Yearly Archives: 2012

Rob’s day off

I had off today. When I woke up, I made a plan. I’d spend the whole day writing. I’d march right downstairs and sit at the computer and type out a ton of work, volumes of material. But now all of the sudden it’s almost 10:00 pm. I don’t know what happened. What about my plan? I thought it was a pretty decent one, as far as plans go. So now here I am, obviously a little more hurried than I had prepared for, and I want to get something down.

So what did I do with a whole day off by myself? Yeah, I probably should’ve mentioned that it’s not a regular day off, it’s a Monday. I mean, it’s a legitimate day off, but working at a restaurant, I often find myself with days off completely to myself, because everybody else is working. Especially on days like today, where I decided to skip showering and grooming, I always wonder if my neighbors think to themselves stuff like, “What’s this guy’s deal? Does he have a job? Why is his wife always gone but he’s always out walking his dog in his pajamas?” I want to wear a custom t-shirt that say, “In case you’re judging me, I’ll have you know that I work irregular hours at a restaurant, sometimes during the day, sometimes at night.” But to put all of that on a t-shirt? The font would have to be really small for it all to fit. And so if the neighbor that I’m imagining is judging me in his or her head, it’s probably from behind a window, not really close enough to read that whole message screen printed on a shirt.

But yeah, I went out to walk the dog in the morning. So that’s not really explaining where the day went. I drank a ton of coffee. Usually, and knowing that I know this kills me, but if I don’t start writing as soon as I feel the caffeine kick in, the coffee is just going to get wasted. All of that chemical fuel will just get spent wasting time on the Internet, or pacing around in a circle in the living room, something totally unproductive.

So I blew enough time to where all of the sudden I had to make lunch. The morning evaporated. I don’t know what I did really. I read some stuff online. I think I might have played a game of Internet Settlers of Catan. But then it was lunchtime. After lunch, which didn’t take long at all, I got this crazy idea in my head that now would be the perfect time to finally watch Prometheus which, for various reasons, none of them worth mentioning, I never got to see. But this was like one in the afternoon. This idea to watch a whole movie came out of nowhere, like I hadn’t even thought about this movie in forever. And not one part of my brain stepped in to interject an opposing thought. Nothing in me said, “Hey Rob, you know that movie is like three hours, right?” or, “Hey Rob, don’t you think you should maybe do some writing and then watch the movie?” There was no resistance. I thought about the movie, turned on my XBOX, rented the movie, and sat down to watch it, all within sixty seconds. It’s like my day was hijacked by Ridley Scott tag-teaming with my basest instincts of immediate gratification. And seriously, if you’ve seen the movie, well, I’m sure we all at least would have appreciated our money back, seeing as how it’s impossible to refund three hours of a person’s life.

And I had wanted to see this movie so badly that I couldn’t really consciously appreciate actually watching it until like two hours after it had finished. Of course, the movie ate up what should have been the most productive chunk of my day, and the next thing I know, my wife was home from school. “How was your day?” “Good, I finally watched Prometheus.” “Oh wow, didn’t you want to see that like six months ago? How was it?”

And I couldn’t answer. That was my first clue that something was wrong. I even opened my mouth to say something generic, “good, fine,” whatever, but my mouth was frozen. So I started thinking, did I like the movie? And I couldn’t answer that either, because I really didn’t know what was going on. So I went online to search for some basic answers to what I thought must have been elements that I had simply overlooked in the plot. But it turns out that everyone else who saw that movie shared similar frustrations. And in checking out everyone else’s critiques, it dawned on me that I was reluctant to agree with them only because I had been looking forward to watching it for so long.

So after I realized that the movie was terrible, I just kind of felt really deflated, bumming around the house. I was going to go running or something, but I didn’t. I still haven’t showered. I promised my wife I would cook something, because in the morning, before she left, I was all like, “Are you kidding me? I’m going to be so productive today! I have the entire day to myself! I’m going to write, I’m going to cook, I’m going to do the laundry!”

Fuck. Seriously, as I’m typing this out, I’m just now remembering that one of the first things I did in the morning was to throw in a load of laundry. But that’s all I did. I didn’t change it to the dryer. I didn’t get to any of the other loads. And I’m pretty sure that first load was our sheets, so they’re going to smell awful, just cold and damp all day long, and there’s no time right now to rewash them and wait for them to then go through the dryer. Damn.

Oh well, but I did cook. I went to the grocery store to make tacos. I was going to make pork tacos, but in the meat section I saw this package of chicken hearts. And I just heard them calling out to me, “You pansy. You wouldn’t know what to do with us. Keep walking, amateur.” And I was like, oh yeah?

