off deck

I’m just going to come out and say it: I hate baseball.

I can’t stand anything about it.

I’ve tried and I’ve tried to get into it, and it just never works.  The thing is, I love pretty much every other sport there is: football, basketball, hockey, golf, tennis, that weird game they play in England that’s kind of like baseball but not really.

And the reason I hate baseball is not unique at all, I just find it extremely boring.

For those of you who don’t like sports (freaks), here’s what happens during a baseball game:

A batter walks up to the plate, then stands there.  The pitcher stands there looking at the catcher. Both scratch themselves.  Two minutes pass. The pitcher throws to the batter, who swings and misses.  They both decide that they better stand around some more before anything crazy, like some fucking action, happens again.  Two minutes pass.

This process repeats itself over and over again until someone wins or another team forfeits because their shortstop fell asleep.

Yes, sometimes there is a home run or a nice defensive play, but those things – those things that are the only thing fun about baseball – happen about three times a game.

It is the most boring sport ever.

I know what you’re thinking now. “Oh but you have to go to a game, it’s so much more fun!”  No.  No it’s not.  Here’s a news flash – all sports are more fun to watch live!  If baseball is already boring as hell, a live game is just above boring as hell, which is about the equivalent of eating lettuce, but you spiced it up with some salt!

Baseball is so terrible, that they even incorporate a period of time (the seventh inning stretch) so that people – because they’re bored out of their fucking minds – can stand up and remember what it means to be alive again!

So come on now – call me anti-American or whatever the fuck people always say when I tell them I hate baseball, I can take it.

It can’t be worse than having to watch a game.

here we go again

Do you hear that?

Somewhere, a stapler is being used.

Somewhere, an elevator button is being pressed with a little more anger than usual. And everywhere, across this entire nation, people are dying inside.

You want a day of mourning?  That’s today – the Monday after the new year, when everyone ventures back into the office, and stares at their computer with hatred usually reserved for people who wear turtlenecks.

Today, in Blue Rapids, Kansas, Kathy is going to tell Tim about her dog for the 457th time.

In Baltimore, Maryland, Dan will spill his coffee on the counter top and not clean it up (then blame Gary because no one likes Gary anyway, mainly because “Gary” is such a creepy name) for the 92nd time.

In Eastport, Maine, Pete is going to tell his friend “Happy New Year,” and his friend will reply, “I hate that sentence. It’s completely false. There’s nothing happy, or new about this year.  My wife still left me for that dude who owns a gas station, my hair is still falling out and I am still unable to do simple math without using my fingers.  You want to tell me something?  Say, ‘Welcome to the beginning of the calendar year.’ That’s accurate. Because, Pete, there is nothing new, and there is certainly nothing happy about today.”

Everywhere across the United States people are sad, angry and depressed today, and they have every right to be.

So welcome back my friends.  I wish I could say it’s going to get better, but,  you know, that’s not really my thing.

consumed by movement

Sometimes in life, events happen that affect me in such a deep way that I can’t think of anything else.  

One such moment was the first time I saw a friend of mine break something just for the sake of breaking it. This is just a rough estimate, but after that happened, I’m going to say I spent about three solid years of my life smashing things just because I could.  I also think this was the first time my Mom entertained the idea of having to visit me in jail.  I was a special child.

Another moment, one that is about on the level of throwing Tonka trucks out of my bedroom window, and one that is reoccurring, is the dreaded eye twitch.

When my eye twitches, it consumes my every thought.  

A friend could be asking me to murder his girlfriend because she stopped buying mac and cheese, and all I can think is, “Stop looking at my eye!  Stop it!  I know it’s twitching but I can’t help it, okay??? I’m not a freak – I swear!”

All day long, every time my eyelid moves all crazy like, I think about it, and in turn, I start thinking about my life and the decisions I make.

First I think about my diet. Maybe I should eat less carbs?  Yes.  That sandwich I have planned at lunch?  In the trash!  That will stop my Eye Sickness.

Then I start thinking that maybe it’s because of a lack of sleep.  Tonight I will sleep for 17 hours straight, only waking up once to look in the mirror and examine my defective eye.  And also maybe to pee on the toilet seat.

Finally, true panic sets in as I realize nothing can stop the rampant, sporadic twitching of my eye.  So I just think and think and think about it.

When it eventually does pass, I feel like I’ve beat something truly catastrophic, and start to relax a little bit. Of course then I freak out because I threw my tuna on wheat in the trash, right next to someones not-so-fresh looking sushi roll.

options

No matter how much you like your job, there is always a point in the day when you feel yourself slowly losing your mind.

This goes for everyone, even Matthew McConaughey, who just has to flex his pecs, star in terrible movies where he plays the same dumbass every time, and sometimes say brilliant things like “Alright, alright, alright!” for his job.

My Point Of Peril is always the last hour before I leave the office.  Everything is fine until then.  The beginning of the day is great, I do some work and make some calls. After that maybe I make some jokes about setting up a hammock between the printer and my desk and having my coworkers give me a push whenever they print something out.  

