Sunday update

I can't believe how many conversations I've had this week about weddings, showers, and/or babies. I feel left out. Not because I'm desparately seeking a wife or babies, because I'm not. And not because I'm not playing a role in the conversations, because I force my way into most discussions and I am interested in what my friends are doing. I just feel like the oddball. It seems that everyone I talk to is settled into their lives. I should pull an Amy Sedaris and create a fake fiance.

Jake's out of town. This is good, because the weather is hot and humid and I'm spending most of my time at home in my underwear. I've become Raymond.

Running with the Weiners

Christie and I rocked the 5K Sausage Run at Miller Park this morning. Despite the beating sun and the Racing Sausages nipping at our heels, we crossed the finish line under 27 minutes. That's two minutes faster than my time last year. Also, I beat all 4 sausages! Last year, I only beat two of them. The new Chorizo did not make an appearance this morning, but I think he'll be at tonight's game. We may be losing Carlos Lee, but we're getting a new Sausage. The new Chorizo's "skin tone" will be darker and more appropriately represent the spicy sausage's color. He'll be wearing a sombrero.

Oh, Milwaukee. Pomplona's got nothing on you.

Ouch!

The subtitle to this post is “She’s more than just the woman who rips the hair out of my back – she’s also my friend.”

Last week Adina made a comment that I have a big secret and that I would have to post it within a week or she would disclose it to all. I don’t think it’s really a secret though, because anyone that has seen me swimming in the past week, would see clearly that I no longer have hair on my back. I had it waxed.

A few weeks ago I won a gift certificate for a local hair salon. Because Katie had given me a buzz cut a day earlier (with her Barber in a Box) I looked at the other services that the salon offered. I narrowed my options to a pedicure or a waxing. My choice was a pleasant afternoon that would fade quickly or a tortuous afternoon with pleasant effects that would last a few weeks. I went with the torture.

The waxer, Kim, was super friendly. She sensed my anxiety over the phone and reassured me that she was not an ogre that would jump on me like they do on TV. I have never seen this on TV and prior to my conversation with Kim I had not had this fear, but now I did. My original fear was that deep down (read: shallow as a puddle) I would wimp out halfway through the ordeal and leave with a strip of paper stuck to my back. I expected to learn a good deal about myself during this.

However, my experience was very good. Except for the systematic pulling of hair (and what felt like skin), it was very relaxing. The rooms lighting was dim and Kim played soothing New Age music. The wax smelled like honey. And the conversation was great.

Kim and I talked about Milwaukee and work – hers and mine. We talked about our families and our religions. And then we talked about books. Recently it seems as if I have been hitting the chick-lit a little stronger than usual. Also, Oprah has been selecting some of my favorites for her book club, so we had those titles in common too. By the end we were writing down titles and authors for each other. She also told me that if she couldn’t find my suggestion, she would call my house.

I had originally planned to not tell anyone about my adventure in aesthetics, but then realized that because of my swimming tendency, it would be obvious that something had happened. I told my friends, and it’s a good thing that I did because when we went to the French festival, Bastille Days, we had the contest of who sees someone that they know first. I won; I saw Kim.

Home, sweet, home

Within ten minutes of arriving at my parents' house in Moscow, I overheard the following conversation: Dad (on the phone with Mom's brother): Hey, if you don't have plans for Friday, want to go out for lunch with me and Donny? Donny's paying. It's my birthday. (pause) Yeah, see if your father wants to come too. (pause) That sounds great. See you then. This was the first that I had heard of these plans.

Philadelphia

I have been very busy lately and have so much material to post about. I'm currently in Philadelphia for work. I spent the evening with Mr. and Mrs. Anonymous. We ate, we drank, we shopped for condoms, we bowled, I fell, we ping-ponged, we darted, we shard secrets, and we promised not to talk about them.

