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I was born in New Jersey and lived there until I was ten (technically, 9 and 11 months–but who’s really counting?). When my family packed up and moved to southern California I suppose we were kinda like the Clampetts. Actually, we were nothing like the Clampetts. They were rich and proud of their roots.
Once in California, my parents tried to dress me for the part–or at least what they thought the part was. I wore loud, outrageous shirts. I remember a bright orange thing with no sleeves: it looked like a karate vest crossed with a pumpkin. Crimes against nature like floral-print shorts and aviator sunglasses too large for my face. My hair was combed in a style that completely didn’t fit my head–or even suitable for the hair I was born with (you can’t slick dense, curly hair). I’ll admit: I was excited too–it was exhilarating to be cool and on the cusp of fashion greatness. Alas, “cool” is a relative term. What I thought was cool was miscast in Southern California, and–unfortunately for my self-esteem–the kids started laughing at me before I even made it to the bus stop.
In junior high I decided to adopt the . . . . .
At what point do collectibles and mementos turn into useless junk taking up space? This is the question I’ve been asking myself the past couple days. I’m cleaning out my closet because I feel like I have too much useless junk. Some choices are easy (old hard drives, clothes from the 90s, locks of hair from old girlfriends). But for others…it’s hard to pull the trigger.
The two items that are causing me the most agony are my Super Nintendo and my Game Boy. I last used my SNES before I was married (hooked it up in my bachelor pad one night because I wanted to play “Mario 3”). As for the Game Boy…last time I used that might have been in the previous millennium–literally. Given that I hardly use these items (at best), it’s fairly obvious their absence wouldn’t be noticed (other than the open space in my closet). And yet…
I can’t seem to do it. Seems to me I’d be better off selling them on eBay or giving ’em to Goodwill than keeping them here and never using them. I should let my video game systems find good homes with someone who will love them and play . . . . .
I took a special education class in the spring and I reluctantly hafta admit that I learned something from it. I am in no way more adept in confronting or talking to handicap people–but I did learn to realize not everyone is created equally. Learning disabilities don’t mean you’re a vegetable. There are some people out there–sharp as a tack–that simply can’t learn something. I know. It seems obvious. But this is a concept that I missed somewhere in life.
I know a lot of people say they can’t do math. I never understood it because math is so simple. Even though I majored in English, mathematics is the easiest concept for me to grasp because everything is so logical. I can visualize problems and numbers and figure out the answer because I am very comfortable with step-by-step processes.
Until recently, I believed there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do in school. Math is easy. Writing is simply BS-ing. And why in the world would anyone hate to read? I never thought I couldn’t do anything because academically there was little I couldn’t do (except for spelling–but I’ll admit most of that deficiency is due to laziness on my part). The . . . . .
With summer time fast approaching, I felt it was time to embrace my summer ‘do and shave my head. I wasn’t allowed to shave my head last summer because The Wife wanted to make sure I had hair for our wedding (which is kinda silly because it takes me about three weeks to grow a full head of hair). I like to buzz my hair short for the summer because it gets ungodly hot. Plus, sometimes I just get sick of hair. All the washing and conditioning. Spending two or three minutes every morning styling it. Not being able to wear a hat because I’ll mess it up. Just between you, me, and the World Wide Web I’d much rather sport a maintenance-free shaved head than look good with my dark, curly locks.
I have always put comfort over appearance (a trait that’s obvious to anyone who has ever seen my wardrobe). Funny thing about personal appearance, you rarely get to look at it. Sure, there are those few minutes in front of the mirror in the morning or perhaps if someone snaps a photo. But for the most part, you never look at yourself. Suppose I buy a new . . . . .
My 32nd birthday is approaching and I’ve reached the point in my life where I’m comfortable with what I know…at least I thought I was until I discovered I’ve been using commas wrong for my entire life. Of course, you probably already knew that–you’ve read what I wrote. I took grammar classes and earned a degree in English…only to discover I’ve been completely wrong. now I either hafta unlearn 25 years of improper punctuation (not an easy task) or try to forget what I discovered and continue doing what I’ve always done (easier…but there’s a pride-thing involved).
I was doing homework and stumbled across the definition of independent clauses and this little sentence:
I didn’t know which job I wanted, and I was too confused to decide.
In my opinion, that sentence is improperly punctuated. To me, that comma is completely unnecessary. I don’t know where or why, it just is (comma splice comes to mind). I see that sentence contain two, separate ideas and they’re joined together by an ‘and.’ Alas, it takes more than an ‘and’ to join separate clauses together–you need a comma, too.
Maybe it’s because I grew in New Jersey and they’re not too keen . . . . .
