ones that passed. Our tiles in our houses are nothing like the intricate and delicate and beautiful and charming tiles they have in their homes. And we definitely don't have the parties they have. Geez, if I only I could go to one party. It just reminds me that I NEED TO TRAVEL. Just take a moment and think of all things going on out there. Oh, man. The world is so big...and so beautiful.

How Nemesis Rhymes with Jealous. (If you try hard enough, it does).

2007-01-07T12:54:00.000-08:00

They say that you start to believe in the things you tell yourself and others. Like, compulsive liars...when they continually lie or tell things that are tweaked a bit or skew facts...they start believing in their stories and their excuses. They then forget their original intent. They say it's the same for people with mental conditions. If you keep telling yourself you are fat you will believe you are fat and when you aren't really fat but your mind is tricking you to believe you are fat...you start falling apart and seeing yourself as fat. The mind is insane that way. See, sometimes we say things we really do mean. Sometimes we say those things with every bit of good intention. We say things to ourselves to get motivated or to show others we believe in ourselves or to even show yourself you believe... like, when you say something like "when I grow up, I want to be a mailman" or "when I grow up, I want to be a doctor." You work hard at believing in that goal. You...oh, watch a lot of E.R. or you memorize postal zip codes. You do things to get closer and closer to that goal. You also tell yourself..."I want to be this" over and over so then your mind believes that one day it will be that no matter what...even if, well, it just might not happen. And so that day...the day of realization...you become aware that what you have told yourself and others and your mind is so trained to believing in what you have repeated is all a delusion...it stunts you instantly. In the end, you have to realize(because there has to be a reason) this is happening to you for some sort of cosmic reason. I suppose not everyone can be who they always dreamed and trained themselves in believing...some people JUST KNOW what they are meant to do when they are young. If everyone did, we would be a different society--a very ordinary and uninvented society. But there are days when you continually read articles about musicians that "make it" and writers that "get discovered" and talk show hosts that "break the scene" and business men that "fall in to millions" that work every bit as hard as you do but somehow get a pay off before you. You do realize you sound selfish and thankless and should appreciate everything that happened to you...and that there are worse situations out there. But when you get a long distance call from your good friend for ten years who reads you a two page article about your arch Nemesis in high school and you continually hear "well, look it here she's married too..." or "huh, the article said she will be able to retire at thirty..." or "so, did you finish writing that book you are always talking about yet?" or even "it looks like she will be in France for another modeling thing next month" you start to maybe think you are one of the crazy ones...the one that just believes because that's all you know how to do...is believe in what you always have. Especially since your arch nemesis was such a bitch and had dried out hair...and your hair always took reign. Somethings gotta give...soon...right?

Read At Your Own Risk

2007-01-06T12:15:00.000-08:00

I have a great idea SIDENOTE: I swear to God if anyone steals this idea and uses it and it becomes a huge success and people fall in love with that said thief and not me, I will do something super mean and if you know me at all you know I am not mean, but I can be when someone steals super good ideas. And,well, if you don't think this is a good idea, then screw you. So, yeah, great idea: I don't know if you know anything about this, but I grew up in a small town with huge morals. And with those morals, there were high expectations. And with those high expectations, there was reading. Yes, reading was very important to my little town as it was in my household. So important that if you read a certain amount of hours you got pizza! O.K. Hold on. That sounded weird. But, it worked like this: Each grade in school had a certain amount of minutes each student had to read each month. So, like, for October you would have to read three hundred minutes if you were in second grade. Well, that doesn't seem hard...but Box Car Children took me less than that. It was called "Book-It" and it was all the rage in grade schools in Wisconsin. You even got a pin to wear with a place to put a star if you got a particular month you got a sticker and a star. I mean, it was a dream! So, anyway, if you hit your particular minute mark you got a coupon to get a free mini pizza for yourself at a local pizza place. So, every month basically I'd read to eat. Until it was December of my fourth grade year (and to be honest I had a lot to do in December) and in that December reading wasn't really my priority...so, you know--like people who want free pizza do-- I lied. I lied about how often I read. No no no, not to my mom...lying to your mother is horrible. I lied to my teacher. I lied to the organization leader for Book-It...I lied to the pizza guy that gave me my free pizza. How did I do all this? I forged my mom's signature. O.K. two things: 1) I know. That's wrong 2) I really should have know, cause it wasn't the first time I ever forged mommy's signature. The other time, I was a trumpet player. You had to practice a certain amount a time a week and folks, if you have ever played a trumpet at that age...you will know and understand how painful it can be and, well, how disgusting a spit valve can be. So, I signed that practice sheet with my mom's lovely name and got away with murder until she caught me doing it before school one day just before I hair sprayed my hair and gathered my sack lunch. I got shamed, grounded, lost all band privileges and had to extinguish my crush on Adam Starks, the guy who played trumpet next to me. So, you'd think that I would totally know better to do this again...a year later. But, you'd also think a free pizza was worth the guilt. And it was. Because no one caught me and I got a free pizza and didn't have to work at it and made everyone proud. Even myself. I bet you know where this is going...some life lesson...something that recently happened that reminded me of this situation...right? HA. Wrong. I don't feel a bit of guilt. Wanna know why? Here's why: Sometimes the good kids(Oh, that's totally what I was) had to get away with a few things to feel they weren't nerds. There is a fine line between "good kids" and "nerds" and I was on the balancing act of both of them. Some of these things just felt so good to do just so I could say I had a naughty side. But back to my idea? Well, after remembering this...it actually isn't a very good one. I was going to say that we could have adult "Book-It" and make people read a certain number of minutes a month and then they can go to a bar and totally get a drink on the house and then say "cheers to reading" But, see, dang...there was a lesson here. Some people never grow up and would totally lie about their minutes. And maybe even I would...depending how Decembery my December was. Just to be naughty once in awhile! Man...I am a nerd.

Diseases 101: Love as a germ

2007-01-05T17:34:00.000-08:00

When I was ten I thought love was a disease. O.K. Well, I really never grew out of that. But, like having Lymes Disease, you learn to live with it...you adapt it to your life...you try to educate yourself on the symptoms and you try to understand how you will never be cured...and maybe that's just O.K. It was like this: Oprah had three guests on her T.V. Show. This was when Oprah was a little trashy. Remember that? Remember when her guests were all trashy and kinda in ruts and Oprah was a little heavier and had big hair and wore really bold yet baggy dresses? So, yeah, I was watching this...and this woman was in between two men. They were split apart really far and they had scowls on their faces. "Mom..." I said..."Oprah said that this man had an affair...what does 'affair' mean?" She looked up at me from her crosstich she was working on, bunnies, and said this: "It's what people get when they don't pay attention." And I was all: "Well, how do you catch 'affair'?" And she was all: "Well, when you catch the love bug and the love bug goes away or jumps to someone else and they get it...sometimes that happens. Sometimes people lose the lovebug or give it to someone else." My response to that and Oprah's outfit was: "Like a disease!" And for a good year or so I believed that love was something you got from sitting on dirty toilet seats and not washing your hands after you prepared chicken. Fast Foward, now: I just finished this book called "A Lot Like Love" and it's about these young boys that fall in love and then get seperated then try to find each other in the future. It was mushy and then it was sad and then it was inventive and then it was sorta, well, predictable. But there was one line that stuck out in this book that really really go to me... "Some people know love when they are young, those people are the lucky ones. They get it and will always have it." So, after I read that line and remembered how I had to ask what affairs were and how you got it and then how love is contagious...I got a little aggrivated. I mean, is that real? Even though I am in a very loving relationship...am I NEVER really going to know what REAL LOVE is because I didn't know what it was when I was these boys' age in the book? The entire idea of the book changed for me. I became sort of bitter towards the plot and started calling parts cheesey and rolling my eyes and snorting and scoffing and laughing at things that some people with sigh over. I was lying in my bed when I finished the last page. I closed the book and sat there feeling sort of cheated...like I apparently have read a book about love and just don't get it because, well, I didn't get it until recently. As I put the book down and started to pull the covers up to my neck my boyfriend rolled over and kissed me on my forehead. It was as if he was reading my mind. Reading my anxiety of the book even when I hadn't even opened my mouth about what I thought of it. It was as if he totally got me without having to get me. Then, I got it. I may not have known love when I knew Sea Monkeys and Oprah pre "Angel Network" and Chuck E. Cheese ticket collections, but maybe that's O.K. because maybe I didn't need to know that love is nothing like a disease when I was little...maybe I would have tried to find a cure for it instead of naively wandering not knowing really how one "caught" love. I think that's way better than having ALL the answers when I was little. Besides. I already had all the answers when I was little. Oh, what? I didn't tell you how mom had to wash my mouth out with soap so many times calling me a "smart ass?" If only, now though, I could come up with a cure for love's virus buddy...the one that clings to real love...it's called "figuring out significant others" syndrome...it's an epidemic that will be around forever.