Tomorrow my mom's coming to pick me up. I hope we find each other in the City of Brotherly Love. It's a little bigger than Moscow. She can't really stop in front of the office building and honk the horn so that I can come out.

Bum-bum

Laura's coming to visit and we've been singing the Bum-bum song in anticipation ever since.

Hair

I'm waiting for pictures from Christie so that you can see the changes in my hair over the past week. I cut my beard, leaving just the mustache. That only lasted a day because I did it more as a joke. It was disgusting.

Then I shaved my whole face. This always makes me look so much younger.

Then I got a crew cut. My hair is only a quarter inch long now. I like the look. Perhaps it'll last longer than just the summer.

Dreams of Grandeur

Today I sort of came to realize that I still have big dreams like I had in high school. You know the type: I'm going to sit on the Supreme Court, or write a great American novel, or lead a grass roots movement, or open a little coffee shop that will slowly take over the world. My dreams are not very specific, which is the main reason that I worry that they won't come to pass. They're vague, like I want to help people feel more connected to their communities, or I want kids to not feel so lost (very Holden Caulfield) or I want to be a "pillar of the community."

But as I was thinking about my dreams, I wondered if I'm setting myself up correctly. I realize that many people who lead what I consider "great lives" just seemed to be lucky. They were in the right place at the right time. Am I in the right place, so that when my time comes, I'll be ready? This isn't supposed to be a diss on Wisconsin. Great people came from here. Look at Aldo Leopold, Oprah, Edward R. Murrow, and Donna Shalala.

My concern is that I wonder what great people were doing when they were my age. I feel that I'm just coasting right now. Sure, I'm learning a great deal about pension plans and actuarial theory, but is that going to set me up for the next stage in my life? I'm saving money to buy a house, but won't that just change my focus from my dreams to a mortgage?

I was going to end this post with a jab at W. by asking what he was doing at my age, but now I'm feeling a little too pensive. The thought of his priviledged life is disheartening.

Craig's List Fun

This is honestly the best response to I've received from my CL post looking for a roommate. Note that it is written in complete sentences and everyword was spelled correctly - even homophones! I did not summarize the response; it has been reprinted in its entirety.


I am very much interested in your apt.
Please call me or e-mail ASAP.
Sal
Office: 414-867-5309
Cell:

CL joke

Have you guys been responding to my post on Craig's List? Because some of my responses have been a little strange - not strange enough to be funny. Just strange enough so that I have to spend the time to type out an awkward response. I know I shouldn't be discriminatory, but really, I don't want to live with anyone who does not conjugate verbs correctly. Nor someone who clearly did not read my post and asks questions that were answered in it. Some examples of the questions are "What is the rent?" or "Where is the apartment?" The answers to both of these questions are easy to find. The first is the number in the title with the dollar sign ($) in front of it. The answer to the second is the address that was on the bottom of the page next to the little map.

Can I stop by and pick up the pot?

I am spending my holiday making strawberry jam. I went berry-picking yesterday and today is the canning. The title refers to the question I asked Christie, who was quite confused.

Grown-up

This week I have been doing some grown-up activities. I have been looking for roommates. I am shopping for a condominium. I opened an IRA. I went to a house-warming party for a friend of my age. I have been seriously considering whether to stay in my current job or not. And I have been reading Proust.

Funny* Things the Intern Has Said

I've had to paraphrase some of them, as I didn't hear the end of the sentences once my ears began bleeding.

- I don't like The Gays.

- We don't need Unions. (This is after one of our clients told us about how her father was a local Union Leader.)

-WalMart is the best thing that America has going for it. It symbolizes the American dream.

- Ya'all've been brainwashed on the environment. The truth is that a bunch of tree-huggers on barges rode up the Mississippi in the 80s and scared the people with all of their garbage, claiming that the landfills were full. Well there's plenty of landfill space. Enough to last us 500 years. I've done my research.

-I think we should nuke the Middle East. It's not like anything good has ever come out of it.

