20s are the new 30s

Let's see. It's Friday again. I'm baking cookies again. I'm drinking from a growler (this is new). And I've rented another freakin' romcom from Blockbuster. Did I, like, turn into a 30 year-old woman sometime in the past few weeks?

1 More Thing I Would Probably Never Attempt

I know, I'm totally late on this. I've been listening to this Matt and Kim album a lot the past couple of weeks, but have just now taken the time to watch this video I've heard so much about. If you haven't seen it, HA, I'm unbelievably hipper than you. If you have seen it, well, I would have too, but my internet wasn't working, and I was really busy with work, and I had to do my laundry, and, well, whatever, stay on your high horse, it'll buck you off sooner or later.

The F-L Shimmy

Have you ever defecated in your pants? Right, me neither, but there are surely countless other, less messy, situations we've all been in that are completely embarrassing. I mean, I guess pooping yourself alone is slightly less embarrassing than pooping yourself in public, but it's still embarrassing. A tree that falls in a forest with no one around to hear it still makes a bit of noise, right? Anyway, most embarrassing situations are embarrassing because they happen in front of other people.

Some of you won't think this is embarrassing, but if you know anything about my insistence on correctness, then you'll bear with me a bit. When communicating with someone you are trying to impress, someone you do not want thinking you are a dumbass, it's typical to pay attention to every word they say. I tend to attempt soul crushing eye contact. I've developed an amazing ability to nod in a agreement, shake in disgust, and hmmmm in contemplation in just the right moments to make the speaker believe I am 157% aware and knowledgeable of everything going on. These subtle tools to success, however, shatter once confronted with what I will call the F-L Shimmy.

Most people don't encounter this feat of eloquent totalitarianism very often. I went decades without paying any attention to it. In fact, it wasn't til a couple of years ago that I finally developed a mnemonic device with which to remember it. Well, maybe it's not really a mnemonic device. Now that I think of it, I don't really need to do this trick to understand the F-L Shimmy. Regardless, now that I have you on the edge of your seat: the F-L Shimmy is what I call the act of a speaker describing two extremely complex things in tremendous detail, moving on to a slightly related topic, then backtracking to refer to those previously mentioned complex things as former and latter.

This most certainly happened to me this week. I was having a conversation with a person I certainly wanted to, needed to impress with my intellectual prowess. First off, I struggled through the swampy marsh created in the complex discussion of the two things my conversational partner was talking about. These two things appeared to share relatively little in common other than the fact that one was verbally expressed before the other. Clueless as to what these two things were, I was then forced to try to remember which one was said first and which was said second. Not only that, but I was supposed to respond to a question about why the first thing said (the former, that's my trick, former is the first and latter is the last) makes so much more sense than the second thing said, and why, despite this seemingly obvious fact, I chose to approach a problem with the second thing as my tool rather than the first.

I nodded, shook, hmmmmmmed. . . Several quiet seconds went by. I gave up trying to figure out what was actually going on. I reenacted that play in the 1989 playoffs when Jordan hit the shot over Craig Ehlo in my mind about three times before I finally gave in to the stone cold stare of previously mentioned conversational partner. I opened my mouth and responded in a way that required neither the former nor the latter (at least I don't think it did). I introduced a new thing! A third thing! There can be no F-L Shimmy with a list of three! Well, I guess there can, but the middle one will certainly be neglected due to not having a properly pretentious form of representation.

Whatever. This is what my week has come to. It's Friday night. 11:30 p.m. on the dawn of Labor Day weekend 2K9 and I'm freaking blogging about a verbal misunderstanding. Someone, come share an expensive dessert with me.

Robots Make People Happy

Maybe I’ve completely lost touch with the universe, but I’m nearly certain that Usain Bolt is a machine created by the universal panel for peace.

First, the machine part. This is pretty easy to prove. I, for example, run 4 or 5 times a week. I don’t over-exert myself (I’m probably out there for 30 minutes or so, and that includes a calisthenics routine akin to what an 80 year-old retiree in Arizona would do in the park). My diet consists of sale items at the grocery store. I probably drink too much, and my lack of commitment to difficult tasks is probably limiting my progress. All things considered (I gave NPR a $2 donation out of guilt for writing that), I reckon I’m in relatively good shape. Despite my attempts at staying above the curve (I even bought a yoga mat a few weeks ago to, uh, do yoga I guess) I will never be able to run anywhere near as quickly as Bolt.

