Ouch My Shoulder or I'm Smart

Today I’m going to tell a story about how I’m an idiot. It’s also a story about how I hurt my shoulder, but that’s really more of an illustration than the premise. The overarching theme here is that I’m a big dumbass. There are also some undercurrents about me coming face to face with my mortality, and some asides about ski town hosebags, but again, the cardinal proposition of the entry is that I’m an imbecile.

So every year the crew and I take a vacation out west to go skiing. It’s my big “mancation.” For the past couple of years we’ve been going to Utah. It’s beautiful. It has great skiing, and it’s not crowded. It also has one of the ugliest populations of locals I’ve ever encountered. This is one of those situations where relativity works in my favor. I’m fuckin’ handsome in Utah. In Birmingham, given the benefit of the doubt, I’m averagish (it’s a word) looking. In backwoods Utah, I’m damn good looking. Not that it does anybody any good, because the women are horrendous troglodytes, but it is a boost for the ol’ ego.

The exception to this rule is Park City. It’s the big tourist area, and I will admit that there are attractive women scattered around that place. The two best looking girls I saw all week were sitting at a table next to us at a bar while we were relaxing one afternoon. They were your typical highly manufactured skanks, both had that kind of a failed actress/porn star/tanning emporium employee thing going on. Not exactly fresh-faced, classic beauties, but they were babes in Utah. The guys they were with were what you would expect. Loud, terrible, wearing mixed martial arts t-shirts, “Throw me two Jagerbombs and a Heineken, bro!!!,” kind of fellas. One of them actually had tattoo of TROGDOR that covered his entire back. I know this because the gentleman was kind enough to remove his shirt in the middle of the bar to show it off. It burninated his credibility as a decent human being. (That might be a little inside. For the uninitiated here’s a link: http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail58.html )

Sorry, I felt the need to share that. Anyway, back to how I’m an idiot. This year we decided to take a day off of skiing to rent snowmobiles. There were eleven of us, and only seven of the rentals were upgrades from the 550 cc models to the 600 cc models. I decided that since it was my first time I didn’t care enough to pop for the extra horsepower. (Exhibit A that I’m smart.) The guides take us out into this valley between two large ridges, and we spent some time getting familiar with the things in a couple of open areas, racing around in these fields and jumping out of shallow ravines. A snowmobile is a lot like a water based Ski Doo except slightly more stable but less maneuverable, otherwise very similar.

The culmination of the day was a trip winding our way up one of the valley ridges to a huge open bowl. It had huge hills and drops and open expanses where you could really accelerate. So we’re zipping around in this thing like assholes for a while when my buddy waves me over.

Crazy buddy - “Hey, I found a place where you can get a big jump in.”

What I should have said – “Awesome, I’ll definitely try that last.”

What I actually said – “Right there, on the near side of that ridge? Watch this!” (Chalk one up in the dumb column).

Shockingly enough, I actually landed a couple of big ass jumps. Whooo!! Mission accomplished. That’s a box marked off in the life experience checklist. Now I can relax and enjoy the rest of the day with my snow motorcycle...

… Is what I should have done. However, just then another group of friends showed up, including the guy who would ultimately bring about my destruction, the guy with a camera. I immediately decided that I would not only continue to jump, but would set some sort of hang time record. I was going to go “poster” big. So I head up the hill on the far side of the jump, make sure that my friend has the camera on the “action” setting and haul ass down the hill. I go BIG; I get AIR; I CRASH into the ground. I BRUISE my knees and KNOCK the wind out of myself.

After awkwardly catching up with my machine, which was mindlessly continuing to idle down the hill, I relaxed, relishing the fact that I was not badly injured and thankful that I had the opportunity to try something daring. Who cares if there were no photos of my jumps?