What really bothers me about the intern is that he is absolutely sure that he's right. He keeps tells us about the research he's done on these topics. He's not just stating his opinion; he's lecturing us on what we're supposed to think. I'm not even so bothered by what he says; I'm bothered by how he says it. I know that he won't be hired full-time, but I'd really like to see him fired now. Unfortunately, I think everyone else in the office is being too nice to him. I'm the only one that has told him to "shut up" or "I'm too busy to talk about this now, maybe later." I'm also the only one he's apologized to for something he has said. And I answered back with, "Oh, you've said many more things that have offended me."

The intern's manager today, asked me how I've managed to keep the kid away from bothering me. I told him that as soon as we learned that he was a homophobe, I mentioned to him that he reminds me of an ex-boyfriend. I didn't actually say this to the intern, but I wish I had. I think he really avoids me because I tend to ignore him when he stops at my cube.



*Funny in a Hitler kind of way.
**Did you know that the asterisk was first used by Aristophanes?

Neapolitan Ice Cream

On Saturday I went fishing with Jake and Justin on Lake Pewaukee. I did not make that up. You can't make up names like Pewaukee. We caught no fish. We didn't even get a bite. But we saw the carp spawning. We touched leeches. We ate sandwiches. We fed ducks. And Jake fell in the water. It was a blast.

Someone had to say it

Today I finally cracked and told the intern, "Shut up. You don't know what you're talking about." Clearly, I am not management material.

My coworkers are thrilled by this because they think of me as "the nice guy" in the office, and I was the first to snap. Too be fair, though, they didn't have to share a golf cart with the guy during the company golf outing today.

I lasted until the 12th hole. That's when he began telling us the evils of unions. (We had been talking about Bruce Springsteen. I saw his concert last night. It was super.) I let him go on about unions because the client that was part of our team had interupted him to tell us that her father was in a union and big supporter. But did that stop our intern? No. Stay the course. We don't pontificate with the audience we want, we pontificate with the audience we have. I let him go because it's getting to the point that I want him to be fired. However, I did finally step in when he began to sing the praises of my least favorite store (besides the ones where kids can make their own dolls and bears) - a store that rhymes with Mal-Mart. He actually talked about how it symbolizes all that's great about America! Ugh. By this time we were back at our cart and out of earshot from our clients. Luckily, my little talk quieted him down for the rest of the day. My only regret is that I hadn't paraphrazed The Big Lebowski: Shut up, Intern. You're out of your element.

Gore bandwagon

The danger of not seeing An Inconvenient Truth: You may continue to live in denial of Global Warming.

The danger of seeing An Inconvenient Truth: You may vote for Al Gore.

Really, go see it. You'll learn so much. But walk to the theater, you'll feel too guilty to drive home.

yuengling sighting

Miller Park. Saturday, June 10th. 6:00 p.m. CDT

The sighting occurred at the entrance to the stadium. The drinker was ahead of me by 2 people, but I pushed them out of the way to make my beer connection. I tapped the drinker on the shoulder. Once, and then much harder the second time. He turned around, probably looking for a fight, but then he saw the longing in my eyes as I said, "Hey! Where did you get that Yuengling? Do they sell it here?"

He replied, "My buddy brought it from Pennsylvania. It's good beer. I don't even know how to pronounce it." This would be the point of the conversation that he was supposed to say, "Come back to our tailgate. We have a truckload of Lager." But instead he turned and headed to the ticket taker.

Later, Jake told me that he thinks the guy threw away half of a can of beer before entering the park. It's a crying shame.

At the Bar:

Donny: Doesn't that guy look like Ray Nagin?
Jake: He's the white chocolate version of Ray Nagin.
Jake: Hey Katie, c'mere. Look; it's Ray Nagin.
Katie: That's the white chocolate version of Ray Nagin.
Jake: That's my girl.

I burned my eye lashes while grilling today.

previous post

I never published this post about the Anniversary Party two weeks ago.