Then, in the space between the morning and The Last Hour, I do lots of other crap that isn’t very funny and rather boring, like counting how many paper clips I have in my top drawer.  There’s 27.

When that last hour hits though, I completely lose my mind.

I start to think about suicide, and how really, it wouldn’t be that bad of an idea.

I could just kill myself.

Just end it all.  Then there’d be no more Last Hours and no more watching the clock creep by.  

I’d just be dead.

Of course I’d type out a letter to all my friends and family, and even print out a good forwarded email (Snoopy drinking a beer is one of my favorites) so that they all get a laugh.

It really wouldn’t be that bad.

Sure some people would miss me, but they’d get on with their lives by thinking, “Well, he did say that his last hour at work seemed long, so I understand.  He’s in a better place now.”

Somehow I never end up doing it though, I trudge through my Last Hour and get up and do it all again the next day.

Maybe I should start flexing my pecs more.

Yes, I think that will make things better.

just a boy

I couldn’t shave this morning because I ran out of shaving cream yesterday and I may have been too distracted to buy more and instead bought some Silly Putty.

Which is Good because you can make a ball and copy comic strips and then stretch them out and laugh, but Bad because you can’t use it to shave.  At least that’s what I hear.

Without a way to shave, I arrived at the gym and for the first time today looked at my face.  It was that instant that I realized something terrifying, disheartening and terrifying all over again:  I still can’t grow a beard.

This wasn’t a big deal when I was 17 because only the hairiest of the hairy could grow a beard.  But now, at 29, it is a big problem.

I remember my first attempt to grow some Man Face, and let me tell you, it was a disaster.  Back then I had two spots that wouldn’t grow hair and they were big – so I ended up with this scraggly Amish-looking beard that frightened small children and made women frown.

Not being able to grow a beard as an adult is especially troublesome to me because it basically means that I’ll never be a real man.

Never.

No matter what I do or say, because I have this little, tiny patch under my chin that won’t grow any hair for some scientific reason, I will never be able to proudly say that I Am Man.

Sure I work out and have abs that you could bounce a penny off of (that sounded manly right?) and sure I box and sure I like sports and sure I Enjoy The Women, but I’m not a real man.

It’s sad, but that’s the way it is.

At least I still have my Silly Putty, which, by the way, I made into a perfect little box last night.

That has to count for something, right?

prophecy

Bogus.

That was the first word out of my mouth this morning when I looked out the window and noticed that it was raining.  And unfortunately I was not just waking from an awesome dream in which I was hanging out with Bill and Ted.

I don’t use bogus lightly either, I usually reserve it for Times Of Great Stress, like when I found out that Horatio Sanz was getting dropped from Saturday Night Live.  Dude was awesome.

The first word you speak in the morning is an ominous one.  In my case, I’m pretty sure because I said “bogus,” my day is going to be, sadly, depressingly, bogus.

I’ll probably step in a puddle and get Wet Foot (the worst thing that can happen to you aside from dying) on my lunch hour, then have to replace the water cooler twice.  I’ll be living in hell, is what I’m saying.

If only my first word had been something more cheery and upbeat.  You know, something completely uncharacteristic of me.  Then I would have a good day, because once that first word hits the air in front of you – your day is planned out.

In a lot of ways, your first word in the morning is like your first word as a baby.

Whatever your first word was, it has a great bearing on what you’re like as an adult.

Mine was “ball.”

This sounds good, right?

No.  No it was not good.

I said ball, but what I held in my hand was an egg, which I promptly threw against the wall.

Perfect.

Now you see what I’m saying.  I said something pretty dumb and as an adult, I’ve never been confused for the brightest bulb in the pack.  I like simple things like Big Trouble in Little China, Gonzo Grape bubble gum and Coors Light.

If I had said something Brilliant And Thoughtful, like “Momma” when I saw my Mom, maybe things would’ve turned out better for me.  Maybe I’d be an engineer or that dude who invented Lunchables.

But I’m not.

I’m just a blogger and really, that’s okay with me.

As long as I don’t get Wet Foot.

stylized insanity

If there is one thing that can make me feel Crazy, it’s a tie.

I’ve got this tie on today that has defeated me.

A grown man, beaten by a single piece of cloth.

Every single time I tried to make it into a perfect-looking knot this morning, it ended up being either too short or too long, which means that the little end would be sticking out when it’s not supposed to be. And I do believe “little end” is a technical term.

I started wrestling with the bastard this morning before I went to the gym.

Over and over I tried to get it right.

The more I tried and failed, the more my anger increased, culminating with me yelling, “Fuck this stupid fucking shit!” and my dog looking at me like I was an asshole for being so loud in the morning.

I ended up leaving for the gym with my tie half-knotted and sweat pouring down my face.

That may have had something to do with why people on the train were staring at me like I was a Normal Person Who Has Had Enough With Society and was about to gun everyone down. Like that movie Falling Down. Which was pretty cool.

Then, after I was done working out and I had to get dressed again, I attacked the tie again.

