Stupid, Sexist, and in every way Accurate

Recently my days have consisted of waking up, scaring school children waiting for the bus by removing bloodied lawn tools from my trunk and a bag where something that looks strikingly like a human head falls out, while some time after that I head to the gym. Going to the gym has kept me sane these last few weeks as the kids have started to become desensitized to my actions and one of these days the kids (and the authorities) will realize why their parents have disappeared. There is something about repetitive motion that makes life rewarding; that's why during my last mental break down I kept rocking back and forth repeating the female lead to Paradise By The Dashboard Lights for 36 straight hours. All of these things remind us that you have to keep trying, strive towards your goal, its not all over if you don't get a good jump out of the gate; keep your head in the game.

First impressions take three seconds to make, and if you screw that up; you are f**ked. Sure, everyone is a unique little snowflake and the true beauty of a person is not physical, but when you walk past me in the supermarket the first thought in my head is not, "I bet we could spend the night together just having great conversation." This is why you don't see bachelor parties at MENSA meetings. Sure, you're smart and interesting, but if I really wanted that I would have dated the snaggle-toothed, pre-law girl that wrote my thesis for me in college.

If I have not already broken years of protective boundaries all you ladies have build up over the years, let me assure you that most of these first impressions are going to fall on the Up & Out Policy. This societal phenomenon can be compared to your average school's grading system; though reversed. No one with A's is going to reach the Honor Roll, while your D students are going to get most of the recognition from the school. All women are built differently, but the amount of variety in the funness of said bags astonishes me; so I came up with a theory.

The only reason we have small tittied women around is because people only lived until they were like 26.

As with any new claim on the nature of the universe there will be cause for alarm and an outcry against the change. Did people believe Columbus when he said the earth revolved around the sun? No, there was no absolute acceptance like the time Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald. Sometimes things cannot be as clean cut as that. But I have a degree in philosophy so I am officially licensed to philosophize.

Back in a time before modern medicine the lifespan of the average person was significantly lower. Waiting until you are 30 to get married only came about with the debut of Friends. Less than 100 years ago, once you could physically pop out kids you were sent off to be married around the age of 12. Since this is before the titty has the proper time to ripen, the guys which married these girls had no clue as to what brand of utter came with the cow. Because of this the country could have made a disastrous mistake. America has had its fair share of screw-ups with slavery and interment camps, but edged by this one. Think about it, if people lived until they were 90 back then, we may have started putting the small tittied bitches on mountains.

I'm not saying there are not some guys out there that like small boobs, I'm just saying all guys like big boobs.

The JF Label

When a guy has screwed up, he will do anything within reason, and some things on the boundary as long as he leaves behind ample reasonable doubt, to right the situation. From sending gifts to taking advantage of a time when she needs comfort because some crazed madman seems to have broken into her apartment, kidnapped her precious kitten, tied it up in a burlap sack and tossed it into the river; our instincts as Alpha Males do not let us give up until all hope is lost. Some guys even choose to make themselves vulnerable in front of women and write their emotions and feelings in cards and letters baring their souls. Most are never heard of again.

Movies and television shows would have us believe that any relationship problem can be instantly whisked away by a strategically timed monologue confessing your heart during a rainstorm. As long as you put enough time and effort into winning a girl's heart, at the end of day you will be together; or at least get some during prom. I am not saying that moviemakers are bending the realities of true life. I am saying it is complete bullshit. Not everything can be saved by a poem during a rainstorm or candles and a hallmark card. At the end of the night you will have spent three months trying to save what you used to have and she will still be the one that got away.

If you are lucky you will still remain friends. Normally when a girl bluntly stomps on the heart that you have put before her, you are going to feel a bit bummed. Sometimes, though, you don't. And it is at that moment you should come to the realization that her direct rejection was one of the best things to happen to you, even if it could have been better timed than at your Grandmother's 90th birthday party with all of your relatives gathered 'round. Now you are in the realm of being "Just Friends." It is a much different world than "Being a Couple" or even "Hooking Up Occasionally" and, as with any change of title, comes a new set of rules and regulations that she must understand.

The first aspect of life which is different is that we are no longer riding down the one-way street to Panty Lane. Life has become a two-way road and this means that on occasion you are going to have to be the one to initialize conversation. It is not that we do not want to hang out with you, it is the ratio of time spent with you to time seeing you naked has decreased dramatically, and you will not automatically be the first person we check with for weekend plans. But we still will call, we just do not have to have any good ideas as to what to do. We're not trying to impress you anymore so we won't write up a list involving everything from seeing a movie to a non-innuendoed spelunking adventure and keep it next to the phone. Pick up the phone, even to tell me you saw pickles on sale and it reminded you of the time I ate 5 1/2 jars junior year and threw up in the shower; because I would do the same for you if I saw someone drunkenly stumble into the lake and cover themselves with mud reliving the last scene in Predator.

