Jan 26
AndrewHumor future, Horoscope, Humor
I made the mistake of reading my Year of the Ox forecast, which basically was filled with doom and gloom. I only have 3 positive months out of the coming year (dunno which 3, I guess that’s part of the premium subscription) and money is going to be tight (duh!) but if I’m lucky and adaptable, I might just be able to pull an eh kind of year.
Really? That’s the best the Chinese New Year horoscope could do.
I have a theory about horoscopes. They should always be either one of two things a) positive or b) intriguing. The first is obvious; nobody wants to hear bad news. Let’s face it Failure to take care and caution this year could result in future problems is never a good way to start the year off. And not for nothing, I could have figured that out for myself.
The second, intrigue, is just a subtle way of delivering bad news. Something’s about to give or similarly sinister nonsense. Vague is okay when it’s framed in a certain way, otherwise horoscopes read like bad fortune cookies instead of the godly prescience they are.
While vague is fine, a horoscope that hedges its bet ruins the effect. For instance:
The single Dragon will be happy to know that romance is favored this year, so you may find someone to share your experiences.
Giveth on the one hand and taketh away with the other. May find someone?!? How about Bitch, your singledom is over. You’ll be sharing your bed tonight!
I also think horoscopes should be explicit about a call to action. Look, maybe it’s unrealistic to expect a horoscope to tell me what to do for the entire year (though there are in fact horoscopes you can pay for that do just that and in excruciating detail – notwithstanding you never run across a horoscope that says “jump off the cliff right now and save yourself a day of annoying coworkers, lost files, and snotty kids” or something to that effect). But still, my daily horoscope always tells it like it is.
People are going to be extra sensitive to whatever you say now, so be extra gentle.
Right? Not going to happen, but at least I was forewarned.
And all of this is especially true if you are reading a free horoscope. Sure, if you’re paying for it, you could argue for the bad news along with the good. But even then, you only get one shot at setting the tone for the day, and it might as well be a positive one. If you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, maybe your horoscope can provide a little cheer. If you are having a bad hair day, maybe your horoscope can offer a little intrigue. And maybe if it’s smart enough and you know far enough in advance, you’ll know ahead of time to call in sick and sit the day out completely.
Too bad, though, I can’t do that for the entire year. Can’t say I wasn’t warned though.
Sep 29
AndrewHumor, Relationships Humor, Smile
Is it pretentious to have a requirement for my friends that they be able to bring a smile to my face? I was thinking about this over the weekend as I was aggravated with a particular friend of mine who seemed a bit standoffish (no names now, don’t be tacky!) Quite inexplicably, I assure you.
Okay, so maybe I might have said something. Or maybe I had excessive B.O. Or an awkwardly placed whitehead. Or maybe I might have made an ill-timed suggestion about bunking down with his sister (I swear, she told me she was over 18.) Or maybe I vom’d in his planter and forgot to mention it until the flies came. Or maybe I told him that shirt made him look like Bea Arthur. Or his hair looked like a wasp’s nest. Or accidentally stuck my [censored] in his [censored] thinking I was invited but really he was trying to get the [censored] out.
I can’t say for sure but it may simply have been my own dubious entertainment value that caused tension in our relationship. Immediately thereafter I began to question the foundation of our friendship. Maybe I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. After all, a friendship that is so brittle it cracks after one (possibly exaggerated) wrangle isn’t really that much of a friendship to begin with? But for whatever reason, I felt a little put out by the cold shoulder and began to secretly plot my exit from said friendship as quickly as my two feet, four wheels or a pogo stick could carry me.
But in the midst of doubting our friendship and investigating that unexpected sore on my buttock that I could only feel and not see (I’m calling it a spider bite and that’s my story!) a strange thing occurred. We were sitting on the love seat, laying half on top of one another the way only good friends can tolerate, and it happened.
He reached across me to pick up a handful of Doritos off of my plate, smiled at me and then stuffed them en masse into his face and started to chew loudly. I laughed. Oh maybe it wasn’t funny really, but something about that moment seemed the kind of thing that only 4 beers and that warm fuzzy feeling of his thigh pressed against mine could generate. That or genuine affection.
It occurred to me then that anyone that can make me smile just for being so cute and adorably uncouth might be someone I could forgive this one time. It’s kind of like someone eating off your plate. if it’s one person, it’s endearing, for another, it’s repulsive. Then I figured maybe I should make it a requirement that all my friends be able to make me laugh. We can style a running Gong Show-like elimination through the rest of my life. Then I figured my friends wouldn’t think that was funny at all and probably be kind of resentful that I’m slapping some arbitrary requirement on them. After all, maybe I should be the one doing the entertaining?
