Thanksgiving Eve is that special night of the year when every asshole from high school is supposed find his or her way back home and hit up the shitty bar in the local bowling alley. No one’s bowling. That’s not even an option. Everyone’s buying overpriced beers from the nervous-looking cashiers. Hey, that guy’s in my Art History and Appreciation class. Goddamn community college. I’m not supposed to recognize people that I see on a regular basis. I thought up some interesting lies about myself to tell people, mostly to see if they were paying attention or not. I told one guy that I was digging up Indian burial grounds for a large developer. He said he does that same thing too and that we should collaborate. Fuck that guy. What he said was funnier than what I said.

Tonight, no one was at the bowling alley bar. Not literally “no one”, it was packed wall-to-wall with idiots, but none of the good type. In my past experiences, there was a goddamn onslaught of people from AP Spanish V or sophomore year Chemistry, either honestly eager or politely personable enough, to discuss the general basics of his or her life at the time and compare and contrast them with mine. This is what the whole night was for. Checking in. Checking up. This didn’t happen tonight. My most prominent thoughts were, “This sucks,” followed by, “I can’t wait to go home and go to sleep.” What does this all mean?

Why did I want people I didn’t really like coming up to me and asking me impersonal questions, while volunteering the same information about themselves? How is this better than walking around in a room full of people I either recognize and won’t talk to or people I don’t even know. Tonight I talked to maybe six people, if we’re being generous with the word talked. I didn’t care about most of these conversations. I usually never care about these conversations. But this year it was a different kind of apathy. I honestly didn’t want these people to exist. Or exist around me, to be a bit less sadistic. At least before, I kind of somewhat enjoyed speaking to people about their lives, though I wasn’t honestly interested in them. Talking to other people about their stupid lives is one way that we feel human. It’s one way to make sure that we’re all still people, doing normal people things. But I didn’t have this tonight.

Of course, though, I saw my first real high school crush with her boyfriend and my first real post-high school crush with her boyfriend. Yeah, they’re friends with each other. Shit like that always feels good. People always seem to look better than you remember them when you want them to look worse. The kind of looking good that makes you say, “Damn, why did she have to be so crazy?” But that’s just a thing people say to make themselves feel better about the whole situation. I guess one of them was crazy, technically and clinically or whatever, but the other one wasn’t crazy, she was awesome. I hate awesome people because they make you want to be a better person and I just don’t have that in me. I’d have to stop swearing so much. I’d have to lose weight and set “goals” and start a “career.” Wallowing in the post-teenage, twenty-something wasteland is much more my style.

Something was different tonight and I don’t know what it was. I felt disappointed. I think that I just wanted to pointlessly socialize with people that I don’t normally socialize with. Again I think that this humanizes me. I’m often inhuman. I often do not speak to people for large chunks of time, any people at all, unless I have to. I think perhaps I relish the opportunity to be the social butterfly, no matter how phony or contrived it may be. I’ve got friends and some of them are great, but sometimes I just want to talk to somewhat perfect strangers about their job and my lack of a degree.

Also, I love every cute girl. Goodnight.

On the rare occasion that I see a girl and consider the idea that she may be suitable for my courtship, my immediate reaction to that thought is usually to ask, “Oh wait, does she have her shit too much together?” Yes, that was too much together. I can handle not-at-all together and I can handle a-little-bit together, but there is no way in hell that I could handle a girl who has all of her shit completely, unquestionably together. And by “I couldn’t handle” I mean there’s no way any girl with her shit totally, all-encompassingly together would even look me in the eye, let alone allow me to buy her a nice Italian dinner (the classiest of dinners). If there is a girl who has a college degree, has an adult job (I guess these are called “full-time jobs”), knows where she wants to be in five years, and is relatively attractive, I feel like this person is a space alien. I feel like this person walks on the moon and reads epic novels and drinks fancy cocktails that I don’t even know exist. I feel like this person is a grown up and I am thirteen years old, eating pizza every other night and thinking idiot thoughts that start off like, “When I grow up, I wanna…” I need a girl who has good ideas and is smart and cute, but still a couple of years away from knowing that she is definitely totally for sure going to be a speech language pathologist at a Guatemalan refugee center after she finishes grad school. What the hell is grad school? That’s just more school, right? Who would do that on purpose? Where are the lovely ladies who want to watch pirated episodes of Homeland and marathon Party Down from start to finish on Netflix but it’d have to be her Netflix because I got rid of Watch Instant because I didn’t want to pay the extra $9? Where do people even go to get haircuts? I will forever remain in the dark as to how normal people live normal, adult lives.

