08.28.2006
SEAFOOD LOVER IN ME //
Tonight I went to a Red Lobster for the first time in 20 years. It was like an AARP convention. The parking lot was filled with Grand Marquis and Crown Victorias and every handicapped spot was accounted for. Inside was a mix between an East Texas retirement home and as if a Walmart had a bomb threat and everyone evacuated there.

Half way through the meal I was shocked when I saw a herd of Asian college guys parade in. In a moment of self-loathing I knew that I had probably missed out on a coupon of some sort. The food was okay. They could've just served it on a block of butter and be done with it. I ended up spending more on that meal than I have for food all week. Embarrassingly I had trouble finishing it. I've finely tuned my body like clockwork for water for lunch, a chicken pot pie at 4pm, a can of oranges at 8pm and then a midnight bowl of cereal. It's no surprise I'm little more than an under achieving watery bags of bones. When my latest doctor first saw me with my shirt off he said, "um, have you always been this skinny?" I think he was impressed. I'm basically Lindsay Lohan. The new one that wakes up at noon and doesn't really work or have breasts anymore.



08.24.2006
iPOOH //
I'm a hater so I thought I'd pooh pooh on the topic of Apple. They love touting their originality talking about how Windows is just a copy of their OS. But yesterday Apple just settled a $100M lawsuit because iPods are a rip off of Creative's early mp3 player. I find their rabid customer loyalty a fascinating phenomenon. Once people drink from the Steve Jobs Kool-Aid, they go on a crusade to indoctrinate all of their friends and family. Maybe I'm paranoid to think that all of Apple's white peripherals are an eerie metaphor for cultish robes. I once goaded a fanboy over the merits of a Mac. After he had an apoplexy I thought he was going to try and feed on my still beating heart.

I've used both a Mac and PC. They are both good machines. But it's like choosing between Michelle Williams and Katie Holmes post Dawson's Creek pre pulling a Lisa Marie Presley. Neither is necessarily superior and both are very doable. That all being said, my new boss is making me get a Mac. So when I'll be at some hipster coffee shop even though it's 90 degrees outside, while wearing a $200 pair of Urban Outfitters distressed jeans, throw back Pumas, vintage t-shirt, and hoodie, and I whip out my Mac book and surf GreenPeace or PETA.com to get the attention of the cute emo chick sitting next to me, I'll be doing it under protest.



08.21.2006
RE-DAWN OF AN ERA //
I was spoiled in China. For a year the only "cooking" I did involved grilling or microwaving leftovers of meals prepared by my cleaning lady. And when I was at my parents', either my mom cooked or I ate out. So for the first time in a long time I found myself in an HEB a little lost. I really had no idea what to buy. But then in a moment of revelation it all came back to me. For a brief instant I was happy to remember what I used to buy for food, but it was quickly bittersweet as I remembered just what I used to buy for food. Here's my exhaustive grocery list: 24 pack toilet paper, soap, detergent, Lactaid milk, canned soup, beer, and about $50 of frozen food. Some people are really into name brands like Kenneth Cole, Prada, Ferragamo. I'm also into name brands like...Night Hawk, Marie Calendar, Totinos. Does that make me shallow?



08.19.2006
ON THE MOVE //
For the second time in less than 2 months I'm packing up to move again. As I'm taking inventory on the sum of my material existence, I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that it all fits in a 6x6x6 space. Part of me is so ready to get out this transitory period of living at home, but another part is a little scared of starting over again. There is a good amount of uncertainty that makes me a little nervous. How will I be at my new job? Will I get paid this month? How much rust is going to be on the toilet seat in my new apartment? These are the kinds of questions that keep me up at night. Moving to a different city and taking another job constitutes another beginning for me, and I wonder how many more I'm going to have to make. Frankly, I've had enough. I already feel like I'm pretty well traveled, have experienced some interesting things, and maybe in ten more years there may be enough of my life to even make an entertaining movie. Oh wait, they already made the 40 Year Virgin. Awesome.



08.15.2006
BABY FACTORY //
One of the surprises that I've come back to, is that I've learned just about everyone I went to college with has been getting pregnant like it's Catholic prom night. It's a little weird when many are younger than me making me feel like I'm going in reverse as far as life stages. They are buying mini-vans and mortgages while I just watched Talladega Nights and bought an Xbox.

I've had only the tiniest of tastes of parenthood by babysitting my sister's kids. I've done the playing, the crying, the feeding, the whining, the poopy diapers, the Barney, the bathing; did I mention the crying? It's worth noting again. And I'm also a natural insomniac. But to have it all 24 hours a day non-stop…well I just have to ask: are you people insane? Forget the day to day circus. Forget the financial strain. Forget the death of your social and sex life. I find the thought of being responsible for a new life paralyzing. Will he be a good kid? I hope. Will he love God? I pray. Will he hate me when he's 16? Of course. How will he be around girls? Horrible if he's anything like his dad. And what if it's a girl? At least if you have an over-sexed knuckle head boy, you can smack some sense into him when it comes to girls. But to have a daughter… Well you don't want her to be ugly. But then if she's a looker then it'll be like trying to fend off encircling over-sexed knucklehead zombies for 18 years. And that doesn't even address that awkward puberty stage when she's confused why you won't hug or wrestle with her anymore.



