Category Archives: Uncategorized

You’ve got to, like, turn your backyard into a garden, man

I started hanging my clothes out to dry, you know, in the sunlight, to save energy, to go a little easier on Mother Earth. But I forgot that my backyard sprinkler was set on an automatic timer, and so, without really connecting the dots at first, I couldn’t figure out why my clothes wouldn’t dry, even after spending like three or four hours under direct sunlight.

Eventually I had to be somewhere, and I really needed those pants, so I just threw everything in the dryer. And just when I heard that ding go off telling me that the spin-cycle was just about done, I noticed it, the sprinkler popped up out of the ground, I was wasting energy, and water, and sunlight. Can you even waste sunlight? I guess, right, because if my shirts weren’t out there colleting all of those photons, the grass would have used them, right? The grass, my organic heirloom tomatoes. Are they a little hungrier today? I know that sunlight is supposed to be an infinite resource, right, but are there enough direct rays to simultaneously dry my clothes and feed my backyard?

And the water, I’m positive that water is a finite resource, and so I feel even worse, wasting it all on washing my clothes, or, I guess that’s not a waste, because I need to do laundry. But re-wetting them outside with the sprinkler, not only am I stealing sunlight from the plants, but I’m also robbing them of water. Although, I guess in the whole circle of life ecosystem, some of that water probably dripped down from the clothesline to the ground.

But then even after I start to wrap my head around all of the waste, telling myself, don’t worry, it was an accident, I’m still green, I went online, I went to this green blog that I always visit, and there was a picture of this guy in Texas who uprooted his whole lawn and replaced it with a giant vegetable garden. There was a whole gardener’s manifesto, all about how using water and energy on grass is a mega-waste of the earth’s resources.

And I looked out at my own lawn and I thought, that guy’s absolutely right. Nobody eats that grass. Except for my dog, sometimes, not always, but just every once in a while we’ll go outside and he’ll start eating grass, like a goat, grass and fallen leaves. I try yelling at him to stop, but there’s no use, I’m not getting through to him. I looked it up online, “my dog is eating grass,” and all of these pet web sites told me that dogs eat grass to induce vomiting, that it’s a sign of an upset stomach.

Only, my dog didn’t vomit. I’ve noticed that when he’s about to puke, he starts licking the floor, like compulsively, and then sure enough, twenty or thirty of forty licks later, puke. And then he starts eating it, which, yes, I’m sorry, that’s totally gross. But think of everything that we can learn from the dogs, one with nature. They don’t let a scrap of food go to waste, grass, lick, even vomit, they’re all precious resources in the eyes of man’s best friend.

But like I said, he didn’t throw up the grass. I wondered if I’d accidentally stumbled upon some sort of mutant grass, like maybe this stuff is somehow edible. So I harvested about a bowl’s worth and sautéed it with some organic extra virgin olive oil and some organic shallots and garlic that I got, not at a farmer’s market, unfortunately, but it was at a clearly labeled “organic” section at the supermarket, which is fine, in a pinch I guess, as long as my money is going toward sustainable organic farming, that’s cool.

But yeah, the grass was disgusting. It made the whole house smell like the inside of a lawnmower repair shop, like, imagine the guys at the shop heated up a really heavily garlicky lunch in the microwave, that’s what the house smelled like. And when I ate a couple of bites, well, whatever vomiting inducing powers the grass didn’t have on the dog, they definitely worked on me. And so I cleaned myself up, I made sure to save whatever my body couldn’t digest for my dog, because, yeah, it’s gross, again, I apologize for being so graphic, but he ate it, and so it didn’t go to waste, it was good, for him, my dog’ll eat anything.

And after that I committed to tearing up the backyard, because fuck that, lawns, all of that water and sunlight and more water dripping from my sprinkler-soaked clothes drying and re-drying on the clothesline, what does it all mean? Why am I spending all of these precious, precious natural resources on a bunch of inedible blades of grass? No, I tore that whole backyard up.

And then, I don’t know, it’s really hard to keep the weeds away, you know, it’s like a whole blank canvas, that empty yard, all of that overturned grass. It’s like it just kept growing, even though I pulled it all out, it’s like the roots just re-rooted themselves, and also, all of these other weeds, big clumps of crab grass, dandelions. I’ve seen people eat dandelion greens, but I don’t know man, that’s just way too bitter for my palate. But my clothes are definitely dryer. I just set the sprinklers to only go off in the middle of the night. That way it won’t interfere with the drying. The only thing is, you know, if it starts raining in the middle of the night, I won’t be awake to shut off the sprinkler. And so yeah, that’s a huge waste of resources. But I’m doing my best, right? I can only hope that the whole ecosystem can take care of the rest. Because I’m just one dude, just trying my best, the best I can to make a difference, just me and my giant backyard garden and my clothesline full of t-shirts and underwear.