Once again I failed and left for work looking like a little kid trying to play dress up.

When I got on the elevator at my building, I could feel people’s eyes on me. I swear there was one woman who was looking at me like an aunt does, probably thinking, “Aww, look at Chris, he’s so cute! He tried to put on his little tie for the big day at the office and look what happened!” I think she was about to pinch my cheeks, but I was saved by the elevator finally reaching my floor.

Now I’m sitting here, typing this damn blog post and looking like a complete fucking idiot.

I’m just waiting for someone to ask me what’s wrong with my tie, because when they do, I’m just going to smile and calmly reply, “Nothing, everything is fine with my day today. Thank you for asking fellow coworker.”

Or maybe I’ll take my tie off, shove it in their face and scream, “Here! You do it! See if you can do any better because I can’t fucking take it! Yes, I know what I look like and yes I am aware that screaming is unnecessary but I think I’m losing my mind and it’s all because of this tie!”

Either one would work I think.

a happening of great concernment

People like to talk about phenomenons.

They are in awe of the Aurora Borealis, they wonder about the Bermuda Triangle and some question the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.

Though I can assure you that Nessy exists because she’s sick of being called Nessy when in fact her name is Martha.  She also knits.  But she’s terrible at it.

While I can see the draw of these unique occurrences, none of them comes close to what has happened to me today on my way to work.

I have a rock in my shoe.

Of course it’s not a big rock because it never is, is it?

It’s always a little pebble that disappears for awhile, so I think “Oh, it must’ve been nothing, I can go on with my life without this annoyance.”  But then, just when I think everything is Back To Normal, it reannounces its presence, which causes me pain and makes me think, “How the hell does this even happen???”  Sort of like when Ashton Kutcher stars in another movie.

I really don’t understand this phenomenon at all.

Last I checked, I was not rolling around in a pile of gravel, so it couldn’t have happened there.

And I keep my shoes laced tightly because one never knows when one needs to Hurry or maybe outrun a crazy person.

So I have no idea how I can get a rock in my shoe and it bothers the hell out of me.

Forget the Bermuda Triangle, we need to get to the bottom of this Unexplained Event.

Because if I get just one more rock in my shoe, I’m telling Martha to sew all of you mittens for your birthdays, and trust me, no one likes mittens that don’t fit.

No one.

pioneering spirit

I had to buy new cologne yesterday because my bottle of old faithful had run out over last weekend.

To make this purchase I had to go to Sephora.

I was not happy about this.

If you’re a dude, going to Sephora is a lot like the pilgrims’ experience – it’s this strange land where everything smells different than what you’re used to, you have no idea how you’re supposed to act and as soon as you set foot in there the natives grow restless.

Luckily I found where the cologne was kept right away and made my way over to it.  The good people of Sephora made it easy to find by lining the wall with huge posters of Naked Man Thighs.

It was a little disturbing.

Since I had my heart set on Trying Something Different, I started to smell the colognes.

Right away, the only dude in the entire store finds me.

Perfect.

I go into a store loaded with attractive women and the first person to approach me is a man.  Not the hot dark-skinned woman with legs up to her neck, no, the slightly overweight man with a beard that so closely resembled A.J.’s from the Backstreet Boys that I felt uncomfortable.

He was nice though, and very thorough.

Each time he made me smell a new cologne that he picked out, and I would reply with something like, “That smells like soap” he only grew more determined.

Eventually I found something I liked and left feeling confident about my purchase.   Or maybe I was just really high off of smelling 15 different colognes.

When I got home I excitedly sprayed it on myself and asked Ari, “Well, what do you think?”

She replied, “It’s good.  But I like your old stuff better.”

Of course.

I go out of my way to try Something New and this is what I get.

No one ever has any love for the pilgrim.

it was fun while it lasted

I can’t fucking take The Real World anymore.

I have been with the show from the beginning too. I laughed when poor Julie asked Heather B. (raise your hand if you had her CD) if she wore a pager because she was a drug dealer and let out a “Oh snap!” when I watched Stephen address his issues with Irene.

This new season in Hollywood has broken me though.

All I do is sit and scream at the TV when it’s on.

The new cast doesn’t have to work – instead they’re all taking acting classes.

Then there’s a dude who looks like this.

And no one has said anything yet.

How the fuck can you look at someone with hair like that and not say something???

The first thing I would’ve said to this guy was, “Hey, what’s up man? I’m Chris, and your hair is making me uncomfortable.”

The new season also has a guy and a girl who say they don’t believe in labeling themselves “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” even though they’re cuddling and holding hands by the second episode.

Listen to me: If you’re cuddling, hooking up, and constantly hanging out with someone – that’s your girlfriend.

Shut the fuck up about labels.

I label you a Fucking Dumbass – how about that?

I guess this means that I’m old now or something, because I refuse to watch the show again.

From now on, if I want to watch a bunch of stupid, annoying people talk about Things That Are Not As Important As They Think They Are – I’ll just step out of my building’s lobby.

That should do the trick.