… Is what I should have done. Instead I watched my friends take some jumps off the same spot for a while. I then headed back up the hill to “do this thing!” As I began my descent towards the ridge my original intent was to have a casual and deliberate jump that would get some respectable air and then call it a day. (Smart Exhibit B)

About halfway down the hill I have one of those “fuck it,” “you only live once,” moments. I revised my approach from “careful and deliberate” to “reckless, ill-considered and at high speed.” (Smart Exhibit B rendered inadmissible) The first few moments of air time I was feeling pretty good about my change of plans, but then the snowmobile started to rotate underneath me, the handlebars spinning away counter-clockwise in the direction of my left knee. Like a marine, or a ninja, I instinctively reverted back to my training. I then realized that I had never ridden a damn snowmobile before and jumped off. I kicked loose like that stupid machine was on fire. I landed on my left arm. (Ouch) I hit so hard that it broke the sunglasses I was wearing under my full faced helmet.

So now I’m rehabbing my shoulder, which is an adventure in itself. But that’s a story for another day.

AND THE TROGDOR COMES IN THE NIIIIIIIIGGGGHTTT!!!!!

Absence

What do you say readers? Has your heart grown fonder of my stupid blog?

The holidays seem like an appropriate theme for the moment. What to say? We’ll start off hopeful and drift toward cynicism. Here goes.

What am I thankful for? Today I am thankful for my return to health. I am just getting over a cold. Being sick is the worst, and is really easy to take being healthy for granted as a young man. When I was in college and law school I never got sick… ever. I lived in complete filth, ate terribly, wasn’t particularly prone to hand washing, and generally existed in a petri dish with a pseudo agar created out of leftover fast food and stale beer. Yeah, it was disgusting. Despite/Because of this I never got sick. I bragged about my “Wolverine-like immune system.” One time a group of us got all got in a questionable hot tub at a friend’s place on the way back from spring break. Everyone got a staph infection but your’s truly. (Me > Staphylococcus) Gross right? But I beat it. I was practically invincible.

Cut to present day. I can’t endure a five degree temperature change without coming down with the sniffles. I am a pale and sickly shadow of my former self. In the year and a half that I’ve been working I’ve been sick three or four times. (Naturally, this does not include hangovers. Qualifications always tell a story don’t they?) That’s more times than I was ill for the 7 years prior put together. It turns out that sitting in front of a computer all day and not exercising makes you fat and disposed to minor physical afflictions. So anyway, after a week of horrifying Nyquil induced night terrors and a couple of boxes of Kleenex, I am thankful for being able to breathe through my nose. (Nyquil should be a Schedule 1 substance as far as I’m concerned. That stuff is basically over the counter mescaline)

Well, now that we’ve dealt out some thankfulness, cynicism time.

Shopping. I don’t like shopping for the holidays. Shopping is only fun when you know exactly what someone wants and you know for sure that they don’t have it. I got to have that rare shopping moment today. I know that my dad wanted one of those new cordless drills with the lithium-ion batteries. I also know that he doesn’t have one. I have no problem dropping a few bills on that, because I know I will get to see a fifty-five year old fat bald guy jump up and down and squeal like an eight year old with a new Hot Wheels truck. It’s going to be great.

The rest of the time shopping is an exercise in wastefulness. I have no idea what you want for Christmas. I probably haven’t been paying attention if you were dropping hints, and I don’t like spending time at any store that sells candles. So here’s your picture frame/collection of bath salts/sweater. Enjoy.

New Perspectives

A friend of mine send me a link to her blog tonight. Not bad. Mostly it was just really interesting to read a female’s perspective on certain things. Apparently men are pieces of crap. Who knew? Anyway, she wrote several entries in which the guy was cast in the role of villain. The storyline typically goes like this.

1. Boy meets girl.
2. Boy is charming and if you squint looks kind of like Orlando Bloom.
3. Boy gets girl’s number.
4. Boy becomes increasingly creepy/awkward/morally repugnant. Typically boy’s ethical and social deficiencies manifest themselves in the form of paying attention to other girl(s) and/or drinking too much.
5. Girl gets mad at self for allowing boy to trick her.

When I was reading her entries about crappy guys there were definitely a few moments when I recognized myself. “He did this not only once, not twice, but three times. Apparently, I was cute enough to talk to, but not enough to remember.” Oh yeah. That sounds about right.