Classic Phil

I had a party at my house a few weeks ago, and I’ve always hated the idea of excluding anybody, so I kind of cast a wide net in terms of invites. It was too wide, I know it, I hate having to do stuff like this, but it’s either invite everybody or don’t have a party at all. Because the last thing I want is for someone’s status update or shared photo to ruin it for someone else, that, sorry, I had a party and I didn’t invite you.

And am I really being cool about it? Looking back, I don’t think I’ve ever been cool about it at all. I kind of spread the word in advance to the people that I would have invited had I allowed myself a more exclusive get-together, and then like two or three days before, I put out a general announcement to everybody at work, friends on Facebook.

All I’m really doing is reaching for the bottom, right, like who else is not only not going to have any plans on such short notice? I feel like a jerk even laying it out like that, but that’s exactly what it is, all right, people with nothing else to do, just waiting for a last minute sympathy invite.

The party was on a Saturday, I sent out my mass invite on a Thursday. Friday morning this guy Phil at work sends me an email, “Hey Rob, what should I bring?” And what do you mean what should you bring? You ever been to a party before? Just bring some beer, a bottle of wine, I don’t know, a bag of chips. This isn’t high tea here.

But what do I say? “Don’t bring anything.” Because what are you really supposed to say? You tell people not to bring something. You kind of hope that they bring a little extra booze or some snacks. Not Jell-O. OK, that’s just weird. That’s what Phil brought. He brought some weird molded Jell-O thing, like something straight out of a sixties cookbook, a big, green ring with stuff floating around in it.

“Hey man, I made some dessert,” and he was smiling, like I was trying to get a read on him. Was this some sort of a joke, like a gag gift? But I swear, I couldn’t tell, and while a part of me really wanted to laugh and be like, “Ha, that’s hilarious,” I just really wasn’t that convinced that this Jell-O thing wasn’t anything less than a hundred percent sincere.

I was right in the middle of laying out all of the snacks, pouring this giant bag of tortilla chips that I had bought at Costco into a big plastic bowl. I had all of this party stuff spread out around me. And it wasn’t because I wasn’t ready yet, OK, it was because Phil showed up exactly at eight o’clock.

Like was he walking around the block? Just waiting for the clock to strike eight so he could knock on my door? Nobody else was here yet, and I was clearly still setting up, but he has this thing in my face, it wasn’t even wrapped, like I don’t understand how he got it all the way from his place to my place, was he just sitting on the subway with the Jell-O on his lap, breathing on it? It’s too much.

And I get it, OK, like I can be socially awkward sometimes, I have that same tendency to overthink everything. And yeah, when I get invited to a party, I’m totally stressed out about what time I’m supposed to show up, right, but I’m not the guy walking around the block wasting time so I can show up at just the right second, OK, I’m the guy walking around the block waiting for just the right time to make an entrance that looks natural, like I’m not obsessing about how many people have arrived before me, or if I’m too late.

OK, so I understand. But this guy is like me but with absolutely no inhibitions. Just, it’s eight o’clock, ding-dong, here’s your Jell-O. Maybe it was a joke. “Ha, that’s funny,” I did say it, hoping he’d laugh back, because come on dude, I’ve never seen a dessert like that in real life, and maybe it’s really tasty and everything, but nobody’s going to eat that. And tell me you had it wrapped up, please, tell me you ditched the wrapping outside, something, because I can’t get over the exposed jiggly surface, like somebody two seats down from you on the subway sneezes, it just seems like a giant germ magnet.

“What’s so funny?” and what do I say to that? “Nothing,” I said, “Just something I was thinking about from earlier, something funny happened.” And he was like, “What happened?” and I wanted to be like, Phil, come on dude, just help me out a little here, OK, just stop with the follow up questions, just put down the Jell-O man, come on dude, just let me finish setting up here.

“Where do you want me to put this Jell-O?”

“I don’t know man, anywhere’s fine. Just grab yourself a drink, OK, just hang out while I finish getting ready.”

And I’m telling you, that fucking Jell-O was like the hit of the party, I don’t even know where that cake slicer thing came from, because I definitely don’t have a cake slicer, like Phil must have brought it, OK, he must have had that thing in his back pocket. But everybody had like cake slices of Jell-O, I wanted to give out a warning, like, “Jesus, Chris, don’t eat that Jell-O,” and Chris was like, “Why? This Jell-O is awesome. Classic Phil.”

What was I not getting? “You’ve had this before?”

“Yeah man, Phil brings it to all the parties, that’s like his thing.”