The second thing I want to make you aware of is, all of your friends are available to me. It is against Guy Code to go after a buddy's woman no matter how long they have been broken up; but women are different. Women are soulless creatures that are constantly searching for a soul they can mold to do their bidding. After you have so elegantly destroyed me and left me for dead in the world, who better than a young lady I already have a connection with to come by and caress my broken soul; building me back up until a time she sees fit to devour me and my self-esteem back down into the pits of hell deemed a relationship. And it is not our fault if this happens. Women are backstabbing seductresses with magical globes of power attached to their chest, and we men are powerless against them. Besides, I probably met you while hooking up with one of your other friends anyway.

During our time together, we probably had a song. Maybe we were both aware of it because you never forget the song playing the first time you get a 2nd degree burn from a pan of hot water being thrown in your general direction because you thought it would be fun to sneak up behind her in the kitchen. Or maybe she did not know that every time you heard Girls Just Wanna Have Fun it brought a tear to your eye because of her love for multicolored hair accessories. Rest assured that this song has been deleted off every Ipod, hard-drive, and CD in our possession and we have taken every step necessary to reduce the chance of ever coming in contact with that song again; even if that meant surgically having a chunk of my brain removed so I could unlearn the song on guitar. Love has a price, but fixing said love has a recovery period with a co-pay.

Over the next few months you may get discouraged that I am falling for you again because away messages so cryptic that top NSA agents would cry at night being unable to figure them out, will start showing up. Do not be alarmed; I have not fallen off the "Just Friends" bandwagon. This is merely to alert you that some other perky demon spawn has started to destroy my life and I am indirectly telling her the business. Sure, most people would not take a text message saying "I'll give you a call later" as a bad sign but I could overanalyze a grocery list, and have spent the last four hours going over every possible situation, sitting by the phone, rehearsing line by line, ready to answer and stumble over my words after choking out a way to enthusiastic "Hey!" Don't worry, you will not have to hear us complain about her because the last thing we want is for you to retaliate the favor and have to sit through stories of the new guy that's tagging you.

But you are my friend. We can grab a bite, catch a movie, or even take a non-innuendoed spelunking trip and not think anything of it. There is no more risk of you cutting me off so I am more free to share with you my true feelings on topics such as crying phone calls and their need to stop, paying me back for all that money I spent on you, I hate your cat, really not caring if your hair is up or down, gun repair, and how cute your sister is. Our relationship is bound to grow even stronger than it was before without the complications of a physical relationship, but if you ever want to get complicated again, even just for one night, give me a call.

The Soothing Power of Music

The cliche is that money cannot buy happiness. You see it everyday with rockstars like Dashboard Confessional who have more money than the Catholic Church but still manage to crank out album after album of songs full of messages about life doing them wrong and girl's destroying their hearts. Now either they are just following the equation that got them a record deal, Tight Shirt + Tears x The Amount of Money Wasted on That Anniversary Present You Bought Before Walking in on Her and Your Best Friend = Platinum Record, or life is hard when you have to choose which Porsche to drive to the servants quarters so Fredrico can go the store and pick up some more Mallowmars. Track #7: My Soul Is Empty (because you forgot to restock the pantry).

But that is what music is for; expressing our emotions so girls will not think we are complete pansies. Who do you think gets laid more; Chris Cornell, lead singer of Audioslave, or Josh Brugneil, college sophomore who performs poetry at his school's open mic night in the coffeeshop? Regardless if this guy is the reincarnation of Shel Silverstein or not (he's dead right?) most women shrug off poetry into a pile with guys that win chess tournaments, collect and stuff dead animals into a taxidermied army ready to invade at a moment's notice, or do comedy. Girls say they want the sensitive, smart, and funny guy; and they are not lying, they just prefer he played guitar, spoke in an Australian accent, and had to the power to get rid of spiders and any other creepy crawly thing with his mind as well.

The perfect person. The one being on the planet that you want to spend the rest of your life with. How many of you out there have found that perfect person? You love the way they eat their cereal in the morning, the way they dance while brushing their teeth before bed, and you love Muffins her cat gently greeting you when you walk in the door with a purr. But as with everything, time changes these things. After a little while, you wish she could get through one bowl without slurping so god damn much, hate every song by FallOutBoy especially when sung with a toothbrush in her mouth, and have drowned the cat in the bathtub to send her a message.