08.11.2006
NO PLACE LIKE HOME //
Since I'm currently in between places until I move to Austin next week I've been living at home for the past month. So yes I'm a 29 year old single male living with his parents. But no they don't have a basement that I could set up camp at to complete the demographic. No matter how old you get, there's just something about coming home. Maybe it's taking a nap on a 20 year old couch, looking at your old comic books, or pulling open that familiar fridge for the Nth time in the middle of the night staring at strange Chinese herbs that it looks like your mom just shoveled some detritus from the garden. Coming home feels like sliding on an old pair of favorite jeans that you found one day in a box buried in the back of your closet. Of course after a while you begin to remember why you left in the first place. Every week my dad tells me how he's re-invented his golf swing and has added another 10 yards to his drive. By my calculations he should now be 800 yards off the tee. And then there's the morning where you're waking up sleeping only in briefs and you see your mom sitting next to your bed checking her email on your computer. But the deal breaker is when you just want privacy for when you have girls over. Wait, I think those mid-afternoon Happy Days re-runs are blurring my sense of reality.



08.07.2006
SPEAK UN-EASY //
Does anyone relish the opportunity for public speaking? I mean besides roided out WWE wrestlers who are a little insane to begin with. The average guy should really only have to expect to be up in front of people for two situations in life: giving a best man toast or a eulogy. And with one of those, at least you get to be inebriated and tell sexually inappropriate jokes.

In my line of work I find myself often in front of a mic, except that I don't get to be drunk and the only thing that's died is my dignity. I don't know about other people but I have a serious issue of performance anxiety. I still get major stage fright at public urinals. I don't know if my theoretical marriage night will be my greatest moment ever, or ammo leaked during later divorce proceedings. Every time I have a speaking engagement I try to memorize every word exactly. When I start I'm usually in cruise control, but there is always one moment when I freeze up and completely forget what comes next. At that instant when all I can hear are the chirping crickets I can see the audience wondering if I've completely crashed and burned. They always have that look in their eyes like they are rooting for me, the way people root for the demur chick to hook up with the seemingly unredeemable trouble maker in a PG-13 sort of way. Some think imagining everyone naked is great advice, but have they ever spoken with their parents in the audience?



08.04.2006
MINDLESS ENTERTAINMENT //
My dad loves Walker Texas Ranger. That may be understating things a bit. Sort of like saying the French think well of themselves. When Walker is on, the horse blinders go up and it wouldn't matter if the house was on fire. Of course this is the same man whose favorite movie star of all time is Jean-Claude Van Damme. I've been trying to get my parents to watch the first couple seasons of Alias and it's been a little painful, and that doesn't include when they stare at the DVD remote like it's written in hieroglyphics. I make a point not to skip to intro just so my dad can watch it over and over to understand who is who. But he still thinks the villains are the good guys and the good guys don't use enough roundhouse kicks. He gets fatigued watching and says that he doesn't like anything that involves a story that you have to pay attention to, characters dying, or where you have an emotional response because "it's not entertaining." The only true suspense and intrigue he's interested in is guessing whether Walker kicks the bad guy in the face before or after he saves the kids from the burning orphanage. For a Hall of Fame Walker moment, click here.



08.01.2006
ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING //
Since I've been back in town, I've been babysitting my sister's kids. For those non-parents out there, it's a non-stop job. You can't take your eyes off of them for a second. It's like when you're in a crowded room with a girl you like and you're constantly aware of what she's doing and where she's at. Except that when she takes a dump you don't have to hold her in the sink while you're cleaning her crack with your bare hand. Maybe unless you were Japanese or something.

Every time I'm laying with my one year old niece and she's crying herself to sleep or when I'm reading to my three year old nephew, I think about how carefree their lives are. (I really only mention this because maybe there's a single twenty-something chick reading this whose biological clock is ticking down with the urgency of a nuclear device.) Then I remember how fast I wanted to grow up and be taken seriously and do adult things. Being an adult is over-rated. If I knew that at 29 I'd still get carded at Walmart, and that "adult things" meant waiting in the line at the DMV or paying income tax, then I wouldn't have been in such a hurry. When I was a teenager I thought I was the shiznit. But with every year I age I look back on the pages of the past and realize what a tool I was. And with each passing day I know that I'm continually adding to that book. It's awesome. And by awesome of course I mean the feeling you get when you fart in a packed elevator.