He’s officially the fastest man ever to live on Earth, right? Sure nobody kept track of these things back in the day, but they also didn’t have trainers, pumas, frictionless bodysuits, or performance enhancing drugs back then. I don’t quite understand how, as time goes buy, these records keep on getting beat. Does this mean that eventually, a man will be able to run 100 meters in an infinitesimal amount of time? (I should say that I’ve been economizing way too much this week, so maybe my worries are completely pointless, but it’s fun to think about).

So, ok, he has to be a machine. Now, point 2, I think he was made by a group of well wishers in a constant struggle to keep all of the world’s ills at bay (bay? is that really how you spell that type of bay? is it literal? like, I’ve hopped in my boat and am going off to the distance and they are being held at the edge of the bay?). Here’s why I think this. Over the past decade, after the tremendous fun of the 1990s has shattered to pieces, everyone in the world hates each other and themselves. How better to cheer everyone up than to create an athletic phenom?

His last name is Bolt. What the hell are the odds that someone from the Bolt family (how many can there be?) would become the fastest man in the world? Pair that with a name that has been associated with evil totalitarianism as well as unprecedented democracy (I know it’s not spelled the same, but most people can’t spell well, so phonetically, it’s the same). Usain Bolt was obviously created to make the world happy….to make the world get along again. Everyone in the world can like this guy.

The thing is, I think it worked. Maybe it’s my complete isolation in the uncomfortably semi-urban Pacific Northwest, but everyone seems to be getting along much better than they were a year ago. Granted, a year ago I was in London, where everyone hates everything. Either way, I’m sort of glad Bolt was created. In fact, I sort of can’t wait till we all start hating each other again. Who knows what kind of sports start we’re in store for next? Homer Kim? Muqtada Hatrick?

This was really lame, I’m sorry, but I like to think the world is capable of producing robots…robots that make everyone feel better about everything.

My Departure into the Abyss of Online Dating

So, I think enough time has past now for me to describe my sole experience with match.com. I joined this ridiculous service several weeks ago for the reasons I described in a previous post. My hopes were to find someone with relatively similar interest that had a similarly difficult time finding someone with said same similar interests. As luck would have it, there isn't a single person within 45 miles of Eugene that subscribes to this service with said like and dislikes, turn ons and turn offs, specified eyecolors, heights, negligible religious preferences, and drinking habits. I am apparently the only single person that likes the things I like.

Despite e-mailing 12 different women that sort of fit into the category of "my matches" I have had only 1 response. That one response was from a Costa Rican divorcee that likes her pug a bit too much and salsa dancing even more (I'm skeptical of people that like their pets a lot, and I find salsa dancing to be a chore...if we're going to sleep with each other lets just do it, no need to simulate the experience on a sweaty dance floor with miserable music in front of several other awkwardly "open to the experience" couples....too many pleated khaki pants on salsa dance floors if you ask me).

Anyway, the day i signed up, a seemingly darling minx holding a blowtorch "winked" at me. I decided to cut the virtual suggestions and sent her an email. We wrote back and forth a couple times, even had a 30 minute phone conversation before deciding to meet up for a drink.

She got there before me despite my being 5 minutes early. She sat at the bar. It was a pizza place. Much more of a restaurant than a bar (there were 7 stools, 5 facing the bar and 2 off to the side at an obtuse angle from where we ended up sitting). Upon my arrival, she seemed disappointed, the sort of look I imagine people give when they go to Hardees or Carl Jr.'s after seeing their commercials only to be given just another fast food burger that will inevitably give them heart burn, diarrhea, and low self esteem.

I tried all I could to engage, ENGAGE, her in conversation. It was one-sided to say the least. She gave me nothing but one-word answers to some of the most compelling questions uttered in the last decade. I gave her ridiculously fertile fodder to inquire about (while not seeming over-confident in the lest). I mean, come on! I save the world from environmental peril for a living. I just moved here from London, LONDON! My parents are Greek immigrants. I was in a mother effing band. I wear glasses. I tend to not eat meat. I paint portraits of historical thinkers. Give me a break. Seriously. Nothing? She says she's 29, but I speculate that she's much older. Either that or the threat of skin cancer never persuaded her to wear sun screen. She lives with her parents in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Her car doesn't have AC (like, it's not broken, it was just built without it).

After 2 beers and a rather lovely conversation with the old couple sitting in the adjacent bit of the bar about the quality of McDonald's sundaes I decided it was time to ask for the bill. Did I mention she was missing a tooth? Yeah, a canine. Top left. One would think that she would strategically position herself so that I wouldn't notice it, but now, it was in my face (like, I could see it all night, it wasn't literally in my face, I would never get close to that thing...it could have been a bacterial infection or something....I don't need that).