If only you had been in the band in highschool maybe you could have written a song to get all that pent up aggression out. Because music is not all about the girl that broke your heart, though have you ever noticed when you screw up with a girl the radio is your enemy? Think about the last fight you had with your significant other. Your day is shitty, you do not feel like eating, and every song that comes on your Ipod just exfoliates how much of a dick you are. I recently screwed up big time with a girl, and songs became horoscopes; even if they had nothing to do with my life at the moment I would interpret it in a way to make it apply. Its a sad day when Cotton Eye Joe can bring a guy to the brink of tears.

I know I messed up, and I do not need the Red Hot Chili Peppers making it worse with their funktastic melodies.

Women: A Case Study

I have heard some great arguments. I would love to say I have been a part of them, but people do not particularly like to argue with me in person. I have been told that exclusively on a number of occasions. They will fight with me over the internet, through a third party, over the phone on occasion, but never in person. If we lived back in the day I'm sure I would have a few good examples of arguments via courier pigeon too. And I'm not talking arguments with merit behind them; god no. I hate arguing politics, or worse, religion because I do not know a damn thing about either of those subjects. I am talking about important subjects like most useful superpower, who would win in a fight; my cat or a seagull, and women.

And I will not group women together with religion and politics into the "Stuff I Don't Know Shit About" category because I pretty much have them figured out. After extensive research on the topic I have come to a few hypotheses about women and I feel it is the right time to share with the world my findings using proper MLA citations. It has taken years of casual observing (HighSchool 1999), months of indepth interview session(College, Finals Week 2004), and the occasional particant observation (Roommate's Bed, 2006) for me to come to these conclusions.

It is very important to understand your subject before you start to criticize it. It is quite simple to understand a woman. You have to understand that she has emotions which drive her decisions, and to her, every decision is important. Sure, that sweater is $88, its the middle of summer, and she lives in a place where the temperature does not drop below 70 degrees, but it makes her boobs looks fabulous; and how often does that come around? Women are beautiful mistresses put on this Earth to exemplify the true meaning of magnificent, but lest not forget women are materialistic and fickle. As such, most will find the first point to be controversial.

It is much easier to be a woman. Please do not throw examples like child birth and menstruation at me. First off, how many times in your life are you planning on squirting a munckin out? Perhaps twice or three times? We're not running a plantation and have a need for farm hands; you should not be pumping out more kids than I appendages to discipline them with! Besides, child birth is a natural event that produces a new life, and you girls eat that crap up. Babies are cute, they're like kittens but not as bouncy. As for menstruation, we suffer through that right along with you baby. And its not just with you, oh no. We have to deal with all the women in our lives. You just so happen to be the only one we are sleeping with at the moment. And ladies, you know how you can tell your man is being faithful? If he's as miserable as you are during that week, he does not have some girl on the side. If he comes home smiling saying lines like "Baby, its alright, I was tired anyway." You better start following him to and from work.

When it comes to everyday life it is easier to have two X chromosomes. Women tend to get along with other women right off the bat. They need a good couple days to get to know each other well enough before they start stabbing each other in the back. And even then it takes a person with the ability to read auras to point out which chick a woman hates. For guys, it is the complete opposite. Have you ever been compelled by the laws of the universe to hate somebody because of the sports team they cheer for? If the doctor that is about to perform emergency surgery to repair your innerworkings has on the colors of a rival team you there is something inside a man that will make sure you get to that scalpel first and save mankind from his type. Everything is a competition. When guys first meet we size each other up and figure out what we are better at than the other guy. He can bench twice his body weight, is a war hero, and found a cure for cancer, but I can successfully eat seven saltines in a minute. I think the winner here is obvious.

Now I will open up the floor to some comments. But women get paid less money for the same work! Is money really important as long as you love what you do? But society holds women to insane criteria to be considered beautiful! Comparing every guy you see to Brad Pitt and that guy from Grey's Anatomy is really fair, eh? Sorry, it comes with the Equal Rights package. But women did not have the right to vote until the 1950's! Well I was not allowed to drive until I was seventeen, but now I can, and you can vote; so shut up about it.

Women may be the reason we do stupid things like eat popcorn off the ground of the movie theater for a laugh. And they may make us forget simple things like you were going to walk her to her car, you were even standing next to door, and then sat back down while your roommates looked on with befuddledment as she left. And they may also make you go clinically insane by the time your 25. But women are the only keeping us from playing volleyball without shirts on even though we're out of shape, eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon, and finishing an entire Madden football season in one day. And, I guess, we should be grateful because who would want to do any of that ridiculously fun stuff 24/7?