So I bought them. They were like fifty cents. I think I rose to the challenge. I seared them real quick and then braised them in some stock. And I chopped them up and made tacos and told my wife it was just dark meat. I eventually told her, after we were done, but by then she had already finished, “And besides,” I pointed out, “you loved them. You ate every bite and loved it.” And she couldn’t disagree. Still she told me not to do stuff like that anymore without asking, but I don’t understand the problem. She’s living with a culinary mystery box.

So yeah, that’s it, Rob’s day off. Also, my wife bought three giant bags of Halloween candy, but we didn’t have any trick-or-treaters. Not even one. So today I ate all of it. It was the best. Just opening up the bag brought back vivid memories of Halloween as a little kid. But I don’t remember the stomachache being this bad. Maybe I just ate way too much today, heart shaped candies, taco shaped hearts, it’s all too much. Way too much day off with way too little to show for it. Except for this, that is. At least I got to write this. And at least you got to read it.

Thank you, thank you, please, sit down

Nobody get up. Please. Well, since you’re already up. Thank you. I’m honored, really. Please, everybody, take a seat. Stop throwing those roses. Come on, I’m going to blush! Save the flowers. Wow, those are a lot of flowers. Everybody brought flowers? And you’re all throwing them? Did you guys all coordinate how you’d throw them, not all at once? This is like a continuous cascade. Like, if I were in your spot, and I had brought a bunch of roses, I’d start throwing them immediately. But this is amazing, like a nonstop wave of flowers, it’s beautiful.

But, all right, enough already! Please, sit down everybody. How are you all still clapping? I haven’t even noticed a break in the applause, not even with all of the roses being thrown. I would have imagined it impossible to simultaneously sustain such a prolonged round of applause while at the same time reaching for the flowers and throwing them on stage. We only have two hands, right? But this is incredible, it’s like, I haven’t noticed any change in the intensity of the clapping at all.

Seriously, where are all of these flowers coming from? I’m humbled. Really, I never dreamed, but it’s just … logistically, where did you get all of these flowers? I’m like ankle deep right now. There are only maybe two or three florists even somewhat close, did everybody call in advance or something? Hello. Yes, we’d like to order dozens upon dozens of roses. No, even more. Well call up your florist buddies from out of state and have everything trucked in.

And there aren’t even any thorns. I’ve never waded knee deep in long-stemmed roses before, but I would’ve imagined at least one thorn. You’re telling me that whatever florists prepared these flowers, they’ve managed to cut off every single thorn? And the precision in which they’re all trimmed. It’s a testament, really, to the profession. To the flowers. To you, to all of you, thank for coming out, thank you for your standing ovation, thank you for stopping the clapping, for a minute, just one second, sit down, please, can anybody even hear me over all of this applause? Or does it just look like I’m basking in the extended cheering, the whistling, and still, the roses, I’m just at a loss for words. I’m actually getting slightly uncomfortable, because I’m looking out at all of you, but I can’t even make out any individual audience members actually throwing roses. Because, from my perspective they’re all just flying right at me, and that, combined with the spotlights, which are actually a lot hotter than I would have thought, but I’m just getting glimpses of you, here and there, and I have to say all of this noise is pretty deafening.

Look, I’m happy you’re all happy for me. Trust me, I’m happy too! I’m really, really happy to be here. I’m really thrilled, honored. I’d just, this is all, well, I’m overwhelmed. I think I’m starting to have a panic attack. I’ve never found myself bombarded by such a constant wave of unusual stimuli. The applause, it doesn’t even sound like applause anymore. It’s just white noise, and it’s hurting me ears, please. Is this microphone even on? And the flowers. They’re up to my waist now. Is this ever going to stop?

What about you two? I didn’t even realize you were still standing right next to me. I had assumed you’d both leave after calling me up here. But, you’re standing right next to me? Clapping, still? Smiling? Isn’t this a little weird? Why aren’t you responding to me? Maybe the audience can’t hear me, but you’re standing right next to me. Hello? I’m pushing you. This is crazy. I have to be losing my mind. I’m probably having a stroke or something.