Men (including your’s truly) often do treat the fairer sex poorly. This is old news though. I might as well tell you that getting kicked in the genitals is unpleasant. The interesting thing about the girl’s perspective (and perhaps I am over-generalizing) was the fact that she blamed herself for a lot of this stuff. Of course the truly outrageous asshole was appropriately mocked, but for any guy that got past the initial bullshit test and got under her skin I think the blame equation changed. Not that the boy isn’t a prick, but the ultimate responsibility for any emotional distress belongs to the girl. (Yikes right? Accountability is for chumps.)

Naturally, I think a completely unsupportable/offensive theory is in order. My thinking is as follows:

The male agenda is pretty transparent. (Approximately the opacity of air)

Females are not stupid. (Ok… Mea Culpa… A subset of females are not stupid).

It follows that when a female ignores her wiser instincts and is “taken advantage of” by a guy she kicks herself for it rather than holding the dirtbag accountable.

This is just a working theorem, plenty of room for improvement. I think it has a certain amount of explanatory power though. This little formula also ignores that fact that men can be decent human beings, but some people also win at roulette, and that’s a sucker game too.

Anyway, to conclude, for every story a woman tells about the male species failing her I know there is one from some poor bastard that was mistreated by a woman. (Ok maybe it’s not an exact 1-to-1 ratio. I think team dong probably has a comfortable lead, but I made my point.) Males and females hurt each other. Both sides take damage. You take the good, You take the bad, You take them both and there you have the facts of life. The facts of life.

There's a time you gotta go and show. You're growin' now, You know about the facts of life. The facts of life. When the world never seems, To be living up to your dreams. And suddenly you're finding out, The facts of life are all about you. All about you. You-u-u-u, A-ll about you. It takes a lot to get ‘em right, But you're learnin’ the facts of life. Learnin’ the facts of life. Learnin’ the facts of life. Learnin’ the facts of liiiiiiiife.

Stinky Cologne

Long absence. It’s hard to come home from a day sitting in front of a computer and sit in front of a computer. But in the words of Jack London, “Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club.” And with those words of inspiration from the writer of White Fang, who was a dirty socialist by the way, and a little prodding by a faithful reader, I’ve decided to use my own recent life experience as comedic fodder for my own brand of short story. I give you…

Misadventures in Dating

1. For my first anecdote, I thought that something representative of my recent life would be appropriate. Here goes.

So after beginning work I thought it would be a good idea if I attempted to coerce my co-workers into introducing me to women. This has proven to be wildly unsuccessful. My co-workers, along with the remainder of the people that I know in Birmingham, are all either married or in long-term committed relationships. It should have occurred to me early on that all of the people that they know… would be either married or in long-term committed relationships. Needless to say, this has not exactly proved to be a fruitful source of dating opportunities. So anyway, I was surprised recently when one of my friends at work, that I have tricked into thinking I’m a decent human being, offered to introduce me into her new single friend. Not being the type to go on a blind date, I ended up meeting her friend at one of the innumerable fundraisers that one attends as a young professional. Consider my surprise when the young lady was not only very cute but could even form sentences.

I decided to ask her out for a drink. (Wait for it.)

I called; we made plans; she cancelled at the last minute. Weak sauce. (This sucks, but is not the punch line. We’re still waiting.)

We ended up rescheduling the next week or so, for quick bite to eat and drinks. (Here it comes.)

I drove to pick her up, and once we were on the way to the restaurant… (Feel that suspense build. Eat your heart out Hitchcock.)

… she tells me quite calmly. “Just so I don’t lead you on or anything. I have a boyfriend.”

I think further commentary is probably unnecessary at this point, dead horse and all that.


2. For my second trick, I will attempt to mathematically prove that there are only 16.2 datable women in Birmingham. Perhaps a little back story is in order.