For our honeymoon, The Wife wanted to go to go to an exclusive, fancy, hoity-toity tropical hotel where she could drink margaritas on the beach and fall asleep while listening to the waves crash. When I told her it sounded like she wanted to be in a Corona commercial, I ended up with an unwanted finger rammed up my nose.
One of the keys to her dream honeymoon was to be able to eat at an all-inclusive hotel. We knew we’d probably end up paying a little more compared to if we purchased everything à la cart, but we didn’t care. By our nature, The Wife and I tend to be, uh, very careful with our money. We knew that if we had to fork over ten bucks for every margarita we drank, we’d end up margarita-less and as sober as David Crosby (he’s clean now). But by going to an all-inclusive hotel, not only would we downing cocktails like Barney Gumble, we’d also buy drinks for anyone who asked. So we settled for a fancy resort on the Yucatan pennisulia that cost more per day than I could every dream to make.
The restaurants at the hotel were so . . . . .
I am a volatile snorer. As I’ve stated many times before, it’s not an issue to me; however, The Wife insists it’s bad for her sleep and detrimental to our marriage. I rarely snore loud enough to wake myself up but since I’m not the only one in the bedroom, a solution must be found.
She started off with earplugs. Even though she found them uncomfortable, she was able to block out my trumpeting and sleep soundly…for a week. According to her, my snoring got worse and earplugs could no longer stop my snoring from rattling her brain.
I had my tonsils removed. Since my tonsils were “unusually large,” the doctor said taking ’em out would clear some space for air to flow and the snoring would cease. After the operation, The Wife said my snoring went away and she was finally able to sleep…for a week. Even though air had a clear path, my body found away and the snoring resumed.
The next step was more surgery. This time, the doctor cleaned out my ‘turbs’ (whatever they may be). Doc said it could increase airflow anywhere from 10-30 percent. I immediately felt the difference and realized I could finally . . . . .
US automakers came to Congress asking for $30 billion, claiming without the dough they’ll go bankrupt. Congress didn’t trust them with $30 billion, instead opting to give them only $14 billion. That seems awfully foolish to me. If someone says “I need 30 bricks to build a house” and you decide to give them only 14 bricks, the house isn’t going to get built because it’s still 16 bricks short. Not only did the house not get built, you also wasted your 14 bricks on a project that didn’t have enough material. Same thing feels true about the carmakers. If the automakers needed $30 billion, what good is $14 billion going to do them?
On my honeymoon, I saw a lot of topless women. As per non-American customs, many women opted to remove their tops when sunbathing at the beach. If I was 14 and not accustomed to female mammaries, it would be heaven. Since I’m 31 and have a thorough and complete collection of porn on my hard drive, I wasn’t the slightest bit interested. It’s not just because I’ve seen more boobs than doughnuts. I’ve learned something from my years of “Girls Gone Wild” videos and consider . . . . .
One of the side effects of marriage is having to share a bed with someone, which means my minor snoring problem has become a full-fledged nightmare to my beau. I don’t understand what the big deal–I sleep just fine. But The Girlfriend insists that my snoring problem is keeping her from having a productive night of sleep (she’s threatened to smother me: if we don’t resolve this problem soon, I fear I might wake up dead).
She tried earplugs at first–squishy little buggers that have no definite shape or form but were endorsed by airport personnel. Apparently my snoring rivals a 747 because even with the plugs in, The Girlfriend gets no sleep (and I hear about it in the morning).
The next step in this process was Breathe Right™ strips. I’m sure you know what it is–a little piece of plastic enclosed in an adhesive bandage-type strip one wears over their nose. The purpose of this strip is to pull your nostrils wipe open and widen the path air flows through the nose. I don’t know what sorta trademark or copyright restrictions these things have, but they are very much taking advantage of a monopoly. Millions of sleep-depraved spouses . . . . .
When life gets too busy or I have nothing to complain about, I just reach back and find something I wrote earlier but never posted (usually because it was uninteresting or poorly written…or maybe even both). This is one of those stories.
Over the weekend I had a particularly embarrassing incident. I woke up in the middle of the night to take a tinkle. I’ve been living in this house for three years; peeing in the same bathroom for three years. I haven’t moved any furniture since the day I got here and am pretty capable of wandering around in the dark. I made my way to the bathroom and started to go…only to discover the toilet seat cover was down. Call me unsivilzed if you want, but I live alone so I never bother putting the cover down. That’s why I didn’t bother to check before I went. In retrospect, I probably should’ve–but it was dark, I was tired, and we’re talking about three years of conditioning here. The sound immediately told me something was wrong so I put the brakes on and assessed the situation. The toilet seat cover was down and I missed like no man had . . . . .
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