How I Almost Figured Out My Destiny And Then It Slipped Away

2007-01-04T15:26:00.000-08:00

Note: I do not want to be a nurse. O.K. So, now that that is out of the way. I have this fear. I have a fear that my life is destined to be something I don't want it to be. Not that there is anything wrong with what I might be destined to do, but...um, I just feel like it's not what I am meant to do now or what I WANT to do. Same difference. So, I am sitting in the check-out line getting a few items to make fiesta el tacos at back at home. You know, I had my tomato and onion for my salsa and a few cheeses. In front of me, there's this girl. O.K. I should say woman for the simple fact that she was a mother. She was my age, totally...and was grocery shopping with a cart full of all the baby needs. I looked at her and kind of shook my head...like, to shake myself out "what could have been if I were straight" mind frame. If I would have stayed in my hometown and married a high school sweetheart and made babies at my ripe age of 24. I come back to Earth, or the check out line and I think about how admirable it is that this woman is taking care of a baby...a baby she made with someone. A baby she loves. A baby she has full and every responsiblity over. I thought to myself, "I just don't think I could do it...right now." So, I leave the grocery store and I get a call on my cell. It's my boyfriend. My sick boyfriend. A boyfriend with a cold. He's all "I'm sick and taking a half day" and then he sneezes and coughs A LOT on the phone and asks if we have cough medicine and then asks if we have soup. We have none of these things. So, we hang up and I go in to immediate "MOM MODE" I start thinking about all the nice things I could do for him while I am working on some of my freelance projects. Like, I could go pick up his favorite soup and get him his medicine he needs. Then, I can boil him some tea on the stove and set up the couch as his germ camp grounds with his favorite blanket and put Star Trek in the DVD player and get his favorite PJ's ready. As I finish making his tea, I realize I am actually enjoying myself. I am enjoying helping him feel better. I am looking foward to taking care of him. I am totally wanting to be there for him. Then, flash back to the grocery store and me analyzing the young mom in line. I could and might totally be desitned to be a parent. That might be my only job in life. See, that whole nurse thing as a career...that wouldn't work. I don't want to help other people...just the one's I love. So, for an hour or so...I'm all "shit, I might just be a good houswife..." Which, again, there is SO nothing wrong with that...but I just thought my life would be a little more different than that. BUT THEN: I remember, oh yeah...I do want to do other things with my life other than clean up snot rags off the floor from aforementioned sick boyfriend. And I realize this when I touch one of snotty tissues and it is still wet. "I'm not built for this...I'm not built just to be a nurturer..." I yell. So, really that whole fear of being a housewife has passed. But, dang, there are some major perks to being a housewife. I mean, I would have all the juicy gossip for all the soaps. I would totally be the thing housewife...O.K. house-husband. I would go to the gym and make lunches for my other half for his work day and I would arrange flowers and always have a clean bathroom sink and my home would always smell lovely. I would also get to shop with someone else's money... God, maybe I DO want to be a househusband...

How Having A Crush on Al Gore Is Something You Shouldn't Admit, But Really Pops A Story.

2007-01-03T09:05:00.000-08:00

K.S.E. These three letters changed my life, O.K. they changed my fourth grade life for a good solid month. O.K. They changed my mom’s life for a good solid month during my fourth grade year. K.S.E: Kids Saving Earth You may have had a life back in the fourth grade, but I, I did not. You may have had birthday parties to go to with all that cake and piñata and party favors and pinning tails on donkeys. You may have had play dates where you dressed dolls in outfits that kinda matched yours and then drank imaginary tea. You may have played football in the mud and then got grounded for having mud stains on your “church pants”. I, I did not. Well, I did have a life. But not the life that you would imagine a fourth grader to have. It was a year of unnecessary worry, in my teacher’s eye. It was the year I thought I would save the planet. While the rest of you were out there building tree houses and playing Nintendo, I was saving the Rain Forest and stopping Global Warming. I mean, what else is there for a fourth grader to do? See, it started like this: We had a speaker come in that was part of the ecological preservation of the rainforest in South America at our grade school. She was cool. She wore the cargo shorts and a white tank top with socks and boots. She had a huge screen behind her and on that screen were slides of what she was talking about…the dying rainforest. I remember sitting in my auditorium seat in-between Sondra F and Nicole H. And every other sentence we heard we gasped at. “And at this rate…” says the speaker “ we will lose all creatures on the rainforest floor!” In unison: GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like that. So, anyway. After wiping away tears from my face I realized that my fourth grade self would have to instigate something in order to, well, save the world. Don’t get me wrong, I knew I didn’t have the ability to do this on my own and that is where K.S.E. came along. Me and twenty-three girls all met during our recess and after school with the aid of one of the art teachers and discussed what our earth club colors were going to be and what our mascot was gonna be and where we can get some cute t-shirts to wear for our yearbook picture that we had to be in since we were club people now and all club people had to have a yearbook picture. We discussed what candy we would sell at a fundraiser and we discussed if we could get prizes for that candy sold if we sold a certain amount. God, we were so amazing to the Earth. That solid moth of K.S.E’ing involved propaganda of me and twenty-three girls repeating what that rainforest speaker woman said to us. Literally, when I was at the dinner table an saw my mom leave the water running for dishes, I would saying something like “Understand the resources you are depleting are only going to ruin your grand children and great grandchildren chances for survival. That doesn’t seem fair now, does it?” In return I would get a look of disgust and annoyance, as my mother was not in the mood to save the Earth but to save herself the aggravation of doing more dishes after dinner. Now, I said that this only lasted a month. It’s true. See, girls…girls, have this way of fighting with each other when they are clumped together for a long period of times. And, well, one girl…Rachel, she was all “Sondra I think I would look better if I was wearing the leader T-shirt in the yearbook picture” and Sondra was all “What?! I was one of the original founders!” and Rachel said something like “well, original founder doesn’t mean prettiest…” which made twenty-three girls take sides and split up leaving me alone in saving the Earth. Which, you know, a boy can’t do…especially when there are things to be done like fourth grade long division. In the end, I realize that (after watching Inconvenient Truth) I was way ahead of Al Gore. First and foremost, that documentary was amazing. It literally was like being back in college and eye opening and I even found Mr. Gore wee bit sexy…not because of his looks but because of his devotion to getting his point and message across. But, see Mr. Gore….K.S.E, you know my club,…well, it came way before your movie did. And I talked about that stuff. I tortured my mom in to walking more instead of driving. I told my dad “No more leaf burning…carbon dad carbon!” I even told my grandma not to use that spray hairspray anymore. I was so on top of that. But you, dude, you have one thing on me…you didn’t have twenty-three girls taking sides on who was the prettiest girl saving the Earth. I think that’s why you are where you are and I am where I am. Oh, and that whole not being a Vice President may have stumped me a little bit too. So, really. What was this all about? Watch the movie. Please. Just educate yourself. If not for the Earth, for the memory of K.S.E and what could have been…

How to be really gay in a day!

2007-01-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

O.K. I’m not all about spewing the secrets. I’m a pretty good secret keeper. Sheesh, I never told anyone half the things my college roommate and I did (at his request) even when he had a girlfriend that he “loved very much and would do anything for” and “couldn’t bare to have sex with her until they were married.” I never said anything about how this kid that I knew in high school became my college roommate and came on to me by asking me to do something very dirty with Jello, that because I am amazing with secrets, will not tell you what that request was. But, I will give the secret of how to be super gay in one day. And all you will really need is a little bit of, O.K. a lot of bit of time devoted to pretty things and boisterous things and things that are tight, like jeans! And of course, divas. Now, it is just known that EVERY gay man has a personal diva. No matter how straight acting they are, they so have one. They are lying if they say something along the lines of “god, I’m not THAT gay”. And if they finally don’t admit this, please go to their nearest music collection and notice what they have quite a bit of. I once dated this guy who said he “wasn’t a flamer” and “never wanted a diva” and then went to his music collection and found out he had every Shania Twain album (they were alphabetized, too) and then when I confronted him he was all “um, well…I do love her…she’s so amazing…oh my god did you see her in that one music video of hers she was so…” Yeah, every gay man has a diva. O.K. So, now you have found your personal diva. Now, you are gonna have to have a favorite musical and then a favorite fag hag. O.K. I have some suggestions. Go see Dreamgirls. If you get chills you know you are becoming gay, sorta like when you start getting scratchy red spots with chicken pox…that’s how gay works, too. You’ll watch a slow scene, so emotional, become something of a spectacle when one of the main characters breaks in to a song that just peels you out of the moment. You will sit there with your mouth open. You will cry. You will want to be that character. You will think you can sing. Most of you can not. Now, your fag hag. You got your Kelly Ripa, You got your Tori Spelling, You got your Sarah Jessica Parker (what, you totally know Matthew is gay!) and you got your Amy Sedaris. But, I bet you didn’t know Kirstie Alley can be your fag hag. How would you know? Well, watch her serious “The Fat Actress” and let that be a judge for you. You will probably do this in your pajamas on your couch eating steamed broccoli and stare at the Christmas tree that should come down and look at the new book you bought and tell yourself it is so ready to be read, but you will watch her and you will try to find that connection that every gay man looks for in his favorite girl. You might think the show isn’t funny. You will be right, well, according to me. Then, you will go to bed that night with a facemask. A charcoal facemask that eliminates pore sizes and makes your skintight. See, that whole tight thing again. So, most importantly please remember this: None of the above is true for anyone. See, this is all a stereotype that was brought to my attention by a guy that I met on New Years Eve at a very heterosexual bar that I paid a lot of money to get in to. He was all “Naw dude, every gay guy has a hag.” And he was all “So, you know musicals right?” And I was all (See Crickets Chirping). See, this is what us gay folk have to defend and conquer. We have to prove that all that stuff that American culture has installed on to us…that is something we need to delete and reboot in the minds of straight men everywhere. Because it will save us from “Um, dude, are you serious…one of you really isn’t the wife in the relationship?” or “Well, so…like, who spoons who?” Because in 2006 that whole conversation may have totally be O.K. to have with a really really dumb random straight guy. But 2007, 2007 will be a year that I keep all the good secrets to myself and all the stuff that people think are secrets…those are all coming out. No. Pun. Intended. Oh. But that whole college roommate secret, that is so true it’s insane how true that is!