I’ll just read my speech and walk away. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for this award. I’m extraordinarily grateful for … ow! That one definitely had a thorn. And it went in my eye. I can’t do this. I can’t. I just, maybe I’ll just lie down here, maybe, I know it’s not a bed or rose petals, but it’s a bed of roses. The stems aren’t that much more uncomfortable. Yeah that’s nice. I think that one thorn was just an anomaly. But I’ll, I’ll just curl up right here, they have to stop clapping eventually. I mean, I’ll just wait them all out. I’ll just tear up my speech and stuff the pieces of paper into both ears, just let the roses pile up over me, blocking out the lights. I’m honored, I’m humbled, thank you again, but this is all just too much, much more than I expected, much more than anybody could have possibly prepared themselves for.

President of the end of the world

I’m running through a little thought experiment in my head. I always try to do thought experiments, but I always wind up getting stuck on the definition of a thought experiment. I know that Einstein could sit there in his study and just think up crazy scenarios in his brain, and they’d actually run and he’d gain serious wisdom and insight out of them. Me, I can’t really keep things in my head for too long, like images or numbers. It’s always much easier if I have some paper, a pen, something to write everything down and to look at.

But I was thinking about an experiment, let’s call it a situation, let’s say we discover that a gigantic asteroid is on a collision course with the earth, and that it’s scheduled to hit twenty years from now. There’s nothing we can do. We’re just completely outmatched. It’s going to be a guaranteed collision, guaranteed mass extinction, nothing left.

So let’s say that this information goes public. My question is, what would happen with presidential politics? Twenty years is long enough for a number of scenarios. We could have two two-term presidents, four one-term presidents. What would be their pitch to the American public? How do you get elected President of the end of the world?

I’m sure that we’d find some way to divide ourselves into teams of two. And you just know that there would be people willing to run. You might even think that there would be even more than just your usual band of egomaniacs and snake oil salesman, because an issue like the end of the world has so much divisive potential.

Just take the issue. Will the world end in twenty years? All of the scientists are saying yes. They’re the ones that alerted us in the first place. It’s crazy to think that everybody would listen to the scientists. Can you imagine if both parties of a presidential race came out on a serious subject and agreed? But no, they’re always too scared that if they speak the truth, the other one will point his or her finger and call it all nonsense.

That was a little confusing. I just think that we’re so divided today, that if something huge like World War II came around, nothing would get done, because both parties would be too scared to make a move, to disrupt the status quo. Look at the big issues of the day. We’re in severe need of some modern gun control laws. We have global warming to deal with, which is obviously a real problem. But what are both parties talking about? They’re talking about nothing. Because the first person who goes out against what’s normal, the other guy will be able to point his finger and call the other side un-American.

OK, I’m kind of veering off course into an unexpected political rant here, but that’s OK, I’m just going to go with it and hope it all ties in together at the end. You’d be surprised at how often that works, honestly. Anyway, the asteroid is coming. Finally, under serious pressure from the scientific community to at least acknowledge the fact that we’re all about to get blown up, one of the presidential contenders gets up on stage and offers a plan of how we’re going to spend our last two decades. Let’s try and see if we can’t abolish war, poverty. Let’s see if we can’t feed everybody, tend to all of the sick. Let’s make these last twenty years twenty of the best years in human history.

And the other guy would point his finger and laugh. He’d say, “Listen to this clown. We’re not going to die. We’re not going to get hit by that asteroid. We’re Americans. We’re the greatest country in the world. Nothing can stop the human spirit. Nothing can stop us. We just have to believe. We just need faith.”

And that would be it. And so the original guy would come back and say, “You know what, I was just kidding. I don’t believe we’re going to get hit either. Just elect me President. I really want to be President.”

And that would be it. President of the end of the world. I really got off track here. I had originally wanted to make a funny story about two guys campaigning a really crazy campaign to be president during the earth’s final days. But then I realized that all of those threatening stuff and political nonsense sounded a little too true to be made up. And then I started just writing amateur political commentary. And now here is this last paragraph, I’m really just writing for the sake of typing words, giving a terrible explanation as to how and why we’ve wound up at this sentence. And I think I’ve already done this exact ending to a rambling blog post like maybe two or three times already. But I’m not even going to try to find which ones I’m talking about, because there are so many, and that would take forever.

Fight!

I need a fight song. Something catchy. Something that, whenever anybody hears it, they’ll experience a strange mix of emotions. Their adrenaline will get going, so the first automatic response will be fight or flight. But for some reason, my fight song will disable the flight option in everybody who hears it. At the same time, people will start to get really scared and panicky. But the song is going to work on even more different levels. While the anxiety builds, people will become paralyzed by their fear. They’ll want to scream out, run away, do something, but they’ll be helpless. And that’s when I’ll make my entrance. Because that’s how I’ll use my fight song.