Last night I was being myself, sitting around in the dark, watching a pirated DVD, eating some type of store-bought cookies, when I was invited to go to the local watering hole. I obliged, spent half an hour putting on different clothes to impress the potential woman of my dreams who was obviously going to be at this local watering hole, begging me to love her, and met my friends for drinks. Over 3 hours, I had 3 tall beers, which is usually fine for me, because I’m an adult man and I can bench press a horse and chew through steel and shit. But because I had not eaten anything but some type of store-bought cookies for a few hours, and because my body is a moron, I was pretty drunk when I left. Being the well-studied rocket scientist that I am, I stopped at 7-11 and bought two bottles of Gatorade to cleanse my system of the liquid poison that I had just ingested. I pounded the first bottle, a delicious orange flavor, before I even got home. I cracked open the second one, but my weird fat body was full of sloshy liquid, so I decided to wait a little bit. I stumbled around in my dark, empty house, made my way down to the basement dungeon where I reside, and got into bed. After a few minutes I felt my insides talking to each other. They were gargling and bubbling and being generally unpleasant, so I decided I’d go into the bathroom and see what the hell it is they wanted. I sat down on the floor, coughed a couple of times, and threw up approximately 32 ounces of orange Gatorade. This really wasn’t a story. I just wanted to say I threw up. I’m very wordy.

toothy and boisterous
your neck snaps back and your eyes close.
the amber glow reflects
from the frames that aid the face below the bangs that frame your face.
your lips are alarming.
that looks like a good time.
you look like a sweet girl.
all skirts and cardigans, sailor-stripes across your heart
again, you look like a sweet girl.
my sentiments lack righteousness
truthful, frank, straightforwardness
I’m the worst and you’re the best

can I take you home?

I’ve got a couple of thoughts to expel, and they all have to do with television. Let’s start with the unimportant stuff.

New fall shows! So far, they pretty much suck. I know, I know; they’re just pilots. But, they should at least be entertaining. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m pretty particular in my taste, so I think after viewing a pilot, I can make a decent assumption on the behalf of myself. Of the slew of new programming, so far I’ve watched Up All Night (NBC), New Girl (FOX), 2 Broke Girls (CBS), Whitney (NBC), Death Valley (MTV), and The Playboy Club (NBC). Some okay-looking shows I haven’t seen yet that I plan on watching include Terra Nova (FOX), Person Of Interest (CBS), and Pan Am (ABC). There are a bunch of shows like Free Agents (NBC), Hart Of Dixie (CW), Ringer (CW), and Prime Suspect (NBC) that I probably won’t even bother watching because they look absolutely retarded. From what I’ve seen so far, the only shows that I care for are Up All Night, Death Valley, and New Girl, somewhat. I’ll keep watching these shows until they bore me, which may be one more episodes or may be never, because I think they all have potential. Plus, how can I not watch Will Arnett?

Now, onto the important (to me) stuff. (Un)employed, the sitcom that I have been working on with my friends since February, is going to be going through some changes. We’ve taken way too long to finish it, but it may be for the better. Earlier today, I read that MTV had picked up a show called Underemployed, an ensemble comedy from Craig Wright, described as such: “On the eve of their college graduation, best pals Sofia, Daphne, Lou, Raviva and Miles believe they’re destined for greatness, and are set to dazzle the world with their brilliance. A year later, cold reality has set in and the group struggles, often comically, to stay optimistic through dead-end odd jobs, terrible bosses, romantic mistakes and major life changes.”

When I read this, I said, “Holy mother of fuck.” I told the other guys involved in the show and Mike, essentially the creator and head writer, told me he threw up. He cursed us for dragging out feet. I read on to find that the show was picked up back in February and was only just recently optioned, which only made me feel a bit better, seeing as we didn’t even start working on (Un)employed until February. Any other person might read this, curse their luck, and then start on something new, but we have to finish our pilot. We are legally obligated to finish our pilot because we received funding from Kickstarter. I wish it were as easy as returning the money, but that’s not how it works.