So the next time I don’t meet the strict standards of friend and entertainer to my friends, they can just “air” Gong me and I will hang my head and disappear off the stage into affable obscurity. But if I do, I’ll have a smile on face because, let’s face it, that is kind of a funny thing to do to me.
Jul 11
AndrewHumor Humor
So lately, I have unveiled a whole new dynamic in my relationship with talk radio, newspaper editorials and Nancy Grace. I just agree with whatever the last person said. And it’s not just me being complacent or lazy, I literally think to myself, “Wow, that argument makes so much sense, I can’t believe I didn’t already come to that conclusion myself.” Then I agree with that particular argument pretty much until…someone counters it with the opposing argument.
I’ll give you a topical example. Brett Favre reportedly text messaged the Green Bay Packers general manager for a unretirement pow wow. It hit the news because of course, the Packers have little else to generate press these days than Favre waffling between Mississippi retirement and Wisconsin gunslinging. (Also, reportedly, Favre was rebuffed because, you know, ego.)
So I was totally ready to rip Favre just on the possibility that he’s thinking about unretirement. It’s unfair to the Packers. It’s unfair to Aaron Rodgers who has never played outside Favre’s shadow (and may never, whether Favre unretires or not.) Just how many retirement parties are teams supposed to throw you before it’s over and over? (I’m looking at you, Seau!)
But then I read an ESPN.com article by Gene Wojciechowski and I completely flipped sides. You can read it here, but I’ll highlight the part that really stuck with me. How many teams would be better off with Favre than their current starting quarterback? And how many times did we let Michael Jordan unretire?
Wojciechowski is a terminally sympathetic writer, even when he’s raking someone over the coals. He mostly defends Favre’s return and on a dime, I’m back in Favre’s corner.
You might, if you knew me well enough, suppose that this isn’t a good example because I’m a hardcore Brett Favre devotee and of course, I’m going to adopt whichever argument increases his God-like reputation for the rest of time. (That would be, in order, another Super Bowl ring, curing cancer and center square on the All New Hollywood Squares.) When it comes to ranking my fandom for football teams, the Green Bay Packers with Brett Favre rank just below the New England Patriots (unless they are facing each other, in which case I take out my voodoo doll of Lambeau Field and start poking pencil-sized holes in the grass.) When it comes to ranking my fandom for football teams, the Green Bay Packers without Brett Favre…well, I haven’t seen that team in action yet, but I suspect the team will be ranked somewhere between the Atlanta Falcons and the Philadelphia Soul.
Of course, now that I agree with whatever I just heard, I find myself nodding to Nancy Grace’s sage wisdom, or thinking that Chris Broussard just made an excellent point. When I click through editorials online, I realize that I adopt whatever opinion I just happen to have read. I read that Britney Spears is ready for a come back? I totally agree. Someone else writes that she’s washed up white trash and a bad mother? I totally agree (and come on, where is her publicist in the last two years?)
I have a theory about Britney while we’re on the topic. I think Madonna stole her soul when they kissed at the VMA’s. Sucked it right out of her body while we were watching. How else does Madonna stay that youthful?
Talk radio practically makes me schizophrenic. Mike Felger will rip Dice-K and I’ll agree with him completely. A caller will come on and defend Dice-K and I’ll agree with him completely. Felger will call the caller a douche bag (well, not in so many words) and restate the exact opposite opinion, and I will agree with Felger again. My head is spinning back and forth faster than Gollum and Sméagol.
What doesn’t seem to matter is whether the opinions stated are actually compelling arguments. That, at least, seems to be besides the point. Wojciechowski made a pretty good case for giving Favre a break, but Felger just likes to argue and I can’t even explain Nancy Grace. But somehow, they, and all the other media folk who get paid to have an opinion, manage to convince me they are in the right. Every time. Whatever I really think is so completely submerged by the opinions of the professionals, that there becomes no discernable difference between my opinion and theirs. And that lasts just as long as someone else doesn’t come along to convince me otherwise.
Sep 07
AndrewHumor, Music Humor, Singing
Sometimes I think I would be a lot more interesting if I could just express myself in song. I don’t mean being able to write music, although that would be kind of cool too. But I mean just in the normal course of a day, pull a Whitney whenever a particular strong emotion hit me (though in her case, just about anything could be turned into a musical montage up to and including a bad hair day, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a conversation with the gum on the bottom of her shoes.)
But how cool would it be?
“How are you?” someone asks me.
“I’m FINE!” I would bellow in my Pavarotti-like tenor.
On second thought, it turns out I just wish I could write songs.
