JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE OUTSIDE.....

When a person is outside, there's a certain aura of freedom. No walls around us, open space, fresh air etc. And that can often make a person feel free to do certain things. But this feeling should be curtailed. After all there's many things we normally shouldn't do outside. Light candles, have a baby, curl up on the couch, masturbate etc. But I'm starting to think smoking should be added to the list.

I'm continuing to be impressed by the inconsideration of smokers. I personally am glad that we're headed toward a social environment where smoking is darn near obsolete (like Sega video games, or the band Sugar Ray), we're getting there and it's a really good thing.



But there still remains this individual that thinks that just because he's outside, there are no unspoken rules of courtesy that still apply. For instance...don't be the guy/gal who lights up RIGHT WHEN you get out of Grand Central terminal, there are still tons of people exiting and vying for space on the sidewalk. No one wants to come out of the stenchy subways only to smell your cigarette smoke right as they exit. You can't wait?



Another example would be when multiple people are eating around you. I watched this douche-nozzle take a seat on a bench in one of those little quad areas where professionals take their lunch break. Not a large area mind you, so the space was quite occupied with people eating their lunch and talking shop. This numb-nutz plops down right next to two women and their food and lights up...the girls were clearly down-wind, and thus they had to move. All because this guy just had to light up right there. There's no way he can go pick a spot on low-traffic sidewalk away from people, he totally needs a seat for his habit!



Another example would be the morning smoker on their way to work. NYC is a walkers city obviously, and these people need to throw in a grit as they walk to work. They then turn their head left or right to exhale. Awesome...yeah, nobody is coming up on your left or right on Lexington Avenue on a Tuesday at 8:45am or anything. Don't blow the smoke upward where it belongs, just turn to your left and assume that no one is right behind you to take in a huge second-hand breath of your poison. Stop being that guy!



Not to be too harsh though. I realize it's an addiction and some people just can't seem to quit no matter how good their intentions are. And if a person does have to smoke, outside is obviously the place to do it as a general rule. I'm simply stating that one ought to apply the same "do unto others..." that he would normally apply in social situations...or any situation for that matter.


After all, the rest of us aren't the one with the problem.

SUBLETTING

My current living and relationship status has me subletting throughout this sweltering summer in New York City. I'm just gonna throw it out there for the intellectually curious......if you ever want to question WHY you live in NYC, and your answer is because it's so great...then I humbly recommend you mix in a sublet situation and see if you still feel the same way.

As it stands, I'm currently paying $750 a month for the following ammenities:

shoddy internet,
an AC unit that pushes about as much cool air as a camel's anus,
a filthy kitchen,
an anti-social roommate,
one beach chair serving as a the only seat in the living room,
1/2 of a spatchula with which to cook,
a broken toilet that takes 45 seconds to flush everything (if you get it all on the first try),
and oh yes......BED BUGS!!

I have been particularly enjoying the latter experience. Of course, there are better situations out there, but I was in dire straits due to another unfortunate incident which put a huge damper on my plans (which was to live in a place with a 55 yr old Chinese man with broken English way out in Brooklyn).

Given that he pulled the plug on me at the last minute, and that I wanted to be closer to my fiance', I was hell bent on hustling for a room to rent for the summer in Astoria Queens.
So, in my desperation of foreseeable homelessness, I agreed to this room. It was furnished and was only gonna be for 3 months.

What is my point? My point is that I have a hard time justifying living in this city sometimes given what you get for what you spend. $750 a month is not chump change to me or any normal person. $750 would probably get you a tight one-bedroom apt all to yourself in Charleston South Carolina for all I know (which, I hear, is a nice little city to live in). But no. Apparently I'd rather spend $750 on bed bugs and a floor that screams "flip flops now!"

So why am I doing this? Because if I want to survive in this city and carry out my plans for the immediate future, I have to. It just chips away at my conscience (also another word for wallet) and reasonability to think about wasting money like that. All because I really didn't have a choice. Sure I could have paid less for a sublet, but I might have lived with 4 college dudes in an even dirtier place, perhaps with cockroaches large enough to bum a smoke off of me. In fact, all of the places I looked at for around $650-$700 were all styes. Not livable to anyone with decent standards.

I sincerely hope for my sake that when I've moved on and I look back on the NYC days, I'll think of it as the best thing I ever did and not the biggest waste of my assets.

"CAN YOU HOLD MY PLACE IN LINE....?"

I was at Starbucks recently and someone pulled a classic request with their own little selfish spin on it. This one I hadn't experienced before but it put me in kind of a weird spot. I get in line to order, and I'm the last one in line. This dude gets in line right behind me, so now he's the last person in line.