I was out a bar not long ago, and I ended up meeting a girl through a friend of mine, very attractive, seemed very fun. For purposes of this story, and because it makes me sound much cooler, lets call her “Adriana Lima.” (As long as we’re protecting the innocent we might as well pretend the innocent are supermodels.) We talked for a while, and I ended up asking her for her number. She even gave it to me. RESULT! After a few days I gave her a call to ask her out. We both had busy weeks so we made plans to get together for a drink when I got back from a trip out of town. SUCCESS! The next day I came home from work and started to make myself some dinner. My roommate stood ironing a pair of pants in the room adjoining the kitchen.

Me: “Those are some flat pants you have there. What’s the occasion?”

Roomie: “Gotta date tonight.” (It helps if you imagine his part in the voice of Foghorn Leghorn: “Pay attention, boy! I'm cuttin' but you're not bleedin’!” or "That boy's bout' as sharp as a bowling ball.")

I puttered around making dinner for a while.

Me: “So tell me about the lucky lady.”

Roomie: “’er name is Adriana Lima.”

Me: “Soooooooo… funny story”

In true sit-com style, we had both, without any overlap, met and asked out the same girl within the span of about two weeks.

MATH TIME!!!

The 2007 Census estimate puts the Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman combined statistical area at 1,188,764. (Wikipedia)

Of which 51% are women, which give us 594,382.

Of which approximately 18% are between the ages of 20 and 30, and we arrive at 106,988.

Of which 1/2 are married, now we got: 53,494

Of which 1/3 are obese: 35,306

Of which 6 percent are gay, 10 percent disabled, 75 percent didn’t go to college, and .01 percent are disabled lesbians with GEDs. This gives us 7,392(ish).

From here we have to assume that I will never meet a significant percentage of these women and that some significant fraction will be too good for me. Let’s divide by π, (2352.195) and then by the atomic weight of Promethium (16.2).

Quod Erat Demonstrandum; there are 16.2 datable females in Birmingham. I win.

Thoughts on Preppiness... with Citations!

Admittedly, I’m a very preppy guy. My closet consists of basically the entire color spectrum of polos and four pairs of pants. Still, somebody told me recently that I have a “preppy face.” I’m mostly sure that it was meant as a compliment, but it would also be a pretty thinly disguised way to tell someone that they are a smug prick. "Preppy face..." what does that even mean? I hardly look patrician. If I was forced to guess, I would say that it means I look like every other frat guy that ever existed, slightly unkempt with an overpowering sense of entitlement for no good reason.

Anyway, I like the preppy look. It suits me… mostly. My biggest preppy shortcoming is that I could never pop my collar. I would like to be able to say that the reason is because popping collars is for hose-bags. (I’m pretty sure there is a hyphen in hose-bags.) But really it’s a lack of neck issue; my head merges seamlessly with my chest.[1] A pop collar attempt and a little starch would have probably result in the loss of an ear.

If for some reason I had to abandon team Brooks Brothers I think I would be ironic t-shirt guy. Plenty of upside to that look: dark rimmed glasses, poorly considered facial hair, girls that look like Lisa Loeb.[2] Downside too though; I think they make you wear tight pants. Speaking of which I think my favorite product of the emo movement (besides the emasculating yet extremely enjoyable music) is the fat emo kid. This guy is a comedic goldmine. Stuffing yourself into size four girl’s jeans and layering on the mascara is even more non-conformist when you weigh 200 pounds. This is probably the only sub-specie of emo kid who has a legitimate reason to be melancholy.

For now I guess I’ll stick to the preppy look. Maybe get myself a madras sport coat and some salmon colored pants. That’s a look I can understand. Basically the goal is just to look as much as possible like an Easter egg while keeping a straight face. Whoever can wear a pink bow tie, yellow pants and suspenders without laughing wins. I’m not there yet, but these things take time. You have to build up a tolerance.[3]

I freakin’ love using footnote for evil. Go team WASP!!!

---

[1] Much like a tyrannosaur. Between that and the short arms I think that the T-Rex is probably the animal that I relate to most. At least he was the king of the dinosaurs. Some people are gazelles. Some are apes. I’m an extinct bird/lizard.

[2] I’m bizarrely attracted to this look. Can’t explain it. Makes me want to buy them hello kitty stuff and pretend to like their poetry.