A Very Special Episode of AoR

So what's the problem? Its just transition. Everyone deals with it and this won't be the only time I'll have to do it in my life. But I'll get this off my chest and put it up on my website and try to throw a joke in every now and then as to not completely bore anyone who decided to throw away their free time by reading me babble like all those other assholes with websites do. My babble I usually believe as worthwhile to read, this may be for those wondering whats up.

When people would ask me how life is I'd smile, shrug my shoulders and answer, "Shitty! But let's not let it ruin the day!" Turtles walk around with a hardshell around them at all times, us humans have to work hard to maintain that kind of safety bubble. Somehow I have kept my sanity through 4 months of absolutely nothing. The main reason I am so psycho to find a job is because I was always the person with the job in the past. I worked at the same place since I was 16, working every waking second, sacrificing time with friends, family, girls, and any personal time. You could say that in my head I don't find it fair. Its how I grew up. I didn't work at JC Penny 20 hours a week selling sweaters. I lived, breathed, (on some occasions I dont want to talk about, might have) killed working at the Arts Center.

"Hell, Dave, if you like it so much why not just do that?" The reason I loved it so much is the exact reason I don't want to do it. It becomes your entire life. But I have a degree I don't want to use and have to sit on job experiences to hook a phone call. Statistically, I should have gotten at least one phone call from someone curious about the certified Hostage Negotiator that just wanted the story.

I can't even hold conversations with my friends because NOTHING happens in my week. Its a real great feeling to call a friend to wish them a happy birthday, and after you get those two words out of your mouth you're out of shit to talk about. If I got a phone call from anyone I would almost think that's enough of a catylist to dial up an old friend. The next time my sister invites me over to dinner, you know all of you are getting calls about it.

So about my love life.... no, not going there. For those still curious however, its kind of like the the previous paragraph, except add in "The next time my sister invites me over to dinner, you know you're getting a phone call about it because I'm going to try and play it off as a date."

Getting up on stage used to be a release. No matter how shitty my life was I could get up on stage and everything would go away. Believe me, I tried my hardest to make my life miserable before some of the biggest shows I ever did. Being up in front of people had a way of letting me forget about the real world for a second. For that hour and a half, I wasn't the biggest jerk in the world or stressed out from working for hours and getting no respect or recognition from anyone; that was my home. My universe. Nothing could go wrong.

Somehow that got messed up to. Though this one isn't entirely my fault. MadCow must have spoiled me. Granted I was the person that was the most frustrated and irratable person to deal with whenever I had to negotiate a situation inside the herd. And if I was in the process of writing/filming/editing a video, it didn't matter how cute you were, I was preoccupied. What's been going on the last few weeks has just been frustrating. I don't know how to fix it, I don't know if I can fix it, and I probably shouldn't post anything on the internet until I talk to the guys about it, but I'm the one that can't sleep at 2am and I'll call them tommorow. So shhhhh, if you see them.

Distractions have been handy. The gym has been a good one, but the past two weeks it hasn't completely worked (damn you pretty girl!). Fighting with my cousin seems to work while I'm training with the boys, but I still suck at it (damn you guys bigger than me!). Other distractions I've tried over the course of time but haven't stuck have been slightly amusing. I tried reading. Got through 4 1/2 out of 5 books of the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and flat out stopped (damn you phonics!). My idea to practice manipulating cards and sleight of hand after watching 6 straight hours of MindFreak fell through after I realized I can't do camera tricks (damn you Criss Angel!).

And I haven't been keeping up with this even though the best way I deal with things is make fun of them. But why? Part of it could be because a friend said to me this weekend, "You should write stuff that won't offend your friends." To which I replied, "Maybe I should get friends that won't be offended by what I write." (damn you friends???) But that's why I haven't written as much as usual, because the only thing I do with my day is hang out with the cat and occasionally, when you guys all get home from work, or class, or sitting around with your pets all day, I talk to you.

It was so much easier when I was more of a loner. Its hard to not write shit like this entry everytime you sit at your keyboard when its the only thing that rolls through your head all day.

So I may not have a job. I may not be able to land more than one punch during Fight Club. I may not be ready to swallow my pride and grow a pair. I may not fit in with my new group. And I may not have written what you expected to see when you clicked on the link in my profile. But there are a few things that keep me sane so that when people ask me "How's life?" I can respond.

Shitty. But let's not let it ruin our day.

Something Beautiful

How come sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't? Philosophers say that there is a balance to the universe and everything evens out. The good with the bad. The beautiful with the grotesque. The employed and me. But sometimes it feels like the scales are tipped in others' favor while you are stuck at the bottom like a fat kid on a see-saw. All you want to do is have fun but the world is a constant reminder that you will spend another week eating your lunch in the library hoping no one farts in your trumpet case when you're not looking only to open it at band practice after school and get a whiff of what James McDoogal left behind hours later.