And I was just thinking, how come I’ve never been to any parties with Phil before? Like I don’t care, OK, it’s not like I have to be invited to everything, OK, I know that not everybody does the whole blanket invite thing like I do. But not once? How many parties are people having that Phil’s invited to and I’m not? Because I would have noticed that, OK, I’m telling you I would have noticed a green fucking Jell-O ring cake with pieces of canned pineapple floating around in it.

X reasons why writing stuff for the Internet is all about lists

I feel like I’m forgetting how to write anything that’s not in list form

A lot of these web sites that I submit material to, it’s not like anybody’s telling me, Rob, you’d better write us a list. But all of the popular pieces are always lists, and even though I want to tell myself that I’m better than that, that I can’t be bound by any format, I know that I’m not better. And I want to have popular stuff too. And so I figured I’d just start small, a few lists here, a bunch of indented numbers there.

But now I can’t stop. I open up a new Word document and my wrist automatically directs the mouse to the bullet point button. Before I even know what I’m doing, I’m writing out the beginnings of a numbered headline, and I’m off. It’s just part of what I’m doing now, I’m writing out things in numbers.

And I look back at all of the other stuff that I’ve written

And it wasn’t always this way. I think I made it like a whole year and a half without ever having written something in list form. But, now that I’ve taken the art of list writing and incorporated it into my writing style, I can’t imagine how I’d ever written any differently. Because list writing is so easy. If the idea of filling up a whole page of text is too intimidating, don’t worry about it. Just write a sentence. Add a number before that sentence. Then write a paragraph or two.

When those paragraphs start to get stale, seriously, who cares? Just hit the return key, and start all over again. The form is so simple, but very addictive. I keep telling myself that I’m going to get back to basics, that I’m going to write stories, something with a beginning and an end. But here I am again, just another list.

It’s got to be the Internet’s fault, right?

I mean, before the Internet, did anybody else ever write stuff in lists? I can’t remember ever seeing any lists outside of a computer screen. Lists were always for notes, right, like if you were writing out a list, the idea was that it was just an outline, something that would eventually form the basis of an actual piece of writing. If I had any of my old high school notebooks around, I’m sure it would be full of lists.

But somewhere along the way, it’s like we cut out that last step. Why bother going any further? We’ve already got this. No need for a finished piece. This is good enough, right? Yeah sure, whatever.

And you just need some really loose sort of title to kind of bind all of these numbers together

Like for this piece that I’m writing right now, I have no idea where I’m going, there’s no sort of plan guiding any of these words that are coming out of my fingertips. But it’s fine, because I can just make up some ridiculous numbered title, like “X reasons why writing stuff for the Internet is all about lists.”

That’s total nonsense, but whatever, they’re words. I’m getting words down. And if this particular paragraph isn’t going anywhere, well, I only need like two or three sentences, and then I can start all over again with a new number.

How many numbers do I even need?

It doesn’t matter. I always just start out writing “X reasons why …” and then whenever I’ve completely exhausted everything that I have to say, I just go back and count up however many bullet points I’ve made, and bingo, there’s the number. More often than not, for me anyway, that number usually happens to be five. But sometimes it’s six.

One time early on, when I just started list writing, I committed myself to ten. And it was just way too much. Like I got to number three and I started panicking, what did I get myself into? So now I never commit to anything in advance. And that way when I run out of words streaming through my head, I can just stop abruptly. And it won’t be a shock. Like by itself, sure, maybe it won’t feel like an ending. But to the reader, you already knew that it’s only going up to number five. After that, it’s done. So I don’t have to worry about wrapping anything up. You’ve already checked out just by reading the title. No surprises. No endings. It doesn’t matter.

I’m not asking for much

I just wish that every once in a while the bank would make an error in my favor, just like in Monopoly, like one day I’d wake up and I’d get an email, and it would say it, word for word, however it is that it’s written on that Monopoly card, “Hey Rob, there’s been a bank error in your favor. Take fifty bucks.” Only I want it to be like a thousand bucks. How does that work anyway? The bank makes an error in my favor and they don’t want the money back? They let you keep it?

It’s like, you know how sometimes you crack an egg and you get two yokes? Just once, I’d love to buy a dozen eggs, and I’d crack them open, and all of them would have two, three yokes in each egg. I’d cook breakfast for everyone and people would be like, “Wow, Rob, you really went nuts on the eggs, good job man.” And I’d just smile, like you guys don’t even know, there were three yokes in each one of those eggs, and I didn’t break one of them, they all stayed perfectly intact, twelve textbook sunny-side up eggs, thirty-six golden liquid yokes.