I guess it’s a defeatist attitude to want to quit when we’ve come this far, but I am kind of a pessimist. We’re going to continue on with the pilot, but we’re going to change the name and maybe some other stuff. We’re still going to try to make the best show that we possibly can and we want to finish up soon. After the pilot, maybe we will continue, maybe we’ll create something else, or maybe we won’t do anything, as we sit, wallowing in darkness, empty and soulless.

The internet (or maybe just Tumblr… and Twitter… but that pretty much is the internet) has been abuzz with talk off the new NBC “comedy,” Whitney. There’s been backlash against the show before the pilot even aired, based on the endless, annoying ad campaigns and the preview clips that NBC made available. Since then, there’s been backlash against the backlash, a phrase I nicked from Matt. People are seemingly upset that other people care about television shows and are spouting the timeless advice of “get over it.” I’m here to tell you that hating things, especially shitty TV shows, is important and encouraged, as long as you’re doing it for the right reasons.

Personally, I think I have relatively decent taste in things, in comparison to other people that I know, anyway. Some have referred to me as an elitist, especially in terms of my music taste. I don’t mind this distinction at all; I’m extremely picky about most things. I don’t understand why the idea of weeding out shitty things in order to find the really good ones is supposed to be bad. Elitism gets a negative connotation in several circles, politics and media criticism being a couple, but I have no problem with it.

It’s probably safe to say that I watch a lot of TV. My day job offers me a lot of free time, which I take advantage of by watching shows on Netflix, Hulu, and through other means. I love good comedies and I love good dramas, some of my favorite shows being Seinfeld, Chappelle’s Show, Louie, The Wire, and Breaking Bad. I should also probably say that I can’t stand Whitney Cummings’ stand-up. At all. I don’t find most female stand-up comics funny, which you may find sexist, but I also don’t find most male stand-up comics funny, either. Elitism, maybe? I think I just have specific taste.

I’m generally open enough to give most new shows, or even some old shows that I’ve never seen, a fighting chance. I saw the ads for Whitney and I thought that they were terrible. I saw the preview clips for Whitney and I thought that they too were terrible. I’ve seen Whitney Cummings tell jokes and, you guessed it, I thought that they were terrible. But I still decided to download the pilot and give it a chance. Maybe the writers are good or maybe the other actors are interesting and prop up the show with a seemingly weak lead. Unfortunately, none of this happened.

The show has a laugh track. Strike one. The show isn’t funny. Strike two. That’s all the strikes, I need, really. The plot wasn’t interesting. The show doesn’t do anything to stand out from other shows. The supporting cast are caricatures, standing in for Whitney and Chris D’Elia (who I don’t really mind, and had a decent turn on Workaholics) to bounce jokes off of. I’m fine with this “girl power” revival thing that network TV seems to be doing, (Kat Dennings, Zooey D, Whitney, etc.) as long as the shows are good, and not just vehicles for people with vaginas.

I’m by no means a professional critic, but I think I’ve watched my fair share of shows. Enough to know, simply from a preview, that a show will be something I’ll hate before I even see the show. This is why, I believe, I have no problem with people shitting all over this show before the pilot aired. People know themselves, they know what they like and especially what they hate. So, in conclusion, Whitney sucks, educated hatred of media is fine, and having good taste is an admirable thing.

The winter is a terrible thing. The winter is a virus. It’s a curse. It’s a plague wished upon me by someone I apparently treated with unspeakable disregard. It’s never fleeting, obviously, because only good things are fleeting. Summer, now summer is fleeting. Each day goes by more quickly than the last. The days are 24 then 12 then 6 then 3 hours long. The sun is living inside your skin, creating a new super organism, granting you the ability to stay awake forever and to never, ever, not for one fucking second be sad. But winter is a cold, bitter, hateful bitch. You seal your doors and windows, wrap yourself in blankets and flannel, but she creeps in through the most minuscule pinholes and kisses you on the cheek. It’s not a good kiss or a thoughtful kiss, though. It’s spiteful. It comes from a place of darkness. It’s a slap in the face.