Within a literal fifteen seconds, he taps me on the shoulder and says, "hey man, would you mind holding my spot in line? I just gotta hit the mens room real quick, just if anyone comes, let them know that there's someone behind you?" He was nice enough in his tone of voice, but my knee jerk reaction was "Are you nuts?"

You want me to hold a spot in line that's behind me? You do realize that I only care about what's in front of me, right? The whole reason I'm in line is to get to that register with minimal obstacles, I don't need an assignment from you to hold your place in line BEHIND ME. First of all, I don't even have jurisdiction there! Everyone knows you only have power to hold the person's spot in front of you (if you so choose), but to ask someone to hold a place in line behind them?

How bout this? How bout you just don't get in line right now? How bout that? Clearly you're not ready, so just go do your thing and THEN get in line with the rest of the rational people in this place. In this case, he was the last person in line and he's asking me to hold his place as the last person in line.

What am I, an asshole? If someone comes in after this and gets in line, do you really think I'm gonna turn around to that person and go, "just so you know....you're not as close as you think. Believe it or not, I'm holding a spot for this douche who could be back any second, or he could be gone a while....we'll just have to wait and see, but either way, you're not behind me despite your physical presence there."

That sounds insane but that's what I would be forced to say if I agreed to the proposition. And you're probably asking, "well then, what did you tell him?" Basically I agreed to do it, knowing full well that I had no intention of lifting a proverbial finger if someone stepped in. Luckily (not that I really cared) I ended up getting to the register before he got back, so he lost his place entirely, and he should have.....he did a schmucky thing.

My Cubical Neighbor

If the guy 2 cubicles down from me gets up one more time for no reason other than to grab another soda and snack, he will have had 4,752 snacks/drinks and it's only 10am.



Just sayin'

AL GORE SEX SCANDAL

I'm reading up on this alleged sex scandal that has Al Gore in the spotlight. I don't know if it's true or not, but I'm gonna guess it's not and my reasons are not for a lack of evidence; but rather....it's Al Gore!

I'm not saying the man is ugly, but he's hardly charismatic and charming when he speaks. If he did it at all, it might have been simply because Clinton did it back in the day and Gore probably knew about it, so he wanted to have his own fling. You only hope this "massage therapist" was hotter than Monica Lewinsky.

I just can't see the guy having an affair. How would he even entice a woman? And even if he did, would all the dirty talk be about how he invented the internet and how he should have won in 2000! Very arousing stuff.

Politicians are powerful people so I guess I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the affair was true. I'm just having a hard time picturing Al Gore naked with a woman; which, I guess, is a good thing. If that thought came to my mind easily and repetitively, I'd have to kill myself. I can however, easily picture him ironing a shirt in his boxers with a cigarette and asking his wife if he should put creases in the sleeves or not. And then spilling his coffee on his crotch.

That is the Al Gore in my head. Not a sex maniac.

Wedding Planning

I'm getting married in the Fall and my finacee' is in the process of teaching me everything I didn't know or deem rational about planning a wedding. She's winning. Apparently there's a ton of protocol and etiquette (let's just call them what they are....unsubstantiated rules), surrounding the wedding planning process and actual event.

Basically I'm learning that I'm a huge a tool when it comes to these things. I try and shimmy in my opinion or view on a given issue, but I might as well be talking directly to a Mr. Potato Head Doll telling it that it can't leave the house looking like that. My reasons and logic seem to fall on deaf ears. But I'm okay with it because it's "her day". And I truly do want the attention on my bride come ceremony time, she's the real prize here...I'm just an average-looking dude that got lucky, REALLY lucky.

However, every once in a while I feel the need to address the presuppostion that it's "her day". It's my day too, after all. Now I'm not saying that I want all eyes on me and that I should walk down the aisle to meet her at the alter (though that would be friggin' hysterical in my mind), I'm just sayin' let me shimmy in a request that's in my favor once in a while. Throw one my way every so often, is what I'm asking. My fiancee' is getting better at this but she still has a ways to go. The reason I know she has a ways to go is because she still thinks the Bee Gees aren't gonna be played during the reception party. Well, I have news for her......embrace the idea, cuz that shit is GONNA HAPPEN.

Now I'm not gonna cheeseball the whole reception by coming out to How Deep is Your Love for our first dance, that's silly and cliche. But Night Fever will be heard loud and clear once people are on the dance floor with a few (probably several) cocktails in them. And if I break out into a solo, I break out into a solo....circle it up and let it happen. There's only a few things that I'm hell bent on having or doing at my wedding, and that is merely one of them. Some form of red meat would be on the list as well (also happening).

Flowers, colors, location, time of the ceremony, china patterns and crystal stemware? Knock yourself out babe! But let me mix in some cheesy scallop potatoes on the menu and an Issac Hayes tune (preferably from the Hot Buttered Soul album).