Why can’t they ever just give me two towels at the gym? I see people all the time grabbing more than one, yet every time I even open up my hand like I’m going to grab two, the guy behind the desk is like, “Hey buddy, you see the sign, right? Tell you me don’t see the sign, it’s right there. You need help? Reading? You need me to help you read the sign?” And I want the conversation to just be over with, but no, he keeps talking, he reads it for me, “It says, ‘one towel per gym member per visit.’ You got that? You need help translating that sign?” And I’m just like, all right, one towel, fine, even though they’re so small, and by the time I’m off the treadmill, the machine is soaked, the towel is soaked, and then I get all these looks from everyone when I’m using that wet towel to just move around the sweat, like it’s clearly not doing anything. Just give me two towels.

You know what would be cool? If the radio DJ would just play my request, just once. I mean come on, you used to play Silverchair on the radio, why can’t you play them again? Just once, right? It’s like, come on, nobody even listens to the radio anymore. Do you want to me to keep tuning in? Because I have that Silverchair CD on my computer, OK, I don’t need you to play it for me. It would just be nice, all right, to call in to a radio station and have the DJ not just be a dismissive jerk. Like, “All right, next up, a special request from listener Rob!” is that really that big of a deal? You can’t even play me one song on the radio?

And why doesn’t Dunkin Donuts do a baker’s dozen? Can’t I get an extra donut? I’ve walked past you guys at the end of the night, OK, don’t think I don’t see all of those donuts you’re just tossing straight in the trash. You don’t think I would have eaten that? I mean, not stale and in the trash, but fresh, just give me an extra donut, OK, that’s what baker’s do, why do you have to buck tradition? Isn’t that something worth keeping around?

And can’t you just give me the employee discount? If you’re going to sell something at a discount price to one person, I don’t understand why you won’t give it to me. I’ll buy it, just not for list price. And why can’t I combine friends and family discounts with the employee discount?

And can’t I have a little extra chicken in my salad? No, I don’t want an additional side of chicken, just a little extra chicken, just a little bit, not a full side.

Not another Coke, just give me a splash, just something to wet my whistle, don’t charge me, come on dude, I’d do it for you.

My grandmother wasn’t scared of bugs

I’ll never forget the time my grandparents took my brother and me up north when we were little kids. My grandmother was originally from Canada, and so this one summer, I think it was like 1993 or 1994, we drove from New York to Ontario to visit some of her relatives.

They always spoiled us, the way that only grandparents can, crossing all of the normal boundaries that made up our regular lives back home. I remember, among other things, my grandfather enlightening us that “goddamn” technically wasn’t a curse word, and so regarding my parents’ rules regarding foul language, well, goddamn it, we could say “damn” as much as we wanted.

Or the Super 8 Motel we stopped at overnight, somewhere near Corning, New York. I look at a Super 8 motel now and it’s like, well, it’s nothing special, it’s a cheap place to break up a long drive into two days. But my grandparents made even a dumpy motel room into something special. They rented Batman Returns for us to watch, way too graphic a movie for two little kids, much more adult than any of the Disney movies we watched back home. And in the morning we woke up to chocolate éclairs, an unheard of dessert breakfast to start us off for that second leg of the trip.

But the memory that stands out most happened before we ever crossed the border. It was in the backseat of their sedan, I can still picture the scene unfolding in real-time through my head, all of the sudden my brother and I noticed a buzzing, it was coming from right behind us. It was a wasp, and when I think about it still, I can’t come up with any explanation as to how this thing got in the car, and why it was so quiet for such a long stretch of time.

Because we were two or three hours on the highway when this thing started freaking out. My brother and I panicked, throwing ourselves against the opposite end of the car, unable to even make out words to describe what was going on. My grandparents just kind of looked at us for half a minute or so, they couldn’t figure out what was up. But one of us must have choked out something like, “A bee! A wasp!”

And I don’t know, I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I remember this thing being bigger than just a bee. I can see a light brown body, that giant middle section, a crooked stinger clearly visible under the blur of its frenzied wings. My grandfather spotted the source of our screaming before my grandmother did, and I can remember him letting out a non-expletive of his own as he slammed on the brakes and pulled over to the shoulder.

The only one who maintained any sense of calm or composure was my grandmother. As the three of us scrambled to jump out of the car, Grandma rolled up a piece of newspaper and jumped headfirst in the backseat, swinging away. I couldn’t even comprehend such courage, but after three or four whacks, she emerged from the car, holding the squashed source of our fears for us to see before telling us to get back in the car.

“Those bugs are more afraid of you than you are of them.” I think she called us a bunch of sissies, or ninnies, or some other old-fashioned word you’d only ever get called by your grandmother. And that always stuck with me, whenever I had to deal with a bug, even if I couldn’t get past my own fear, I knew that my grandmother wouldn’t have had any problem showing an insect who’s boss.

Grandma, thanks for all the great memories, I’m so lucky to have had such an awesome thirty years with you in my life. I’ll miss you a lot, and every time I get freaked out by a goddamn bug, no matter how big, I’ll think about you while I swallow that lump in my throat and look for some newspaper to ready my attack.