How Some Of You Just Give In Too Easily

2007-01-01T11:39:00.000-08:00

You know what? I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna call some of you out. "You" being people I don't know but say something like this: "I don't believe in New Years Resolutions, they're stupid." O.K. So, I'm not any type of scientific or mental expert. But, I'd like to think that when people say something like the above, there is a little sense of fear of failing in their reasoning. Because, really, what's wrong with a little optimism? What's wrong with people saying they are going to try something or believing they can make something happen and using the edge of an old year and the pool of a new year to make the blast off in to change? "I'm not gonna say I will do anything this year...", she says to me in the most confident tone ever. Lisa, she's this girl I know...has made one resolution every year of her life...and at 26 she is all "nope, not this year...they never happen and I set myself up for failure..." That's sad. Here's why: When you have optimism you have drive. When you have drive you put out an energy that cancels out negativity. SURE. You may not make it to the exact goal, but you get people to recognize that you have something in you that is a little more energetic than say someone who doesn't do a thing with their life. I know...resolutions shouldn't be devoted to just the beginning of a new year. We should use them through out our time to make us better people and not use a clean slate to start a new "you". But, I'm gonna say it proud...at least some people are giving it something and that is a whole lotta more than some of you "non believers" nothings. In the end, my 2007 wishlist of resolutions includes: A. To try to remember the moment in life when I hear a song that brings me back. Instead of going, "ohhh this brings back memories" and taking another swig of wine I am going to attempt to actually remember one of those memories. Like, The Cars "Drive"--I remember that song because the first time I heard it it was night and the backseat of my parents car and we were driving home from my grandma's and I was holding my stuffed dog, Henry, and I was thinking about how some kids don't have grandmas and how lucky I was to have one to visit and to have a fish tank. The backseat of the car was small and so my brother who fell asleep had his head on my thigh and my nine year old head just thought it was the coolest thing ever to have a Nintendo and be able to play with dolls with my neighborhood friend. B. To send less text messages and actually call people. C. To call people and send less emails D. To use more hot pink in my life E. To make more mix tapes and share them with people F. Learn how to "spin" records! G. Wear a new kinda underwear. It's about time. And a lot more. Sure, I probably will say I want more hot pink in my life...but, you know, never get to it. But at least I have the positive energy flowing to make 2007 a little more happy...or at least a little more pink or a little cuter with sexy new underwear. And isn't that was life is about, cute underwear?

A Letter To 2006

2006-12-31T21:06:00.000-08:00

Dear 2006, O.K. First, let's totally get this out of the way. I just wanna thank you for allowing the opportunity for the world to see Britney Spear's, um, you know...cha cha. God, it's so funny to be thanking you for the cha cha...but, you know. I'm being pretty sarcastic. Now, that's done. So, huh. Another one of you behind me. That's something to be pretty proud of, you know. I mean, some of us don't make it until year ends. You showed me that this year. You know, my grandma and all. One of the most painful things that I may have yet experienced in my life. I do feel bad for you, though. I mean some years have really great things that pop up in my head when you think of them. Like 2000, graduation. Or 1982, the year I was born. But, forever 2006 will be remembered the year that my heart changed. The year that I realize life isn't a permanent marker. The year you watch a life unravel in sickness. The year that took the breath out of me. The year that taught me no matter how beautiful a funeral home is decorated you will always remember the reason why you are there. The year I learned what it meant to take each moment and squeeze out everything...and even try tasting the pulp. What else, 2006? Oh yes. New jobs. New friends. Lose some friends. Learn that some friends are more life lessons. Visit a few beautiful cities. If you get to travel, you are just so lucky. You were good to me this year with that. Another birthday, we totally take those for granted. I mean, you try not to...but a lot of people dread those things or they make such a big deal out of them that they sorta just forget to take a look back and see the whole picture. Birthdays still mean you are alive, come on people! You showed me how your parents can change over time. You showed me what a mailbox looks like when a snow plow hits in a snow storm. You showed me a homeless woman squatting on the EL steps and peeing. You showed me many bottles of red wine and many more bottles of red wine. You showed me Men's Vogue and Print and Dwell and Flaunt and Nylon and magazines that made me ooze. You gave me some amazing concerts. You gave me some rad movies. Oh, and some bad. Don't make another Deja Vu...that movie made me hurt--mostly just the pain came from the money it cost to get me there and buy that ticket. You gave me Grey's you gave me Ugly Betty you gave me Take 5. You gave me my first reality show audition. You gave me a first Christmas living with my boyfriend. You gave me another year with that boyfriend--the guy that wrapped himself around me with three blankets when you gave you my first food poisoning and the chills and the plead of death. You gave me the knowledge of a good moisturizer and new designs and wall colors and puppies and Annie Mac and the BBC and outlooks on how getting closer to your brother is one of best things that could have happened to me this year. But you know what 2006, I got something you need to know. You may have given me and everyone some physical stuff--new computers and trips and movies and music...but you also gave me another year to reflect back on and be all "wow, some people get to experience life in such different ways"...you know, starving or in war countries or diseased or uneducated. You gave me another year to totally use everything I have ever worked for over the past years, you know, your relatives. You gave me another year to appreciate the people who put up with your insanity and the people you send you cards when they miss you and people who call you or text you and leave you messages that say that they saw something that made them think of you. You gave me that opportunity to sit in a comfy chair in a quiet warm apartment and just sigh and look back at 2006 and say to myself "damn, how lucky can people get?". So, why I am writing you? Well, you know...I wanted to than you for all that. Of course! But I have a little favor. Let's ask your new baby brother, 2007, if he can do that whole make a year be amazing thing? And, you probably have a lot of letters coming at you...or maybe people aren't weird like me and write you letters, but just remember people are gonna have a lot to talk about in the future when it comes to 2006...let's hope 2007 is just as interesting with a little less war and a little less stupid president and a little less, well, cha cha. Happy New Year 2006 and to everyone who has had a 2006. Lesson to be learned: When you got another year under your belt...try to make sure that belt is in fashion. Yours, .25 Crisis Kid

How to Survive 1996-2000 and Live to Tell About It.

2006-12-30T08:12:00.000-08:00

O.K. So, not too sure how you feel about your prom. But I have a little something to say about mine. Sure. It's in the past. We can move on. No dwelling. Live and let live. All that "junk" to make us feel better, right? But when you are emptying out boxes of old pictures--pictures that were taken on cameras with film(SHUDDER!)(every bit of a pun intended) and you find a picture of you and your old prom date in front of the big pine tree at your parent's house...that whole "live and let live" saying turns in to a big pile of doo doo. Sure, "doo doo" can totally be a technical word for the feeling you have when you see this picture that you use to keep in a frame by your bed back in the day. A feeling of disgust. O.K. So, you know the days: Senior year. Last year of high school and college is on it's way. A smell of freedom in the air. A smell of hormones, too. Also, a smell of limos, corsages, long dresses, and Tommy Hilfiger cologne(oh, that was soooo back in the day and bless your heart if you are still wearing Tommy today). Anyway, my prom went a little like this: 1) I don't wanna go 2) O.K. I'm going, but I don't want to wear a stupid tux 3) The tux fitting, but O.K. I don't want to spend a lot on dinner and stuff...that's dumb 4) A $300 tab at a local restaurant that the other dates that my date and I went with stiffed us on as they had to go "make sure the limo was here" and instead of coming back and letting us know that they saw the limo they got in it and left me calling my dad on the restaurant phone and asking for him to give his credit card numbers over the phone to the waiter after two minutes of my dad yelling over the phone at me telling me "how insane it is to have to give credit card numbers over the phone in this day in age when anyone can try to steal your identity and is that what I wanted? For someone to steal your father's identity?" all the while my date doesn't lift a finger and only sits there with her arms crossed in front of her chest and scoffs at every minute she has to wait and miss a danceable song at the high school prom. But if you are gay...O.K. let's just say if you are human. You most likely found that your prom was a little bit stale. I don't know, maybe it was the whole I don't want to get to third base with a chick thing on prom for me...but you get the picture. Prom was really all about the sex and the car your drove. So, lucky for me I was able to get my dad's Mustang convertible. It worked out well, too...as when my parents demanded a insane curfew of 1230am when after prom parties went at least til 4 I could speed home in six horse powers leaving my date behind with her saying "who's parents makes them leave this early on prom? I'm staying" and as I drove away I saw her latch on to some other prom guy and the next four weeks of school her looking at me in Physics class and shaking her head in disgust that I left her behind at prom for her to only hook up with a straight guy...which is what I think she wanted anyway. And me hooking up EARLY with my family for breakfast because OF COURSE one can't sleep in the day after prom as ones mother needs all the details of ones very very very long short night at his prom. Any way, my point? That being, well, when you find an old picture of you in an overpriced black tux next to a girl that ended up doing it with the lead singer of a well known sax player in the school band and then still getting grounded for being five minutes late past your curfew, you just kind of have to laugh and be proud. Sure, you have to be proud that you aren't that nerdy kid. You have to be proud that you did look quite dapper in a prom tux and you have to be proud that you survived...yeah, you survived prom and you survived being 17 and you survived living in a life out of the ordinary. Because,well, I'm not sure about you...but I wasn't destined to live a life of enjoying prom and having normal parents with normal curfews and a normal height so tux paints don't look like gauchos. I think, really...what it comes down to...I didn't enjoy my prom because I was destined not to...I was destined to know there were bigger things out there...nicer things...more fun things... like boys. OH and like a big city and art school and all the people you will get to meet in all those places and all the countries you will travel to and all the experiences you will offer yourself. I survived that part of my life to only be able to really start enjoying this part. The best part, thus far. 'Cause prom, prom to me... is totally just a picture.