[3] Like Iocaine Powder. What you do not smell!

How's this for misogynistic?

A guy I know had a baby recently. That has got to be one of the more intense things that can ever happen to you. It’s mind blowing. You have produced a human being, a tiny, screaming version of yourself that is completely dependent on you for everything. I’m having trouble conveying my feelings on this point. I shudder as I type.

I think I want kids in theory. But it’s a vague, ambiguous desire that I would only wish on a far future version of myself. Let that poor old bastard deal with that. I’m busy drinking and getting into adventures with my idiot buddies. The fact that people who are much younger/dumber/financially instable than me are having kids is ludicrous.

The only thing crazier than fathering a child has got to be becoming a mother. YOU HAVE A PERSON GROWING INSIDE OF YOU! AAHHHH! That’s some science fiction shit right there. I know… I know… it’s natural and beautiful and all that, but good grief man. That’s nuts. Consider it objectively for a second. That’s a person. It’s inside of you. He/she is going to escape and then drink milk out of you like you were a soda fountain. AAAHHHH!!!

I guess all of life’s processes are pretty crazy when you take a step back and break them down. I mean, the fact that you can take a peanut butter sandwich and use it for fuel to run a mile is pretty darn wacky too. But something about pregnancy just strikes me as a little surreal. It just seems like it should be harder to make a sentient creature. Two people, a couple jagerbombs, and a momentary lapse in judgment should not be enough to spawn something that could grow up to write a novel, play an instrument, or for that matter even just get stoned and play super smash brothers.

When it comes down to it I know objectively that birth is just a natural part of life. Hell, I was even a baby once. Somehow though, I just can’t quite wrap my mind around the whole thing. Oh well, that what I like to call a problem for “Future Michael”.

27 Dresses Sucked

I had a period of writer’s block recently and I decided to reach out for a little help from my friends. One of the great things about my life is the fact that I have friends that are earnest and truly decent human beings who are eternal optimists, idealistic and open hearted. Another and even better thing about my life is the fact that I have friends that are smart, jaded, borderline evil bastards. Sure, I love the first group, but on the other hand there is nothing more fun than hanging out with my sarcastic buddies who can appreciate the ironic and the absurd and call it what it is. This post idea comes from a guy who is a bullshit artist of the highest order, and who knows it when he sees it. I give you, “women and weddings”.

I’ve often said that women don’t marry men, they marry lifestyles. Of course this is a vast oversimplification. Wait, did I say vast? What I meant was slight. Kaboom. I got you ladies good. Anyway, the premise here is that women are concerned not only with the man, but with his job, his money, his family, etc. Not that you can consider a human being in a vacuum. I’ll acknowledge that. But women often seem more concerned with all the status nonsense that surrounds a guy than whether or not the guy is a piece of shit. Men on the other hand are more concerned with whether or not the girl is thin and has a good butt. You know… important stuff.

Nowhere is the modern, and I’m willing to call it mostly female, fixation on style and status rather than substance more evident than at a wedding. Your modern wedding is a bankruptcy inducing extravaganza where a girl gets to pretend that she is a princess. Weddings are not about ceremony. They are about spectacle… about spending vast sums of money… about a great excuse to show off. I know that your wedding day is an important day in a person’s life, man or woman, but it is not the point of your life. It seems to me that the idea of a wedding is to enrich and celebrate your life, but people act like the point of their life is to celebrate and enrich a wedding.

Men are complicit in all this nonsense, we have tool showers, and best men, and groom’s cakes, and a lot of the other stuff that surrounds weddings, but it seems like the male version of event is just a half-ass copy of the female version. Even the bachelor party, which is absolutely a male artifact, seems to have been swiped and cruelly perverted by the female sex. When, I ask, is the last time you went out and didn’t see a fat girl in a tiara, condoms glued to her shirt, surrounded by screaming harpies drinking out of penises?

Not that weddings aren’t a good time, they absolutely are. It just seems like they have exploded to become slightly monstrous and out of sync with the concept that should be at the center of them. It’s all good though. Please still invite me to your wedding. I’ll come if there is an open bar.