I think the ability to think in terms of music is fascinating and awe-inspiring. I read a Billboard interview with Dave Gahan, whose new album Hourglass is due out October 23, and he said something to the effect of, he and drummer Christian Eigner had a “one-riff idea” that “we improvised on that one idea and exaggerated it as the song went along. We just kept going and layering it.” How cool is that? To start with something barely at the point of conception and bring it to full term. The closest I ever came to birthing a full length album was one time they offered me three fresh off the rack Krispy Kreme glazed donuts (for some reason, a new employee kept coming up to offer me the “freebie” which I immediately swallowed in one bite and then wiped the sticky, gooey glaze – say that three times fast – from my fingers before taken another) and then proceeded to order a half dozen jelly doughnuts, which I ate and downed with a large coffee. Boy, that ended badly.
I probably have a song in me somewhere. More in the vein of “Smelly Cat” than “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” but it seems like a talent I could develop. Writing lyrics can’t be all that different from writing prose. Easier really because you can ignore parts of speech, correct grammar, there’s no spelling involved and you don’t even have to pronounce the words correctly. Plus you just namecheck yourself in the chorus and your song is half written.
I occasionally come up with cool song titles and think “man, if I just put that to music, I would be as rich as T-Pain.” Or sometimes, I get into a groove and actually write and sing a whole rock song in my head and think, “If I just wrote that down and recorded it, I would be as famous as Kim Richey.” But it’s not about money or fame, it’s about expressing myself and creeping people out by singing in their ear softly.
I am tortured sometimes by my inability to express and vent emotions in new and exciting ways. I often turn to the old stand by, er, prose, and sometimes just talk it out, but those are so mundane. Anybody can talk. It’s not enough to be able to do something, you have to be able to do it well, and furthermore, it has to cathartic. Otherwise, it’s just hot air. (Speaking of, check this out: “cathartic” is also a medical term that describes medicine used to purge forth from your bowels. Huh? Right? How often will you be able to use that as a conversation opener? I know. It’s gold.)
Not for nothing, but I think Michelle Branch sucks. Just thought I would mention it.
Jul 20
AndrewHumor Carbs, Eating, Humor
I’m a snacker (that is, one who snacks – not one of those gross wannabe sliders that they sell at KFC in such wonderful flavors as “chicken fried steak” and “just peeled off the floor.”) Almost anything will do; cheez-its, bread and butter, M&Ms. I’m not a grazer. I don’t go to the fridge looking to pick here and pick there, satisfied with just a bite of the first thing I see. No, I want it all, and I want it now.
I’m also a carb-o-holic. I get an insatiable satisfaction from eating pasta for no other reason than it releases endorphins akin to being jacked up on Sudafed. It need not have flavor, sauce, vegetables or even be fully cooked. (If you think comparing digesting carbs to an endorphin rush is specious at best, then you clearly have never been addicted to anything.) Not to be confused with endomorphic (um, a fancy term for “fatty.”)
This is my favorite clinical description of an endomorph: “love of food” and “over-developed digestive system.” Yes, well, now that we have cleared that up.
Contrary to what you might think, this is all about your attitude about food; not really how fat you are. I know it’s confusing. Think of it this way. Just because you live in Arkansas City (in Kansas, population: 11,416) doesn’t mean you live in Arkansas. Unless you live in Arkansas City, Arkansas population: 544. Yes, well, now that we have that cleared up.
No, it is all about how food makes you feel. Food is your substitute for love, the one you turn to in a time of need. It regulates you better (and faster) than sleep. It keeps you sane in time of crazy. It makes you happy when you’re ready to bawl. It helps you concentrate. It’s an anodyne and an aphrodisiac (I just won Scattergories!) Food relieves boredom and calms fears. It can be the answer to any question you have ever asked.
I dream in sugary goodness (sometimes, I dream of biting people, but whatever) thin wafers of mint and scoops of vanilla ice cream, warm chocolate chip cookies, and cheesecake. My mouth starts to water at just the thought.
I’ve banned all desserts from my house. A snacker with easy access to desserts and I would be the 800 pound fatty on the Discovery Channel being prodded from behind by a camera crew that wants to film me turning over to have my temperature taken up my anus by a state-appointed caretaker. Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!
When the camera comes back around to my face, a man with a microphone will ask me in all seriousness, “How did this happen?”
I croak out, “World record for most donuts consumed in a year.” I smile proudly, though my lips are cracked and I’m sweating in my nethers, “7,000.” (You know, 19 doughnuts a day may sound unreasonable, but 6 doughnuts a day is still over 2,000 in a year. Does that sound like such a stretch? Time to throw away your subscription to Diabetic Cooking; you never read it anyway.)
The man looks at me, while the camera slowly focuses in on my expression of solemn pride. Then he says, “Well, now that we have that cleared up.”