How to Write An Entire Post About Jeans

2006-12-29T11:45:00.000-08:00

To get to the point, let's start out with a fact. FACT: Finding a pair of jeans that fit you like jeans are supposed to is quite much like finding Jesus's bloodline. Yes, it is that sacred of a moment when those smooth dark delicious denim second skin slide themselves on to you like a fresh pair of socks. It's almost enlightening when you are in the dressing room of some denim bar and the voluptuousness of your butt just hangs there like stuffed breasts or real breasts that Playmates have when they need more self-esteem. So, it is no surprise that when you do not find one of these aforementioned "holy grail of denim"...you get a little bit demanding. See, when you are in a dressing room and you have a stack of different shades of jeans with different cuts and different pockets and different sales people knocking on the different shaded doors to ask you for a different size, it is no real rocket science to the facts that--for a gay man--jeans are quite like naming a baby. Let me tell you this: Your personality is defined by the cut of jeans you wear. O.K. so you totally don't believe me, right? So, wait. You are walking down the street and you see a guy wearing baggy jeans...you know dangling at the crouch and puffy around the shoes and you can see the underoos below the belt thing when they walk by. You're totally thinking..."Yeah, that's an old man in his fifties going to the club to get some bitches..." right? Sure. No. You're thinking...young, laid back, and maybe a bit thug or just a bit loose. Oh, and when you see the tight jeans that bulge in the frontal region and they fit the legs like jelly to a piece of toast and they fit around the shoe perfectly like a dust ruffle to a sneaker and the butt...oh the butt just sits there like a loaf of bread...you think..."Father of two..." Right? NO. You think...gay man/metro sexual/straight guy who has money and lives in Lincoln Park. Totally. So, like I said. Jeans describe who you are. Now, don't even forget...the shades. The shades and style are like, god, are like giving the baby a middle name. If you like dirty denim you must like it rough. If you like clean and dark denim you are a dentist on a day off. If you like faded denim...you are from the early 90's and if you like stonewashed denim you need to be shot. Now, imagine all THAT pressure. Jeans describing who you are. In a dressing room. Soundtrack of the store playing super loud over the speakers. In your socks and underwear in a mirror you try on each pair like they are boyfriends...in search for the long-term relationship. THAT pressure is just killer. You forget everything else like people starving and war and Rosie vs. Trump and all the world's problems...just to make sure that seam falls perfectly along the line of the leg. What hurts more? When you leave empty handed...like leaving alone at a singles bar. Or you might leave with a pair that are "so so" and just will do the job until the man or denMAN of your dreams comes knocking at your wallet. A one night pair, if you will. All in all, jeans are a demise of culture. They make you feel fat or too short or baggy in the thighs or that you have small calves. They make you spend too much. They make you feel like you aren't doing enough searching to find the soul mate to your thighs. Or you can just wear Khakis. But don't even get me started on Khakis...especially with pleats. I will be forever searching for my denim soul mate. Some want love. I want Boot Cut.

How Little Things With Big Packages Are So WOW.

2006-12-26T12:17:00.000-08:00

In my first apartment, I was introduced to a little person. So, she wasn't really so much a "little person" that you are thinking a "little person" would be. She was just insanely short, for being a thirty five year old woman. Like 4 foot nine short. She lived below me in the apartment building. But, I swear, we had the same time schedules as I saw her quite frequently and always found her to be some what...interesting and just so darn cute. She was so little! The thing that I always thought unique about her was everything she owned...was...well, way bigger than you'd think a smaller person would own. When I would head out of the apartment lobby to the parking spot on the street, she would be pulling in...in her huge black explorer. She would hop off it like it was a tall horse and lift her arms above her head and slam the door close with both hands flat against the black exterior. She, then, would sling her GIANT purse over her shoulder. Her HUGE black sunglasses swallowed up her itty bitty face. She even had giant key chains! Like, when I would be stuck behind her waiting to get in to her mailbox...I would see all the keys with large dangling key chains that were longer than one of her fingers. So, it was a bit of a surprise that when one night I was having the worse headache of my life from dealing with three final photo projects due and probably lack of sleep from going out every night afterwards that when my headache became a migraine and when all I wanted to do is sleep it off in the dark and quiet but couldn't because my tiny neighbor below me was rocking out to what sounded like a little Janet Jackson. Don't get me wrong. Never have I had a problem to people who listen to great pop music as loud as it can go in small spaces so it echoes. I've had my fair share of moments where I had a three in the morning painting inspiration with a full on soundtrack blasting out of the speakers...but that whole migraine thing just made it impossible to tolerate. Also, I don't like knocking on people's doors I don't know. It makes me nervous...be introduced to peoples' house smells--everyone's house has a different smell, you know. And some poeple's house smell. I'm at the little person's door. I can here Janet's "Escapade" screaming out of her stereo. I was nervous even more because I've never really talked to this little person. I mean, she wasn't technically a little person...but she came up to the bottom of my chest. I almost felt like I was going to yell at a next door neighbor's kid. Anyway...I knock twice...and on the third the music shuts off. I hear little footsteps walking towards the door. Then, the door opens. Her apartments smells like fake strawberry...from a Glade air freshener. "Yes?" The girl says in a little voice. I explain to her my migraine thing and how bad I felt. I was looking down to her...I felt so weird. But she took it so well. Like, I was telling her I would clean her bathroom or something if she'd do me this favor. Then she was like..."I have something that could help you with that!" At the door of her apartment, she invites me in to grab whatever she has. "I'm a nurse...I get all the good stuff!" She winks at me and says this with a voice that is quite possibly on helium. I step in to the apartment expecting, oh, you know...normal stuff. Couch, chairs, shelves...things like this. But that was not what was in there. It was kid furniture! You know like how little kids have fake little patio sets and kitchen tables and little plastic bookshelves and stuff? Stuff you see in playrooms or at preschools? Got it? OK. She had that, well, her living room collection. Like her bookshelf was a bright purple plastic rounded bookshelf that had sticker eyes to look like a critter. Her coffee table was a yellow plastic bench that looked like it was meant to be used as, well, something other than an adults coffee table. I mean, this was confusing...she had big everything in public...like she didn't see her self shorter than others...but the minute she was in the privacy of her own home...it was tiny town all the way. I even imagined one of her dates brought back. "So, you want some coffee or tea? She would say to the guy...and she would open her front door and the tall blind date would see that her apartment looked like she already had kids and he would freak a little because she never said anything about kids...but still give it a college try. Then, she would start the tea and serve it in doll sized tea cups...this would make him nervous and he would excuse himself to put more "quarters in the meter" and take off. My eyes had to be huge while I starred at everything in that apartment. Even the lamp was a little doll like lamp. "Here ya go!" Says helium voice. She was back from getting me the migraine pill. I looked down to her open palm. The long blue pill was HUGE. It stood out in the palm of her hand and in the apartment. It just looked, so...out of place. As, did I. I felt like an adult in a playroom. I took the pill and thanked her. She told me to stop by anytime. She liked having visitors. From then on, though, when I saw her driving her big monster car and the key chains dangling off her keys...I decided to look at her differently. Just someone wanting to blend in with the rest of us...you know, how we just try to fit in to the world. We all fit in differently to others, too. We look at people and think we know them just because of their size or what they wear and where they work. But it's totally not until you go in to someones apartment and sit on a plastic playskool chair that you totally know what they are really like. Or what people hide behind closed doors and serve tea in. It's the small things in life that open your eyes to the bigger picture.

How The Same Can Feel So Different Over and Over Again.

2006-12-24T21:31:00.000-08:00

What happens everytime in this little village I call "HOMETOWN": I break out insanely. Like, quite literally, my skin goes to "recall mode" and starts recalling what it was like being a young teenager growing up in my parent's house and having lovely little red dots decorated my face like ornaments to a tree. White head filled with gooey stuff zitty ornaments. My old dog seems to forget who I am when I walk in the door. Like, you know, all that dog walking in the subdivision and all the hair brushing and the cleaning out the eye gobbering things I did for her just vanish when I move to another city. I also believe this is part of a treaty that she has signed with my mom as it is their goal to try to make me feel so guilty about not being closer to them...my dog, yes, has signed a treaty. I stay up way later with the promise of finishing books I have been meaning to read and replacing that promise with cable T.V. Can I just get an AMEN for not having cable and letting myself get fat with bad T.V. and nothing else for me to shoot for. God, though...I want cable. My neighbors stop by because they see me when they drive by and ask all the questions that you would ask someone that has been on a trip to India...you know, somewhere far far away and never really imagined for their visit...but want to hear all the details. Things like: So, what is it like durning the holidays there? OR Have you seen Oprah...much like a God, yet? I realize that I don't really feel like I used to live here. Like, I know I did...but then I realize that it just doesn't feel like it. Sort of like when you had a teacher once and then you hear about someone else having that teacher and it just feels weird because you know that you had that teacher and now that teacher isn't your teacher so it just sorta feels like you are living through someone else. I know, bad analogy...but it works for me. I eat a lot more white bread instead of wheat. But here's the thing. There are these places that people go to to get away from it all. They pay money...a lot of money to escape from what they live in everyday. They tip maids to bring them robes and they eat out at fine establishments and forget that they have kitchens of their own... But, I'm sorta liking that I don't have to do that right now. Sure. Going back to your roots can be sorta, well, memory lane(ish) and something that really isn't the dream vacation of choice. It's what it comes down to, though. I wouldn't change a thing. You come from a place and you leave a place, but that place is always there to remind you that where you are now in life is far from where you were before...and sometimes the place where you are now gets a little old too...so you need that slap in the face of coming back home and seeing why and when you left and realizing how good you have it and REALLY how great you had it before...you were just to eye-open to really understand it...or you didn't want to understand it. Sometimes we are just stupid that way. Sometimes we pay way too much money to go to places to escape from the mundane when all we have to do is step on the fast track to our pasts and visit where we come from to remember...we have a lot that shapes us...and a lot that is tradition...and sometimes it takes eating white bread and brewing ugly pimples to get you to see that you are one hell of a cool well-rounded person with a great background and amazing skin. You just have to see through the blemishes and carbs and cable T.V.