When the bill came, I counted to 10 in my head. 1.....2......3.....4.....5.....6.....7.....8.....9.....10. Nothing. NOTHING! Not a hint of fiscal responsibility. She had to have known I was having a miserable time. By making no proactive gesture toward conversation I can't assume she was having a miserable time. I can just assume that she, in general, doesn't care about conversation (maybe she was just hoping to shack up with me.....I doubt it....not with that missing tooth....). Anyway, she was obviously not intending to pay for the wine she drank or the dessert she insisted on ordering (it was ice cream, not soft serve, the hard stuff, and I have sensitive teeth, I only had like a bite, maybe two).

All in all, I paid $40 to have an excuse to go home and get drunk as all hell from my own fridge. I would have rather spent $40 paying someone to make fun of my most vulnerable uncertainties than redo the experience. It was awful and I am furious at match.com for charging me to be able to participate in the event.

To top it off, the woman that is my "top match" has a profile picture with a gun. A handgun. This isn't, like, an ironic handgun. It isn't cute, like how Zooey Deschanel would look if she were holding a gun with her hip clothes and mother effing adorable eyes and aloof smirk. It's for real, like she's about to shoot her ex-husband for being short $5 on the alimony he left in mail box area of the trailer park.

I mean, after reading this, wouldn't you want to date me?

I'm So Sorry

It's been several weeks, I know, I know. There is quite a delightful amount of news to catch up on, yet now is not a good time to do so. By next Friday, I promise you will be completely up to date on all of the things that have happened to me and by me in the month of July. They include: a missing tooth (not mine), a missing car window and ipod (both mine...well not anymore I guess, but they used to be), an office joke that is so far above my head I'm having trouble keeping troublesome fact from absurd fiction, a heat wave, a fiscally negligent date, a pumpkin plant, the continued diminishing of my dignity, a handful of trysts (although the women involved have been highly unaware of said one-sided mental relationship), an obese marathon training Mormon waiting for her boyfriend to come back from his preposterous mission in South America, cookies, scones, breakfast bars, upside down cakes, and a hilarious comment regarding a blueberry that was completely lost in translation.

To keep your attention while I pour my soul into words, I'll leave you with a tremendous video:


You hear that? T.O. thinks that the tiny 4 game suspension tagged onto Michael Vick's return is excessive. In fact, it's like "kicking a dead horse into the ground" he says. AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! I doubt he appreciated the hilarity of his poignant comment

Ultimate Humiliation Will Ultimately Lead to Ultimate Hilarity

This is more of a notice than an official post.

A 26 year-old in a mysterious place, thousands of miles away from whatever roots he may have dropped around the world ought to feel unbearably liberated. Moving out of the sister's condo, away from the mother's homemade meals to a place where belligerence need not be hidden and crass comments need not be suppressed. I should be rising like a freakin' phoenix out of a bundle of social obligation and familial restraints, right? I should be the last one at the bar, dancing on the table, to the ABBA song that's supposed to be dissuading me from staying at said bar let alone dancing on the table. I should be skipping showers, sleeping in till mid afternoon (if I get out of bed at all), riding motorcycles, drinking martinis, eating steaks, throwing rocks at cars and cyclists that get in my way because I'm out on a mission of unprecedented fun via self destruction.

Unfortunately, I do things like stay in on Friday to watch Sleepless in Seattle on the Oxygen channel (which has an annoying number of tampon commercials even considering its highly female demographic). I buy vegetables and perennials for my garden. I install gravity irrigation systems. I bake cakes, scones, bundts, biscotti. I eat salad. I drink with meals. I read myself to sleep and rise shortly after the summer sun which rises, like a communist laborer, unbelievably early.

The fact that this has turned out to not be the "summer of tom" and has had nothing close to a Tom-a-palooza-like event has left me searching for ways to burst out of my increasingly domestic pursuits. This search has taken me to a new world which involves my consideration of habitation in the community of online dating. Is that what they call it? The eharmonies, and matchdotcoms. My sister has been unsettlingly supportive of this potential venture. Her friends have had a lot of fun meeting people in Chicago, New York, Miami, Los Angeles. Surely her little brother, me, would have some fun in Eugene, right?

Despite having ruined any street cred I may have accumulated by writing this pathetic post, I'm going to sleep on it for a couple days. If I decide not to pursue this relatively humiliating attempt at social liberation, please disregard this post. If I do, however, try my hand at this, I'll let you know about all of my failed attempts at fulfilling my young adult obligations. I hope you laugh at me along the way because I know that servers and bartenders all across Eugvegas will most certainly be ROTFGLing.

Wish me luck?