I’m not saying I avoid all sugary foods, carbs, and snacks. I just don’t play to my snacker tendencies by having ensuring everything in my house requires extensive cooking. Then, to avoid feeding my carb-o-holism, I don’t buy the cheez-its or M&Ms or anything else that can be eaten with one hand on the remote control. That leaves a diet primarily of bread and butter, fruits and vegetables, eggs and cheese. It virtually guarantees representation of every food group, and when I feel the siren call of food, be it carbs and sugar or the phenomenon I like to refer to as gorging until I puke, pretty much my only option is to ignore it.
I’m not sure it’s mentally healthy to deny myself so stringently, but then I’m also not so sure it’s physically healthy to give in, either. One would like to think that somewhere in my kitchen is a happy middle ground. Nutrisystem?
Until the day that I don’t use food as a crutch, to make myself feel better, or just to pass the time, I think my solution offers the best chance to keep my tendencies under control. Every small lapse, a whole bag of tortilla chips, six ice cream sandwiches, or handfuls of chocolate covered pretzels, sends me into a shame spiral that only more gorging can rectify. And when eating becomes about anger and revulsion, food loses everything that makes it fundamentally satisfying. All of which means it’s time to stop.
The lesson is easy to learn and easy to unlearn. I guess I can look at it like this: at least I’m addicted to food and not to something that might really damage my body, like crack, or weight-lifting. No, I’m kidding, All three are equally damaging. Well, now that we have that cleared up.
Jul 13
AndrewHumor Dreaming, Fantasy, Humor
[singing]“Whatcha gonna do when you get out of jail?”
“I’m gonna do a remix.”
When you listen to Mariah, you almost have to pour some spring water on yourself and lift your head back like you’re being sexy. I tried it with seltzer but I don’t recommend it. And it’s probably worth nothing that the “I’m too sexy for my shorts” look is not quite the same as the “I just peed in my pants” look.
(Having said that, the visual image is me pouring a bottle of seltzer water down my pants and even I can’t really figure out what that has to do with Mariah Carey.)
I don’t fantasize. I tell you why. My fantasy life always have this weird requirement to be based first in reality before it is allowed to swoop into fantastical. For instance, it’s not enough to just sex dream about someone. No first, I have to set it up. And it’s elaborate. It usually involves me walking by on the streets and my laughing boyfriend is trying to move some boxes into his apartment which is always a brownstone so it involves a lot of steps. So he tries to take two heavy boxes at once, and quite can’t manage to get up the steps at which point, I offer to help. It’s a hot day. (If you can’t see where I’m going here, I can’t help you.) When we get upstairs (3rd floor) for some reason the air conditioning isn’t doing it’s job.
I know what you’re thinking. You think that he offers me a beer and we take off our shirts and make out.
Oh NO! Not in my fantasy. In my fantasy, he offers me a beer, and we begin a hour plus conversation that I have to plot out in my head in excruciating detail. I need a topic, his point of view, my responses, some casual yet suggestive banter and least one more beer for each of us. And that’s just to get to the point where he takes off his shirt. And lest we forget that in reality, just one beer would make me have to pee, forget trying to drink two in barely an hour. Between the stifling apartment air and the beers, I would be asleep on the coach in 40 minutes flat while the guy rifles through my wallet for twenties.
(By the way, I went through a phase in college where any time I touched a bed I fell asleep. My hallmates found it very disconcerting to be talking to me, and they would turn away to turn on a light, for instance, and when they turned back around, I was snoring softly in angelic repose.)
So he takes off his shirt and sometimes the fantasy kicks in. But even then, it’s not always the smoothest transition. For one, I always sabotage my fantasies in the oddest ways. A lot of times I take off my shirt and I’m as hairy as Sasquatch. Which no offense to Sasquatch, but in my fantasies, it causes a lot of unnecessary anxiety to take off my shirt and notice that I went from “hairy chest” to Cousin It. In my daydreams, there is always a lot of self-incrimination and doubt as though it was exclusively my fault that I wolfed out.
I’ve already been in the guy’s apartment for two hours, and there may not even be necking yet. First I need to find out if the roommates are home, if they are male or female, how many, who sleeps in which room, is someone asleep at that moment, and if all that is resolved to my satisfaction, I now have to get up out of my fantasy and go pee in real life. This may or may not be relevant, but we always watch a video in my fantasies. Sometimes porn, but more often than not Fellowship of the Rings extended edition. That’s two discs, three plus hours. I want you to imagine a fantasy with a three-hour movie interlude that requires a disc change and intense concentration. Granted, that Billy Boyd is tasty.
Yeah, sometimes it’s easier just to stick to reality.
[singing] “Whatcha gonna do when you get out of jail?”
“I’m gonna have some fun.”
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