How Your Internal Coach Voice Sound the Same for Life Threatening Situations and When You Are Power Puking

2006-12-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

This one time, I was in the woods. It was late at night and my friend and I wanted to take our ninth grade selves on an excursion through what people dubbed " the most dangerous woods in all of the town". And when they said dangerous, they meant...well, you know teens having sex under some mossy logs or cops busting drunk party kids. But it was in these woods I thought I was going to be murdered. See, my best friend at the time and I were bored and felt no interest in going to the mall or building a tree fort or whatever normal ninth graders wanted to do. So, we mutually dared each other to walk through these woods. I've never been the type to be scared of trees clumped together in large amounts. I also imagined that, you know, it's all what you make out of it. If a giant Cheetah is in the woods and going to eat you, all you have to do is wish it away. It's that whole imagination deal. We make up things, usually, that we think will happen and then they happen. It's just the law of fear. Anyway, so we go in to these woods. And as we are walking in we are grabbing sticks and throwing them at each other...and then sorta climbing on trees and then sorta skipping stones in the dark pond that was rumored to have swallowed some dude without him even knowing it. I remember imagining him in the bottom of that dark water...just kind of floating there. Half way in to the woods my then best friend screamed something like "FUCK" when he stepped on something that caught his ankle and twisted in a way that swings get twisted when wind whips them around. The word "FUCK" echoed insanely off this dark wooded area. "HEY!" Then echoed back at us. And this echo wasn't, you know, like a little kid with a toy gun voice...it was an echo that sounded like a gruff dude...a random old drunk dude who most likely was in this woods illegally shooting at animals for his dinner. "HEY FUCKERS!" Is what this voice said next. We both held our breath for, like, ever...and that whole imagination thing--you know, you make only what you want to happen--disappeared as we realized we weren't alone in this clump of trees...and worse...we my then best friend's foot was in a lot of pain. He couldn't run. I grabbed him at the shoulder and then started limping with him...carrying him back. We both were breathing hard. And when you are in a dark clump of trees and a voice is yelling at you,most likely a hunter's voice...you don't have much other things to think about while this happening other than..."Oh my god, we are going to die." Which...we weren't realllllly concerned with until we heard gunshots. Six of them shot either in the air or what he thought was us. They were loud. You didn't have to smell the gun powder to know that this gun was a biggie. You could just tell in its POP. Now, when you are about to die...or think you are going to die...your brain goes in to this, well, sort of shut down. Like a computer. It starts going through some code for survival and then it starts repeating what it is doing and questioning everything and your body starts sort of shutting down to...you hands go numb and your stomach twists in positions yoga invented. You just can't think straight and at that one moment, when you hear another three shots fired, you think about your past and present and future all at the same time. You say things to yourself like " I will never swear again if I live through this..." or "I will donate my entire Christmas money to a good cause if I get out of this alive..." or "I will never ever ever think of a guy in that way if I wander out of this mess..." All lies of course. It's just your way of getting through what might be the last moments of your life. This voice, the one that talks you through this moments are evil...they make you look so weak and so frail. All in all, obviously, we made it out alive. I drug my then best friend all the way. We hid behind some brush piles that smelled like old beer and snuck out of the woods to a clearing where they were building a new subdivision. It was like we escaped prison...or well, saved our own lives. See, we never talked about that night ever again. And, really, I've never ever experienced that voice either. The whole survival voice. It's just never been used again...until last night. Last night, I was lucky enough to experience food poisoning for the first time. Not really sure what from as I haven't eaten anything rotten or in a shady taco joint...I just know that it was definitely food poisoning as I have never thought I was going to die in one moment in my apartment bathroom shaking to the chills. But in that moment of, well, ha...puking...that voice came back. That voice that tries to keep you sane through a time you think you just might lose it. "I swear to GOD I will only eat carrots the rest of my life..." or "If I can just stop shaking I swear I will stop drinking anything other than water..." and "oh my god, am I going to die in a one bedroom apartment bathroom to food poisoning...please be wearing nice underwear." See, that voice(the one that visits in the most desperate of times) got me out of it again. It's a part of me that only I will ever know. You probably know your voice too. But the real lesson of this story is that when you get food poisoning and your boyfriend is about to take you to the emergency room because you are almost convulsing on a bathroom floor... Well, really there is no lesson. Just try not to get food poisoning and also try not to go in to the woods at night where you could quite possibly get murdered. Moments of survival, puking or running from a gunman...they are quite the same in the end. They both are just really really mean.

How to Try Someone Else's Story on, like shoes.

2006-12-20T14:10:00.000-08:00

So the world comes down to this: Jeremy Piven. O.K. there is so much more to the world than Jeremy Piven. I know this. You most likely know this. But, well, some people just don't know this. See, picture this: You are at a dinner part with dancers, right? And there are seven courses to be had. It's a birthday party. It's extravagance. The guy throwing the party has large ostrich feathers on his Christmas tree. His tree is only covered in hand blown glass ornaments. His bathroom hand towels are Ralph Lauren...your getting this, right? So, you are at this birthday dinner party with six other dancers. And you could not feel any more out of place...an amazing beautiful luscious home and because, well, dancers are very health conscience and when it comes to courses of dinners...well, you are not. First course: "Bacon and blue cheese roll ups! Enjoy!" Dancers: "Oh, I don't eat bacon or meat..." one, two...three...each one of them announcing this. The cook looks hurt, but gives everyone more bread to munch on. Second course and third course and fourth course and all the others are either ignored or played with because these dancers "shouldn't eat dairy" or "starches are horrible." Let's just say, I ate it like a king. But, O.K., Jeremy Piven. So, one of the dancers moved out to L.A. a while back. She got really stressed out from hurting herself that she had to quit the job she moved out there for. While sitting in this local vegan cafe she is writing in her journal and drinking bottled water when this guy next to her asks if she's super stressed out. Enter, Jeremy Piven. The girl telling the story totally knows how the table of dancers and me will react. In, of course, gasps! The story goes that Jeremy Piven kept stalking her. The dancer, she has a boyfriend...but he doesn't let that stop him. He tells her to come to his beach house in Malibu...he invites her to parties. He just doesn't give up. So, this one party...Jeremy Piven made her go in town and buy herself a swimsuit(with his cash!) and come back to swim. She does. She doesn't like the suit...but it fits well. He ends up getting high and making out with some other girl and this dancer girl telling this story ends up leaving with some other guy(he used to be on Full House and asked if she needed a ride home). Jeremy Piven texts this dancer girl, "So, did you sleep with him?" She texts back "None of your business...but no..." Jeremy Piven gets ticked off and stops trying to "just be her friend". So, I am sitting at a dinner table with seven courses with a bunch of dancers and myself. These dancers totally have this way about them--like they just understand each other...their lifestyles and the way things just are. Like, well, meeting Jeremy Piven and then comparing their L.A. stories to others. I don't have any L.A. story...wait, I take that back...I do...but it's about Gene Wilder with a cane and it makes me sad. So, anyway, why am I telling this story...right? Well, because apparently Jeremy Piven world and L.A. world is just so much more interesting to people than...oh, I don't know...my kind of story world. I mean everyone listened when "the only non-dancer" (oh, that's me) talked...but you could just see that Jeremy Piven and all the related L.A. stories were what fueled this party on to the fifth bottle of wine. So, I wanted to bask in someone elses glory today... I wanted to wear a story I most likely will never wear in my life. No. I've never been hit on then 'sext'ed(that's 'sex texted' for all you newbies) by Mr. Piven...but I sat next to a girl who is a dancer who totally has been 'sext'ed by Mr. Piven. And I just wanted to know what it felt like to totally have that kind of story...I don't have that kind of story...and I suppose that's what's kinda cool about people with different stories and the ones you choose to write and the ones you choose to tell at tables at nice swanky dinner parties with a bunch of dancers. Everyone has a story...some people's stories, though, have famous stars as the main characters. My stories don't though. But I think I'm cool with that. Jeremy Piven cool. SIDENOTE: Is Jeremy Piven cool?

How This Kid Evolves

2006-12-19T15:30:00.000-08:00

So, cavemen did the whole fire and wheel thing. The Japanese did the whole Virtual Pet thing. Your Quarter Life Crisis is doing the whole music to writing thing. It goes like this: I just started working with the most talented people ever at 2nd Story. They are these cool kids that incorporate the theatre to writing...or making writing come even more alive. So, with that, like how things evolve I have decided to evolve my posts. It's cool. They have D.J's that use music in the background of your piece to make writing more like a scene. How it works: You choose to press play while reading the post. You choose to press play afterwards. You choose to press play and reread. All three are correct. It makes reading the post your own. Why I did this: Music adds such a huge impact to the way we preceive things. Like, if you go and watch a car crash and listen to oh, some sort of techno song...it's going to have a hyper thriller kind of tone to it. If you watch that same car crash with say some slow emotional piano ballad--you're gonna cry. I'm trying this out. If you don't like it...don't listen to it. If you love, tell me! It's just another way to take writing to another level. OH! And mark your calanders(If you have 'em) cause I am reading for 2nd Story January 21st and want moral support! More on that later. So, the first kind of these postings are below...check it out.