I want her to be super happy and overjoyed with this important day. She's the beautiful one, she's the coveted prize, and I want all eyes on her and all attention going towards her on our wedding day. All I ask for is maybe a handshake, and an enthusiastic pat on the back when Hall and Oates hits your ears......cuz that was MY call.

Facebook Attitude

Let me first say right out of the gate that I'm not much of a facebook person. Something about not being able to hug and kiss the people I love and smack the people I dislike...I don't know, guess I'd rather have the real thing. But today I had some strange compulsion to hop on and research some people.

My sister is probably more connected on the site than I am, I have like 8 friends and let me just state that I think it's a crying shame that my girlfriend won't add me. But anyway, I started on her page just perusing some of her friends, turns out she has probably a couple dozen connections to people from our mutual high school. Now these of course, were mostly her friends but I remember them and I'm sure most of them remember me. But as I cruised down this imaged-filled memory lane, I found myself rather hooked; hooked on the kettle cooked jalapeno potato chips I was eating, and also hooked on finding more and more blast from the past persons who I otherwise didn't give a damn about until this strange out of body experience I was having.

As it goes, these people triggered other names, those names triggering more names, on and on it went until I found people that I haven't even thought of for roughly 15 years (I barely thought about them then). Gotta admit it was kind of fun, some of my sisters peers lead me to some of my peers, we were only 2 grades apart after all.

But here's the thing, without befriending them, I couldn't tell what they were doing or how they were living. Some names had changed on the female side of things, so I know that marriages had happened and kids had been born and all that great stuff. But what caught me was this urge to look into their lives and try to compare them to mine.

This HAS to be the most enticing aspect of Facebook I would think. It is this ability to check in on people not so much because you care about their welfare necessarily (I would think the people whose welfare you truly care about, you pick up a phone, right?), but because it's somehow fascinating to us as humans to size others up, measure progression, and then take a glance in the mirror to see if we're keeping up, surpassing, or falling behind in the rat race of life.

And I, someone who hates looking in the past, got hooked tonight. It was a strange feeling...kinda like I was invisible at a high school reunion with no obligation to talk to anyone. I've personally never been a fan of high school reunions for the aforementioned reason. If you lost touch after high school, there's probably a reason why. Not that saying hello and a brief friendly chat isn't pleasant, it certainly could be. But I also have to admit a judgmental streak in me in thinking that if you were an asshole then, you're probably still an asshole...and even if you're not an asshole anymore, I only knew you then and life's to short to actively seek out who may or may not have changed; I simply move on. Anyway, I just find that the people who are on facebook all the time are the same kinds of people that would JUMP at the chance of a high school reunion every 10 years....hell, even 5 years.

And as I see it, this kind of person usually falls into one of two categories....

The dorky/nerdish/goth/awkward person who didn't have the privilege of being so popular at the time (I always felt kinda sorry for these kids, after all, surely they didn't choose this image...their parents were probably dorks too, or maybe they had a rough upbringing etc). This person really has only one reason to show up: to show how much they've changed. It's an opportunity to let everyone know, "hey I'm not a dork anymore, in fact I made CFO by the time I was 28, and am thinking of starting my own business.......I'd ask you to invest, but you probably don't have the capital and you fucked with me in high school, so forget I even asked." This is really the only statement the person in this category has to make at such an occasion. I personally can't imagine any other reason why someone unpopular who struggled for attention and friendships in high school would return to such a scene.

Then there's the ultra popular/jock/beauty queen/cool guy/homecoming/prom royalty that probably peaked too early in life and is now back to relive the glory days hoping the others will reign down accolades on them just like the old days before they started selling tires at Sears. For this person, it's an opportunity to forget how quickly reality caught up to them and instead clasp at the past as if it was still the present. "Remember that game? Dude I threw 4 touchdowns that night".
Nothing wrong with a little reminiscing. But that's usually all they have to talk about. Their time was then, and my how things turned out differently than they expected.

Then there's the rest of us, fairly average joes and janes who unwittingly took in that time for what it is (a rite of passage to an adult life), and understand that that's ALL that was. Sure, friendships developed along the way, some we still have with us, but more than likely they're the same kind of person that I'm talking about right here. Grounded, and with the understanding that there's no need to go back really. It's fun, but it can become an obsession quickly.

I was hooked tonight and almost became convinced that I needed to change my life, strategies, relationships, and career. But I don't. I'm at where I'm at and so is everyone else. And the religious practice of daily facebook browsing, twittering and researching everyone else will never change that fact. All it will do is make you compare. And in an ever-changing world that's becoming more and more subjective and relative...it's gotta be a big waste of time.

Nonetheless, I still can't believe Bobby Swenson got married, that guy was a complete tool back in the day.