In winter, I retreat further into my literal, physical comfort zone to hibernate and live in denial. This seclusion does wretched things to my mind. I’m not sure where the thoughts come from, but they appear; thoughts of smashing things or being dead or eating every pizza ever. I guess normal people might read a book or run on a treadmill, but I’m not normal and a treadmill won’t fit in my basement. I need some sun, for Christ’s sake. And not the winter sun, either, because that shit is not sun. It’s an impostor. It’s a frigid, piercing impostor, tricking your mind into thinking that it’s warming the earth, but instead it makes everything twice as cold. It’s the reverse sun. It’s the bizarro sun and it’s here to enslave humanity.

An easy remedy to the situation, one might think, would be venturing out into winter, spitting in her face, and having super fun awesome times. I have tried this, my friend, and sometimes it is successful. However, it’s nearly impossible to continue with regularity. Here are some reasons: A. My city is a death trap. It is literally dead. There is no fun to be had here, via any establishment or service offered by any business to aid in the inception of fun. B. I don’t know anyone. I have friends and people I hang out with. We share common traits, such as living in the same city, enjoying professional football, and we manage to tolerate each other, for the most part. But I have no great friends. I have no confidants, as the Golden Girls once celebrated. We mostly just go through the friend motions, which are generally pleasant and sometimes rewarding, but I still feel like I’m on the outside of something, looking in. C. Work. For some reason I have to ‘work’ to earn ‘money’ to pay for ‘car insurance’ and ‘food,’ and this ‘money’ is limited and only provided bi-monthly. Otherwise, honestly, I’d hop on a plane and fly to fucking space Florida or something. Yes, I know planes don’t fly to space. Yet.

All I’m really trying to articulate is that I hate winter and everything that it brings. My brain chemistry changes. It makes me hate things more than I already hate them. A pessimist with seasonal affective disorder is not the first person who usually gets invited to the party. Oh, also, D. There are no girls. All the girls are not here. They are everywhere else (or maybe nowhere else) but they are certainly not here. I love girls, you know, because they are cute and small and sweet and you get to make out and all that shit, but I’ve honestly run out of them. Not to quantify girls as an item that one stocks and restocks, but it makes me feel quite empty. It’s nice to share things with someone. To laugh with someone and make fun of lame people with someone. It also helps if this someone is a babe and half who likes Wes Andy movies, you know? Anyway, the girls are all gone and I’m wearing a hole in my mattress by sleeping so much. Soon I will be sleeping inside of my bed, with the springs jabbing me in the ribs, but that’s whatever. Winter makes me super bored and super blah, so if you want to talk and be friends, that’d be cool as long as you’re cool and not some lamer who watches Glee and listens to Bruno Mars.

I’m tired of the constant rehashing and reappearance of everything. I’ve seen it once, so I’ll probably see it again. And again. And so on and so forth. With everyone striving to create a niche for themselves, I understand that it’s becoming borderline-impossible to be truly unique, or at the very least, interesting. An idea that seems specific to — and is becoming infinitely more definitive of — Tumblr is the use of visual aesthetics for personal branding. I know I’m guilty of this and I’m sure a progressively expanding number of others are too. Look at these images and think of me. They are me. Let them define me, as a person. Understand that I am creative and strive to collect beautiful things. My Pokemans. Let me show you them.

But how evident is this idea becoming in actuality (IRL, so to speak)? It’s definitely something that anyone with any aspirations, be they professional, social, political, or even sexual, is becoming more aware of. If people see me like this, they will know I am this. People will identify me as a certain person based on carefully calculated visual stimuli. They will want to know me. To hire me. To elect me. To have sex with me. They will understand what I represent before I speak a word, and possibly before I understand myself.

This opinion or recognition is nothing new. I’m obviously not breaking any ground here. However, I think it’s at least worthy of some discussion. How far are we willing to go in letting things that other people create or, god forbid, manufacture represent us? I’m starting to grow weary of falling into an easily defined category. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then more power to you. I’m simply saying I kind of wish more people would stop talking about what they like and talk more about who they are.