How Life Lessons Are Harder to Learn Than, Say, Chemistry...

2006-12-19T14:41:00.000-08:00

Odyne, she was the Greek goddess of pain, had a very difficult job...I imagine. See, I just can't imagine waking up one day and or being born in to goddess hood and being told..."yes, you are a lovely goddess...but you are going to have to play the part of goddess of pain...you can do that, right?" She had to work at this job. Choosing different types of pain. Physical, of course. Mental, absolutely. But emotional...emotional pain had to be so dang tough. I mean, no one likes to feel something in the heart. It is so sensitive there. Even for goddesses. I imagine she had no friends as who wants to be friends with pain? I imagine she too could understand that with other people in your life...you risk unprotected parts of yourself. You risk parts of yourself that you wouldn't risk to random strangers on the elevator or to your local waitress. No, she probably kept to herself in fear of losing those close to you...losing friends she tried to have and just didn't want to put up the fight anymore...trying to figure out how not to make it hurt so much. So, when you are not the goddess of pain, how do you fix this? You know. Like, when you and a close friend start growing apart and eventually something sets the two of you off. You say things you don't mean. They say things they don't mean. Then, you start to realize that "this is it...this just isn't meant to be anymore." Or even this: Nothing happens...you just never hear from that friend again? So, when you start feeling sad about that...do you let it go? Do you say goodbye and tell yourself that was a specific part of your life...that person was there for you when you needed them and they need you...that it's better off this way...that you have to learn from mistakes? God, you miss them too. But you know what? They are toxic. Some people just are. Some people are meant to teach you a lesson on life. Some people are supposed to make you really hurt...a loss of a person who is still alive. But are you supposed to end it in a good way...or just let it be? Are you supposed to say goodbye to someone without really saying it? Who wants us to learn this lesson too? Who wants us to hurt in order to understand that not everything in life is supposed to feel as good as sex as good as being upside down on a roller coaster? Was it Odyne? I really would like to know. I want to know who made this game we all play have twists and moments that we are so sad it feels like holes were punched out of us. You have lost a friend. I know you have. Everyone has. No, they didn't die. But they have passed away from your life. These lessons are the hardest ones. Harder than Algebra or even Chemistry...but very much alike in the same way. They both take equations to make sense: Life - friend = life lesson. An equation for pain.

How Old Men Say the Darnest Things

2006-12-18T17:15:00.000-08:00

You know how when you are somewhere you know you shouldn’t be.?Oh, let’s just say…like in someone’s basement going through some of their drawers in their bedroom or peering through the newly dating guy’s medicine cabinet. You know that feeling, right? The one when the stomach is super tight and you feel jumpy because you might get caught and there is a possiblility that you might leave a finger print or move on thing out of it’s place that would totally throw the whole excursion out of cover? It’s sick feeling. It’s horrible. Your face gets flushed. Your mouth gets super dry and your hands shake a little. But it’s the stomach…the stomach …that sets you over the limit. It spins a little and makes you wanna lurch out yesterdays thai food, but also hurts in nerves in frustration—a pulling hurt. That is this same feeling: "So, have you seen Blood Diamond yet?" An old man asks me at work. He is a nice stout old man. In a long cashmere looking tan coat. He smiles when he asks me. SIDENOTE: You should know that our store is selling these great pieces of handmade weaved bowls and vases from Rwanda. Proceeds go to these people who make them…to show a worldy artists kind of view. Other well known designers do it too…you know, have artists make their work and sell it up the wazoo at a really high price and then only give a very small cut…but a cut...to the artists in this quiet humble small countries. "Oh…no…not yet…but I really would like…" I respond back "WELL DON’T!" He cuts me off with a loud bark. "Um…oh…oh…why?" I ask because I was sure his bark was much more worse than his bite. "It’s too real." He whispers it like we are talking about Vampires and Gobblings and Mr. Bush…he is in fear of what he now knows. "Well, isn’t that a good thing?" I ask back in a very eye open worldy kind of perspective way. The man glares at me. He GLARES. His already thin lips go to a very odd paperclip type turn as if he was wants to tell me to "fuck off" but then remembers his old man manners and says this… "There are things we just don’t need to know about. That’s why I live in this country. I don’t have to worry about that kind of stuff." He takes his purchased Rwanda handmade "helping people who do not live in America" pot with him and turns his back to me trying to hand him a receipt. Not knowing what scares me most: A)The fact that that is a common belief in American culture B)That this is a common belief in American culture. I have not seen the movie. I know what it is about…it is about everything else that we don’t admit to. You know those sweatshops that we totally let little kids work in Mexico for our lovely GAP hoodies and maybe the coffee you get at Dunkin Donuts—yeah, they don’t pay their workers very well to grow that cheap stuff. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I am just as guilty. I try to avoid it as much as possible, though. There are stores that, yes, mark up their prices but sell hot clothes that are made properly—not slave like. But HERE is a difference. I KNOW that these things happen and I DON’T choose to be an elderly man or a young kid or anyone in between that tells people to ignore what is going on in the world and tells people that "we live in America, we shouldn’t worry about that…" Because that, having someone say THAT, worries me so much more. A pulling knot in my stomach kind of worry.

What Your Body Says About You?

2006-12-17T12:20:00.000-08:00

"What would you like for dinner?" Guy says in the elevator. "Uh huh." Guy in elevator responds to other person's response. "Well, let me tell you what I was thinking...Tofu stir fry." "Uh huh." Guy in elevator responds to the response of what the person responded to about the stir fry. "Well, of course it gives you gas...it's beans." Guy responds back to other person. The elevator crowd quietly shifts closer in to themselves and wonder what they will have for dinner and what kind of person would say "gas" in a crowded elevator really loud. The same kind of person that would totally pass it in line at a bookstore when you are really stressed out and trying to quickly buy a book that will help teach you something on your computer. And, you know, lines are really long at bookstores during the holidays for some odd reason that people tend to think people want to read more during and after the holidays. But, that's besides the point, because some guy has just passed gas in front of me and it wasn't even like I was guessing...it was a silent "pfffs" and then a horrible smell aimed right at me. See, being short...I get offered these moments often...I am, literally, right in front of them. But. Unlike the guy that openingly will admit to his gas in the elevator...this one pretends he didn't do anything. Meanwhile the long line behind ME thinks I did it because I am looking around seeing if anyone else is noticing this horrible smell. I even look at this younger girl who is two people down from me and she totally eyes ME the look of "whoever smelt it, dealt it." I quickly turn around to ignore that. See. I just think it's weird that either you're about it...or you're not. Like, you'll admit that you made the noise and smell or you try to pull it off like nothing happened. I often wonder if you can tell a personality or a type of person by the way they own up to what comes out of them...like people who openly admit to passing gas will openingly admit problems or weakness in a relationship, but those people who deny it are those that we should fear--a lying species. Or maybe passing gas and character traits have nothing in common and we should all just do whatever we feel gets us out or relieves us. Or maybe I should stop judging character by smell and deadly rudeness and just buy my books online.

How trying to make a decision is like writing a book that doesn't want you to turn the page.

2006-12-15T13:26:00.000-08:00

I'm not too sure if I learned choices from fairytales--like the three little pigs who, well, had some options of building their houses out of straw, sticks, and bricks...and watching the other options fall apart to the strong bricks. Or if it was Snow White who taught me to either bite the apple or not bite the apple or if it were Cinderella that taught me that to wear glasses shoes is not the right choice compared to leather pumps because, duh, glass falls off. Either way, all of these stories that I grew up on had delimeas, right? You know, the thing that they had to choose and then learning from those choices that either knock you in a coma or leave your prince-less or keep you safe from the big bad wolf. Those stories messed me up because they taught me that there are always other options. I know there are different ways we can do one thing and sometimes instead of being one of those characters and going with my gut, I totally think how I it would be in each scenerio. What I wish: That I didn't do that. Our lives are stories. Yeah, they have beginnings middles then ends...but there are also those plot twisters that keep people reading and asking questions. Well, GOD, if I just keep going the safe path...then when will the story still end in a fairytale? Don't even get me started on the big bad wolves and the prince and the evil step mothers. Those are just added characters to move the plot. I just need some good page turners in my life once in awhile. --incase you were wondering, this has to do with the grand scheme of things...not what I am doing right now.--