My high school had a fight song. But for some weird reason, fighting was strictly forbidden. I remember one time I was eating lunch in the cafeteria when some kid lunged across the room at another kid and started pummeling him (there was no music, fight or otherwise.) The lunchroom moderators broke it up and I’m pretty sure both kids got kicked out.

I got into one fight in high school. I was a freshman. There was this kid who lived in my town but went to a different middle school than me. Ninth grade rolls around and all of the sudden we’re on the same bus. I’m like, “Hey man, my name’s Rob, nice to meet you.” And he automatically starts calling me Robbie, in a little baby voice, making fun of my backpack, threatening to beat me up.

So I stood my ground, kind of. I didn’t back down, but I didn’t really have any good comebacks or anything. So it would be him making baby voice imitations of everything I said, and laughing with all of his d-bag friends on the bus, and me just kind of, you know, standing my ground, but just boiling over with rage, red in the face, unable to think of anything to say.

This went on for maybe two months until one day that was it. The fight song went off in my head. And while I like to say now that I’m totally anti-fighting, that there always has to be a better way to solve an argument, back then I was fourteen years old. I was about as tall as I am right now, but I only weighed maybe a hundred and fifty pounds. I was just really ready to prove myself, as a man, as somebody not to mess around with, as somebody who had his own fight song.

And maybe this guy thought I’d be easy pickings, because when I told him we’d settle it in the ring, there was just this non-reaction. And he just kept making fun of me and picking on me as if I hadn’t suggested we settle things mano-a-mano. So finally I had to like spell it out for the punk. “I am going to beat you senseless.” Stuff like that.

Looking back, the whole situation was incredibly ridiculous. If I were this other kid, I would have gone to the principal’s office, telling him that it was me being the one acting threatening, who kept bringing up physical violence, getting me kicked out and then laughing hysterically in the corner while I emptied out my locker. But no, he eventually agreed to the fight. We had to do it off of school property, obviously, because even though the school had a fight song, yeah, I already wrote about the no-fighting rule.

So we’re riding home on the bus and my bus stop was first. So this guy’s like, “I’m not getting off at your bus stop. You have to come to my bus stop.” And I was just like, “You got it.” And when the doors closed and my house disappeared in the distance, everyone knew it was on. And then it was his house. And we both got off. But, you know, we couldn’t fight right in front of his house. Somebody might come outside, his mom or one of his little sisters. So we walked around the corner.

And it was like, all right, I’ve got the fight song blasting in my head, let’s go. But I always remembered something my dad told me, something about never starting a fight, but never letting anybody else finish one. So I was consciously aware of me not wanting to be the first one to throw a punch. And then I started thinking to myself, punch? I don’t even know how to punch. I’ve never really punched anything. Where is my thumb supposed to go?

So we kind of just circled each other for a little bit, throwing a lot of taunts. While everyone on the bus had expressed what I thought was a sincere interest in the fight, I guess that nobody really wanted to get off at different bus stops and walk the rest of the way home, so there was just this one other kid with us. Finally, my bully reached out and pushed me, tapped me sort of. It was kind of aggressive I guess. Whatever, it was physical contact, so as far as I was concerned, he drew first blood.

I reached back, made a fist, and swung as hard as I could. It was really a lot less dramatic than I thought it would be. I guess I didn’t have enough muscle to really make my hand do any damage to this guy’s face. After I made contact, we both sort of just wrestled, each of us not wanting the other to make another fist. From a block’s distance, it might have looked like we were dancing.

It wound up with both of us on the ground in one of those mutual headlocks where if I let go he would have had me, but if he let go, I would have had him. It was a weird dual, very clenched embrace. And the last thing I remember was that other kid, the spectator, him running off. Some adult passerby in a car stopped, walked over to us and pried us apart. Neither of us knew him, he was just some dude breaking up a fight.

I walked home. I thought to myself, well, I was the only one who got a punch in, so I guess technically I won. The fight song grew louder in my head. I felt the adrenaline surging through my body, but this time I felt a release. I stood up for myself. And the next day that kid didn’t make fun of me. He didn’t say anything. And that’s what it was for the next four years.

I remember seeing him towards the end of senior year at a party or something. We just kind of made eye contact, nodded toward each other. My archenemy. I wonder if he heard it as we were locked together on the ground. I wonder if he heard my fight song. I kind of wish I really had a fight song, like on the computer, an MP3 that I could play and get myself all worked up. But, like I said, fighting is pretty stupid. I’m an adult now. What if I got in a fight and broke my nose? That would be ridiculous. How would I explain myself? “You don’t understand, this guy was making fun of me!”