• steez(y)
• based god
• bitties
• swag

The reason that I love the internet is the idea of interaction. With one click I can be directed to a website with a catalog of daily events from people (most of whom I couldn’t care less about, but the others are somewhat relevant). As much as people dislike Facebook for their disregard of privacy, it’s still an amazing tool for reconnecting, or spying, whatever. Shut up. Who are you to judge? Right now, I’m coming down a bit from a Tuesday-night buzz. This doesn’t happen too often, but I’m not ashamed to admit that it happens. Tonight, on the drive home from my local watering hole, I considered the idea of speaking with an ex-girlfriend, once I got home, on Facebook. I guess this would be similar to a drunk dial / drunk text, but a little different. I knew she’d be on Facebook chat. Somehow I just knew. And she was. I got home and changed clothes. I grabbed a few cookies and scarfed them down. I booted up my laptop and directed Chrome to Facebook. Boom. There she was. Here lies the dilemma. What do I say? Why am I saying it? Do I say “So, Detroit, huh? How’s that?” or do I open with a casual greeting? Hey. Hello. Hi. How are you? Do I play it cool or do I just do something else? I decided that this is too many questions, so I just didn’t talk to her.

I mean, at the end of the whole thing, it was like, “Hey we’ll be friends, right?” As if men and women can just be friends, especially after they’ve seen each other at least half-naked, and still broke up. I mean, it’s a special thing when a girl lets you see… well… never mind any of that. But, realistically, I think we’re all kind of jealous. (Maybe I shouldn’t make this statement, because, like Barry Egan in Punch-Drunk Love, I don’t know how other people are.) It upsets me to some degree, oftentimes very minimal but sometimes substantial, when a girl I dated or crushed on or saw once and thought was cute starts dating someone that, for some fucking reason, isn’t me. It’s blatantly illogical to expect cute, interesting girls to stay single, but goddammit, they should, right? I’m single. I’ve been single most of my life. So it’s weird, honestly, for me to be dating someone, let alone “in a relationship.” It seems so easy for these girls, all of them, as if it’s a hefty digit, ha, (it isn’t) to enter into something new and different and exciting. I know that I’m not new or different or especially exciting, but isn’t there something to be said about familiarity? Dependability? Straight up ballerness? Not that I know what that is…

Any way you look at it, the internet is awesome and awful. I’ve sent drunk Facebook messages and I’ve anonymously Tumblr-asked a girl or two, but that’s what makes it a beautiful thing. The choice between anonymity and unabashed honesty. Is there something weird about the desire to hook up with an ex? Or to just hook up at all? Not even “hook up” like teenagers say these days, bro, but like hook up, as in flirt a little over AIM. Push come to shove, it’s probably a bad idea and I’m most likely better off just admiring (readmiring?) from afar, but the thought’s always going to be there. What if I just said “Hi”?

I’m still picking little pieces of you
out of my teeth.
Bobby pins on the edge of the sink.
A hair dancing with static on the sleeve of my coat.
Your scent on shirts and sheets.
The food that you bought, spoiled
and left in the refrigerator
to extend your existence,
now lives at the bottom of a garbage bin on the curb.
I hope you’re happy
with your poor decisions and your poor attitudes.
I blame this whole thing on you
and me.

Some people can possess immense and extremely unfair power. Maybe this is just me and perhaps no one will relate to this at all and everyone will realize just how crazy I may or may not be, but, I digress… upon the sight or mentioning of certain people, always girls, always girls that I’ve somehow been in an awkward (on my part) or unfavorable (on my part) “situation” with, I get the feeling as if someone had punched me right in the diaphragm, forcefully expelling all of the breath from my body and making me feel quite uneasy and even perhaps a bit angry. Also, I love every cute girl. And I don’t just mean like, typical, average, cute. I mean like super cute. Something special.

And to further expand upon this, I mean I don’t even have to see these people (see: girls) in person. It can be on the internet! On the Facebook! I mean come on. Honestly. Chemical reactions in the brain are like little kids mixing food coloring with all of the condiments in the refrigerator and pantry combined.

On Facebook, my religious views are listed as agnostic. Most of the time, I’m an atheist-leaning agnostic. After much consideration, I feel comfortable in saying that the God described in the Bible doesn’t exist, but I do leave open the possibility of some kind of cosmic force, be it karma or something of the like. I know that people die. I know that as soon as a person is conceived, they start dying. It’s rather bittersweet. Life is beginning and ending at the same time. I’ve always found it kind of unfathomable to put an expiration date on life. As people, we have no idea what it’s like to not be alive. The closest thing that we get to being dead is blacking out, from which we eventually wake up. I think it’s safe to say that when things die, it’s like blacking out forever.