How Sometimes People Should Be So Jealous That We Get to Live in Cities

2006-12-14T12:54:00.000-08:00

Morning commutes in the city are much different than most other commutes. You don’t usually get the comfort of a cushy car seat and the coffee mug holder next to the gearshift. You usually can talk to yourself because no one will hear you and will most likely think that you are on a cellphone. See, us folks that have to get from point A to point B via public transportation in the morning will experience more in a lifetime than many of you folks will in that luxurious automobile of yours. I mean, just the other day I was waiting for a train heading downtown and noticed that for a morning car, it was kinda empty. I was happy. I would get to have a seat(which is so not normal at that time of the morning). So, as the car pulled open it’s doors I stepped in giddily to find that there was a smell of ,well, rot…or pretty much the homeless guy that was the only one in the car. After my held breath for about ten minutes until I hit the next stop to switch cars, I stomached the rest of the way downtown demanding to know why I haven’t bought a car. And then, again, a couple mornings later I am half awake and thinking about what it would be like to have beach front property and also really feel like what it would feel like to have 300 count sheets when this woman barged in on an already crowded train wearing perfume that was like using Mr. Clean as body lather and red lipstick that matched nothing but a scab and was listening to her ipod (and I think it was Britney Spears). She smooshed herself right up to me…so not only was I , like, totally sniffing up her fumes…but I was experiencing full on frontal action—like everytime the train would speed up…her body would push in to my front…given, if this was maybe like…oh I don’t know…some really attractive doctor or something I wouldn’t have minded it as much but it wasn’t. It was a lady wearing scab red lipstick who had A LOT of cat hair on her peacoat. But then…there are those moments when you are like: “Yeah, man…this is why the city is so fricken great.” Today, there was a man singing Christmas carols…quite loudly, but beautifully. Granted, it was odd and it was early and it was cold and I wanted to have a latte or three, but there was something about the moment. You know, when you watch a movie and you are all “Whatever, dude, that never happens in real life…” and you get really annoyed with a scene because it is so unbelievable to life that you disregard the rest of the movie. This was one of these moments. Not only was it because he was singing Christmas carols, but other people sorta started singing along. Silent Night became a unified sorta choir where this one woman was wearing a bright hot pink blazer coat started in with the harmony and then this little small kid was dancing on his dad’s lap behind me. The older man who started the singing wasn’t even paying attention to this uproar of song. Like, maybe he even thought he was singing it to himself. But he didn’t realize that the entire train was experiencing one of those unbelievable movie moments. So, for five stops I was in the middle of a holiday movie classic. A rough voice singing NOEL and then Deck the Halls and then a little Rudolph. His voice was jazz like, too. Like he was trained with such throaty harmonies and that he knew one day in his life he would use his jazz-trained voice to get an entire train of people happier…or at least smiling. Including me. I even skipped my stop to the next one to hear him hold a note he was holding on to for a bit longer than I anticipated. I don’t think I will look at movies much like that anymore. You know, disregard them for things that you would just never let believe happen. Because, more often than not, those things do happen…and they are weird…but at the same time so absolutely great. And I know that all you folks that drive to work…you got nothing on that. Nothing.

On Seeing the Dali Lama's Nose Hairs Up Close

2006-12-13T17:49:00.000-08:00

You need to understand that if you do not know who Chuck Close is, then you need to educate yourself here and get back to me with what you think and then tell me why he is too dang cool for his own good. Then, second, you need to picture this: Like, you never meet the Dali Lama, yet...but you meet this giant photograph. Got it? O.K. Good...because next you will get really close up to it...it's a Polaroid...so it is as clear as day. See, giant Polaroid images are photographed on like these plates--so they are flawless...every pore...every untweezed eyebrow...every bit is shown in it's honest to God look. So, you will get close to this image at a Dali Lama gallery opening downtown. It will be slightly crowded and there will leaf tea and there will be wine served and there will be chants in music and there will be exposure of artists who try to conceptualize the visual element of what they view the Dalli Lama as...basically, very zenny artifacts that make you go "ohm." So, there is little girl. She gets really close to the picture Polaroid of Dali Lama. She is holding her mom's hand because there is a sign that actually says "hold your children's hand" and they are staring at the portrait. I noticed it first...it was obvious...the beautiful brown eyes that lead to the slope of the nose to then...the burly nose hairs that hang out of the Llama's nose. "Moooooooooooooom??? His nose is hairrry???" The room laughs. The mom explains that he is a man and that he is very busy. You realize that maybe this whole, you know, life deal...it doesn't have to be as complicated as you try to make it. Buying cologne to cover your natural smell...worrying about your jean label being covered by your belt...trying to determine whether you are contemp. or vintage. or classic style or really taking the time to trim your nose hair. Cause, oh...I don't know...if someone with such a positive outlook can still have that positive outlook even with nice dangly Buddhist nose hairs...then maybe we need to skew our directions and our nose hairs in the same way he is going. Just a thought.

How to piss off a lot of people, including the guy on your couch.

2006-12-12T12:33:00.000-08:00

"ooooooooooooooo!!!" that's the noise people make when they are totally witnessing something that know isn't approved of and totally risky and totally gonna get some people in trouble. People did that on the bus a lot in middle school...on the way to school in the morning we would get pulled over by the busdriver at least two times a week for starting paper fights or throwing things out the window. Being little is hilarious. But when we would get pulled over..."oooooooooooooooooo..." would echo through out the school bus. We knew some yell'n was a comi'n. So, when you are watching "The Davinci Code" from Netflix with your boyfriend who grew up Catholic...you will see a little be of personal struggle in every scene. You know, like scenes that totally say things like "Jesus was just a teacher...he was never meant to be divine..." or "The Catholic church hides all kinds of stuff...including the edits of what should be in the bible." You know, stuff like that...and when you seeing it coming...you hold in your "oooooooo's" no matter how hard it is...but there are just so many "oooooooo" moments. Yeah, I know. This is old news...the whole thing about how the churches got mad at Dan for writing this book and then making the movie...but you don't really see it until you realllllly see it...in your own living room when someone's beliefs as a child(born and raised) are peed on...literally by non-believers or at least people who question things. They might first grab a pillow or squint really hard at the television in disgust or even step out of the room to the kitchen to "look" for a snack more often than usual...but there is definately an uncomfortable feeling...a feeling of frustration or confusion. Hell, (ha, i said hell in a post about religion) I totally give a lot of respect to a bunch of different people...Dan for writing this book...the people who made the movie...the people who went to see the movie...the people who watch it all the way through...and my boyfriend who now has permanent scowl lines on the bridge of his nose because now he has a whole new can of worms to weed through. Me? Oh, I liked it. I'm Lutheran...us Luths...we totally dig people who stir up the the settled pot. Well, I do at least...but I am barely Lutheran...but I'd like to think that us Lutherans or previous Lutherans can find appreciation in things that question where we come from...isn't that really what this movie was about...isn't that the real question in religion? That and how did Tom Hanks get that part?

How to defend wearing water wings as an adult.

2006-12-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

My parents were not allowed to go to the beach for six years. Let me explain, my parent’s were not allowed to go to the beach for the first six years of my life because of, well, me. When my parents were married, they immediately moved in to this small two bedroom white and yellow trimmed house up the street from a drive up Dairy Queen and down the street from a small lake that had sand delivered to it in early May to be spread out as “beach”. And every summer, I am told, air conditioning was expensive and sparse…so, my mom and dad would load up the family Ford Escort and zip down to some beach front property to enjoy a day in the sun and a refreshing dip in the pool. The problem with that was me. See, apparently, in my past life I was some sort of pirate, sailor, or mermaid abductees because I was born terrified of water. O.K. Not just, like, “terrified” but…like I would scream even if we drove by a lake. At one year old I would do this. Yes…I know. So, when my hardworking poor parents wanted a day in the sun it was in their best interest to do this when it was naptime. I was a napper, so like clockwork; I would fall asleep for hours not waking up at all. This would be the time, in July, when my mom and dad would enjoy those moments of freedom in the lake. Until I would wake up and know where we were and flip out. “Just try, honey, come with me. I will hold you and the water won’t even touch you…I PROMISE!” My mom pleaded in between wails. “PLEASE!” She begged to Prince Me in desperation. I wouldn’t have it. My dad would try, too. “Son! Come on! I’ll teach you how to doggie paddle!” Like learning something dogs do would help me through my fear. It continued on each summer. My parents gave in to window air conditioner and I would run through the sprinkler in the backyard…with my arm floaters at hand just in case the sprinkler decided to flood the backyard and the swing set would float away in to a sea of sprinkler water. But one summer. I turned eight. And eight, as my mom likes to tell me, was then dubbed my “Lucky Number”. I wanted to go in to the water. I started slow. First, I would step at the edge of the tide to the sand. Let my toes feel it. Then run back to where my parents were sprawled on a Vegas towel they got from their visit. Then, I’d go back and let my knees get hit and wade to my waste and up to my neck and to my arms where my little Donald Duck floaters would buoy in the water…holding me. I paddled insanely, still really not wanting to touch the slimy bottom. But I did it. Air conditioning bills went down. My parents weren’t at each other’s throats so much and I learned what it felt like to get murky water trapped in your ear tubes that later cause Swimmer’s Ear infection and pain like no other. But I stopped thinking about it and got wet. So, now, present day me in a cold dreary city and years after years of swimming…swim team, dive team…dive team—the challenge was making something so difficult look so graceful with out a splash. It is now the story of my life. On my desk are three forms for graduate school that have been starring at me. Like how the coast of that lake back when I was little made me squirm in fear—whether it was failure or just plan stepping in to the unknown—that same feeling is with me at ever attempt to pick up the application and fill it out. Just like when I was little, I knew there was really nothing that could hurt me when it came to trying. Sure, there was a little bird poop that would swim by you or even a wave that would splash in to your eyes. But, what I realize now is that that lake was so big and so wide and it would have took nothing for me to get sucked up in to it and lost in it or pulled under or drown in it…I had no control over it…I was letting it do all the talking. Well, surprise. Grad school applications are a lot like that. You can see that horizon line way out there…but then, it looks like the Earth goes flat and you fall off in to some unknown pulled under by waves of student loan debt and no time for your other parts of life with float by you and broke college student with splash you in the eyes. Diving in to something you have been faced with time after time is the real easy part. It’s the motivation and desperation and the moments of sweating out the heat…or in this case, well, the heat of attempting a masters…that’s the scary part. There are no sprinkler-like graduate schools…it’s all or nothing. And I would look like a fool wearing water wings to stay afloat.