Idea generator

The other night I was laying in bed and right before I fell asleep I had this great idea for something to write about. But I knew it was never going to happen. Even during the day, sometimes I’ll think of something, a stupid joke, a story, and I know from experience that I have to write it down immediately, because regardless of how hard I try to keep things in my head, if I don’t write it down I’ll forget about it.

It’s one thing to have a good idea and then to lose it. It’s another thing to remember having the idea but not being able to remember what that idea was. That’s what this is like. I clearly remember having the idea, recognizing it as something that, if not being a necessarily great idea, it was something that I could have gotten a whole blog post out of. That’s always the hardest part of these things, just figuring out what I’m going to write about.

I wish I had some sort of an idea generator. Like a partner. He or she would come up with the ideas, and I would write them out. Obviously this wouldn’t work out, because I would insist on taking all of the credit. “Not even a shout-out?” my idea person would ask me after the first week or so of collaboration. “Nothing!” I’d scream, insisting that I was doing all of the real work, refusing to share even the tiniest morsel of praise. So that probably wouldn’t work.

Unless I could get a string of partners, and use them all up one after the other. Individually, each collaborator probably wouldn’t stand for my bullshit more than a week. But if I just kept finding a new one, I’d theoretically have a supply of never-ending ideas. But that would probably take up so much of my time, posting ads on craigslist, hiring people to give me ideas, denying them credit, putting more ads up for more people, stopping all of my ex-partners from collaborating against me, warning others not to do business with me.

And I just thought about it, what, am I supposed to be paying these people? That would never work out either, because I’m not making any money from any of this. And with me still unwilling to share any of the credit, why would anybody want to work for me? What would be the trade-off? I got it, I could post ads on craigslist telling people I’m looking for a collaborator, and that I’m willing to pay, big time. But I’d write that I need to see some potential ideas, to give me a taste of what this person has to offer. And that would be it. I could just use those sample ideas indefinitely.

But even that seems like a lot of work, constantly going onto craigslist. I’m sure there’s tons of anti-spam policies preventing that type of Internet exploitation. I could offer experience or college credit maybe. No, nobody really buys that.

You know what I need? Some sort of an idea generating software. Something where a computer will just tell me what to write about every day. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, I could just go on Wikipedia and click on the random article button and see what comes up. Hold on, let me give it a try.

OK, I don’t think this is going to work out. I clicked the random article button and the first thing that came up was a profile of some retired German soccer player. Even worse, he’s a goalie. I practically fell asleep as soon as I started to realize what I was looking at. I mean seriously, talk about obscure, random nonsense. What could I do with any of this? Germans: boring. Soccer: boring. Goalies: boring. Retired: boring. Boring, boring, boring.

I’ll try one more time. Hmm. This time it led me to Alternative Rock. I guess that’s slightly less boring. I like Pearl Jam. I like Bush. But it’s too general. And even though I like the music, I’d say the alt-rock scene is a little too douchey. Just think about alt-rock now. Nickleback. That’s it, I can’t even go any further naming shitty bands. I wouldn’t even call it alt-rock anymore, it’s just rock, or just lame. The whole idea of alternative rock was that it was different right? And so I guess bands today that would have called themselves alternative are instead calling themselves indie. But that’s a whole different level of lame. And whereas what I’m thinking of when I think of alternative rock music was awesome when I was in middle school, now it’s almost like classic rock, just because it’s been around forever. I hate listening to classic rock. First of all, I hate the DJs. They just talk and talk and talk. Second of all, they never play the really good songs, they just play Hotel California and Stairway to Heaven on repeat, which would for alt rock translate to Jeremy and Machine Head on repeat, followed by really annoying commercials that always seem to last longer than the actual music.

So yeah, whatever, the random button on Wikipedia got me about two paragraphs, but I’m looking for like actual blog post material. This all started with an idea I had right before I fell asleep. Sometimes I’ll have these ideas during the day and I’ll write myself a little note on my iPhone, reminding myself of my spontaneous genius. Other times I’ll go for my iPhone, but like a two-year-old with an attention span of a jar of mayonnaise, I immediately get distracted by how awesome my phone is and then I start playing with apps and settings. But that night in bed, I was like half asleep. I thought to myself, shouldn’t you get up and try and write this down? But I was so comfortable, I was just like, nah, I’ll just write some bullshit in the morning about how I forgot about what I was going to write about.