This concept is really hard to imagine. Maybe reincarnation is real. I think the part of our brain that fights to survive places that thought there, that even after a person is dead, there’s still a chance for him or her to be alive again. At some point one has to accept the fact that death is the inevitable end to life, that this doesn’t last forever.

I’ve had two grandparents pass away this year. I’ve handled their deaths a bit differently than the rest of my family, which initially surprised me. I think of myself as an emotional and sensual person. When I love something, I do it passionately. When I dislike something, I abhor it. But after these passings, I didn’t cry or question the heavens. I didn’t curse the Gods. I think I was firm enough in my understanding that you can’t stop death and it comforted me. People are born to die. They’ve simply done what they were supposed to do.

It’s definitely sad that my family and I will no longer get to enjoy their presence, and vice versa, but nothing lasts forever. I can look back at my grandmother and say that she was a great person, full of love, who took care of her family and did whatever she could to make people happy. I can look back at my grandfather and say that he was the best man I’ve ever known, a WWII veteran who worked as hard as he could, every day of his life, to make things better for his family and expected no praise. This is how they’ll be remembered. People will recall their triumphs and failures with fondness and admiration. And I’m perfectly comfortable with this. I think they would be too.

I feel like I’m always waiting. Like I’m standing at the center of a merry-go-round, and I can’t tell whether I’m spinning by everything or everything is spinning by me. It’s comparable to being a kid back in school, on summer break, waiting for Christmas. And then at Christmas, you’re waiting for summer break. Or your birthday; any somewhat significant event that marks the passing of time, as if things will have changed by this important date. You’ll turn 16 and have a car. You’ll graduate high school and go to college. Things will be better and you will be happy and it will be a celebration.

The problem with this outlook at this stage in my life is that I’ve got nothing to wait for. I’ve finished high school. I’ve taken an elongated break from college. I’m not even sure if what I was doing was actually college. Now I lay here in bed, with work in the morning, thinking of things to look forward to. A baseball game in a few weeks. A family vacation to the beach up north in July. I’ll have lost some weight by then. Maybe I’ll have a new girlfriend.

I’m stuck, when it comes down to it. I’m looking into my own future and the outlook is uninvitingly bleak. My friends are graduating and I’m just doing the same thing I’ve always done: try and take the easy way out. I feel deep down that I have a false sense of entitlement, that, to borrow a line from a Dave Eggers story, affords me “excuses to do things the wrong way, or not do them at all, to do anything [I want].” I obviously have no entitlement. I’m average. Lazy even. I expect things simply to happen to me. I expect to one day receive an e-mail saying “Hello. You are awesome. Here is a bunch of money for just being you. Move to California. Start a pizza place. Write stupid short prose and play on the internet all day.”

The glaring solution lies in the age-old idea, “If you aren’t happy with something, change it.” This isn’t a saying for someone like me. My saying is more along the lines of, “If you aren’t happy with something, complain about it to yourself and anyone else who will listen and see if something happens, but it probably won’t and you’ll get used to it.” In an answer to a question posed by Jesse Lacey, I do believe I’m missing out; that everything good is happening somewhere else.

I’m not long for a world in which the predominant idea is that there are a set of guidelines to follow and accomplishments to unlock in order to survive. That’s why I’m so in awe of people who use a talent or a gift and surpass the monotony of human life. But at the same time, I lack the dedication to attempt a decent piece of writing. I lack the patience to learn the guitar. I lack the money and the desire to go back to school and “make something of myself.”

Everyone tries to point out why they’re unique and so interesting and, especially in today’s youth culture, why they are so more outlandish and have such a huge burden of shit and weirdness thrust upon them, simply to impress or endear other people. I get the sense that we’re all wondering what the fuck we’re supposed to do next and just keep making up stuff to see if it helps.

we are collapsing from the inside out,
we are out of and under control.
hello, this is dawn and we are dying!
illuminated light bulbs fall from the sky
and crash down like raindrops onto the street
as we stand in awe and stare at the clouds
we are drowning in light.
this is life
and it too shall pass.

I wrote this a couple years ago. Rediscovering old stuff is interesting.