How dinner can make you feel filled.

2006-12-10T11:01:00.000-08:00

I haven't had a fortune cookie in years. But it has always been, in my best bet, to be the last to grab one. Karma, the devilish plaything it is, has this way of working on your side when you are more giving and more patient and even more zenful of approach to sharing. Having dinner with friends and having these cookies approach you in your time "figuring life out" it can only be taken as a grain of salt...or rice in this moment. It's all in fun. Factories printing messages. Then you and your friends reading them aloud to each other under the dim light of a resturant...where ambience music plays and chopsticks sit crosslegged on dirty plates. But when you get a fortune that says: "Your way of life will change, for the better..." You can't help but think...this is some sort of turning point...destined for you. Like things that come to your attention quite more often in your everyday life when you just read one article or discover something in accident, you start to turn your perspective and understand that desserts have no control over your future. Karma has no control over your future. You do. And this, my friends, is heavy thinking on a Sunday when Sunday's are good for reading the paper, having brunch and alphabetizing the color names of your markers. But fortunes have that way of gettiing you thinking. Especially cookie ones.

Imagine me and you and you as me. How hard it really can be.

2006-12-09T17:37:00.000-08:00

"I couldn't sleep last night...but I am so tired." A guy wearing a pink tie with a dark black suit says in to his cellphone on the EL. It's afterwork...and public transportion is usually pretty full...as are the prying ears wanting to know why this guy couldn't sleep. "I called her. Three times. She wouldn't pick up. She promised she would call...uh huh...well, uhuh...maybe that's it. But I still couldn't sleep..." He says in to the phone. There is a guy on the other end. You can tell by the depth of his voice echoing out of the phone. The el shakes back and forth as it turns a corner above the streets lined with cars. He holds on to one of the bars to keep steady. I am in his armpit, literally...as you can really never be too close on the train. "I guess I can do that...I will wait. I'm just so worried about her...I know...I will...I will let you know..." The guy says. He sounds really desperate, too. Like he might even cry. A pink tie guy might cry. His girlfriend dump him? Maybe his mommy didn't call? What was this nerd freaking out about? Then, the train slams on it's breaks on the turn. Ice, maybe. Going too fast around a corner, perhaps. But the entire mob of people lose grasp of everything and we shake all around grabbing on to something so we don't hit the wet dirty train floor. Then I see it. His wedding ring. You know when you have nothing better to do but imagine a stranger's life? Like, it could be the farthest possible from what you are thinking to what is actually happening to them...and then you start creating this scenerio--and you either feel really bad or really happy for them...and then you start asking questions of what you would do in his or her situation. You know? I started doing that... Did he cheat on his wife? Did she find out and leave? Did she cheat? Did they get in a fight about what to name their kid, their dog, their new Audi? Did she get tired of folding his underwear? Did she go out with her girls and discover she was a lesbian? Did he tell her he was gay? We all gained our balance back and my stop was at the next. I watched the guy, from his armpit, look at the train window. It was fogged up from the heat inside of the train from all the bodies. But I could still see his reflection. He was definately thinking--and not grocery list or what movie to rent thinking...it was life thought. He was trying to figure out how he got to where he was or where his life was going or what next? He was trying to make sense of it. I got off at my stop and couldn't stop thinking about his life. Then, it snapped me back to reality. You can't do that...make up things to feel sad about...worried about...upset about...there is too much to already worry about that is actually real and happening--and not just imaginary stories. But I guess that's just what we do to try to relate to each other...think of different ways to understand..."What would I do if I were you?" And definately ways to be happy with what you know and have right in front of you.

How Cancer is the iceberg of our bodies

2006-12-08T11:01:00.000-08:00

We are funny. People, that is. We go to school. We watch T.V. We go out to dinner with family and friends. We work at jobs. We have children. We adopt. We learn how to knit. We ask directions to new places to visit. We learn how to roll our "r's" when speaking Spanish. We clear our throats when we are nervous. We memorize lyrics to our favorite songs. We give money to charities. We let our hearts break. We risk our lives jumping out of planes. We use digital cameras to capture memories. We use gas tanks to get us from one point to the other. We memorize the day we are born. Our best friends' birthdays. Our anniversaries. The day our countries went independent. We know equations. We learn about saving account interest rates. We laugh at stand up comedians. We buy magazines then we don't read them and then we dust them off with hopes of reading them. We get dogs and cats and birds and fish and we name them and we let them sleep in our beds and we feed them things we know they love, but shouldn't have. We go to sleep mad, sometimes. We wake up not wanting to go to work, sometimes. We play sick when we don't want to go to someones party. We get holes in our socks and still wear them. We email people instead of write letters. We make large dinners and over-stuff ourselves. We listen to violins and drums. We through away old toothbrushes. We light candles to set moods. We understand what it means to offend people...we still do it. We do things every single day of our lives that we totally take for granted...years upon years of evolution we ignore...it's just there. We just do it. Our ways of life and beliefs and understanding of ourselves only goes as far as we allow ourselves to understand. It's not our fault, really. It's what's supposed to happen. Like trees losing their leaves in the fall...we go with what we only know...what gets us to revive for another season. Until we have cancer. See. That's another thing we take for granted. Our bodies. And the only time we don't...is when we are in danger. Like a crashing crescendo of instruments at its climax...when we hear these things...the invasions of our bodies...we pay attention. "We are waiting for her results" My friend informs me telling me about her mom. That word "Results" installs instant nerves...whether it's for an exam or for a life or death test. Results are never a word set to lax. "Is there...anything...anything at ALL I can do...?" I respond...like a good friend does knowing there is NOTHING you can do. Not. A. Thing. We go about our days living in these ships, these bodies of ourselves...sailing around our lives not really knowing what really makes our hearts beat or keeps us breathing or how many vitamins it takes to keep your eyes healthy or what really the lining of our stomachs are made of or if we are keeping our "Ships" up to proper standards. Then, when we hit an iceberg...our ships turn so cold. You realize, this. Quarter-Life, Mid-Life, End-of-Life...we are all the same. We take these bodies we have for granted and just keep floating on the sea of life...and sometimes something tries to sink us. But there are those buoys out there...and all you can do in those moments of drowning...is just hold on. But being a buoy, too, can just feel so helpless.

Quarter Life Crisis

test

You Give Me Fever.

“No More Gay People”

Yarn and Life, the same.

How To Get Even

110 hours.

The History of Breath

Hollywood, it’s me, Byron

10:55AM Central Time

Lip-Syncing

How It IS Possible To Be Friends With A Straight Guy When You are Gay.

Look MA! I'm FAMOUS! Or, well, known by some.

When You Are No Longer Just The Son

Eyes All Over

Lenting Lent

A Letter to myself forty-five years from now.

How Things Don't Just Go Away

Um, Hi, We ARE in 2007 Still, Right?

Why one should love Ira Glass even more than you might now.

The Real World, Sometimes.

Mr. Livingston, I presume?

Dang you Mr. Bell

Death and Taxes

On When It's Just Right.

Because it is "Get to Know Byron and His Neighbors Week!" Apparently...

Now, you see me.

You know, to continue with a theme of sorts that I have thoughtfully dubbed “And this is why, Dave, we need to get out of our stupid apartment"—take 2

Dear Mr. Neighbor next door to us,

The Secret

Hot For Teacher....

Stepping Up To The Soap Box

On Seeing Hate In Person

My First Time Was With Kathy Lee Gifford

How I Got The Periodical Blues

Going in Circles

Paul Revere was a dentist...really?

This is what happens when you keep your old high school newspapers at bay.

Faux Daddying

Why I'm In Love Iris Glass EVEN MORE than I was before.

My Sweet Sixteen

How We Never Grow Up

Why I Enjoy Dry Cleaning

Only By a Thread

SEE! This is what happens when you watch Adventures in Babysitting.

Pookie.

How Anna Nicole Smith Actually Made Made Me Think?

The Color Red

On Making Sense

The Grape Escape

In Response to a Friend Who Said : "How Are You Always So Optimistic?"

On Being Careful With Certain Things

Live from the Red Line

I like chocolate cake.

On not going crazy

On Going Extinct

Happy Anniversary To Us, Mr. Chicago.

How Saturday Can Be Good On An Air Mattress

So, this is weird...but...

Imagine Me & You

Dude.

.25 Crisis Kid, Age 17

How Alarming.

On being high

When You Are In The Dark

So, Let's Talk About The Now

On Dropping the "F" Bomb or the "C" bomb can really be quite offensive.

On how to be a Push-Over...all in one week. (also, how to pray something doesn't break in your house again).

On Getting Your First Press Release

Next 2nd Story: Sunday, January 21, 2007

Webster's Wine Bar / 1480 W. Webster / $10 at the door(doors open at 7:00)

On Spurting.

How Things Can Be Forever Strange

The WE Syndrome

On The Love of My Life

How The Cat and Mouse Could Go Extinct

How "Volver" ,the Penelope Cruz movie, makes me want to be every culture ever invented. Especially Spanish.

How Nemesis Rhymes with Jealous. (If you try hard enough, it does).

Read At Your Own Risk

Diseases 101: Love as a germ

Webster's Wine Bar / 1480 W. Webster / $10 at the door
(doors open at 7:00)