And no matter how many times you threaten to stab a person in the eye with a ballpoint pen for bringing it up, they will still insist that it will get better. Eventually it will be your turn up to plate in the cricket match of life; you may not understand what you're doing or even what the rules are but if you just start swinging wildly, after a while, you will statistically mistakenly do something right. And a few months ago I was sure my life took one look at that googley and sent it flying in whichever way you need to send it to get whatever is equal to a homerun in cricket; because she walked back into my life.

*Enter Film Noir Voiceover Mode*

We had a rocky past. It was true. When we met we were just two crazy kids with vengence on our mind. Not at anyone in particular, but at the world. The kind of vengence a goth kid has in his eyes when he is told he got the answer wrong in Junior Year English class; take that for reading Nitzche, wearing all black and not having any friends. She... was a firecracker. An absolute babe with a streak to get a little crazy. Things got too hot too fast and I had to cool down; her eyes were like lasers that would cut me in half unlike all those James Bond films where it seemed like he was doomed but got out at the last second. My heart was giving out. I couldn't run this marathon at her pace. So I let her go like that old saying says, "If you love someone, let them go. If she steals your teddy bear from your room as she's leaving and sends you small pieces in the mail with a ransom note, bitch is crazy."

That was years ago, and I heard the Feds finally tracked her down after a three state chase. Thanks to her they added a new color to the Homeland Security Scale. She seemed so innocent, like the way bears seem really gentle when you see them at the zoo but the second you find a bear cub in the forest and dress it up like Teddy Ruxbin momma comes around and the next camping trip you are taking is so you can scatter your friend's ashes in the field where he lost his virginity to Tiffany Zebrowski who turned out to be his third cousin.

But she walked back into my life not so many weeks ago and I thought it could be like old times. Sure, she's been around the block more times than a Lego inspector. And maybe she didn't always have that tattoo of of the rebel flag across her shoulders. And perhaps she forgot my name when I ran up to her at the airport and maced me. But once she realized who I was, and I corrected her from calling me Dan, we were the same old couple. My parents may not have ever liked her, my friends and a couple churches down South call her the Devil Incarnate, and she's constantly sleeping with other guys. But what we had was love.

Then she went and moved to Nashville... such is the balance of the universe. Maybe one day it will swing back my way. For now though, I'm just going to tell everyone the tattoo of her intials I got on my chest stand for Something Beautiful, because that's what she was. And I will still say that no matter how many knife fights end with you wearing an eye patch.

People Tell Me Things

People tell me things. They tell me things about their life that normal people share with friends in normal conversation. I get told a lot about how their job hunt is going, or getting ready to move out of their parent's house and start a new life, or even worse, how their love life is doing. And then they ultimately ask for advice. And I am the perfect person to go to for relationship advice, I have always advocated that. In all my relationships, how many ended with her not talking to me for a number of weeks and/or months? Exactly, all of them. But how many of them still talk to me now after they have had time to think about what they are missing? Exactly... uhhh, next topic.

People tell me things. Deep secrets of love and love lost. Topics that really bring two people together in a bond of truth about those most serious woes of the heart. But no one has ever told me that they have accidently killed a man in a hit and run accident... and that hurts me inside. If I can be trusted to divulge the most intimate of relationship details to, why can you not tell me of the time you burnt down that church while the nuns were asleep inside on a dare? Am I not good enough for you to explain to me how you stole $15 million dollars from the Special Olympics back in 1997? The defintion of friendship is one of trust and understanding. Now I trust you, why can't you understand that I want to hear your stories of defacing a public building with Nazi propaganda?!

People tell me things. They don't tell me anything remotely interesting, just the boring mundane trials of life. If I have to sit through another story of how someone's grandmother "got through the surgery well and is going to make a complete recovery," I think I'm going to get sick. Woo Hoo! Her gaul bladder didn't explode. Mine hasn't either. Congratu-frikkin-lations. Do you really want to impress me? Tell me grandma's last dying words were "Avenge my death!" and you spent the last three hours stalking around a hospital with a syringe full of mercury looking for the bastard of a medical student who brought your grandma lunch that day just because he's wearing a white coat. Moving around slowly and inconspicuously you take out every member of the medical staff that came into contact with your grandma that day just in case, and you want to make sure grandma's got company in hell.

People tell me things. What do you have to tell me?

Joyous Jackolantern Smiles

Its the end of the summer, and for the first time in my life this means nothing more than August is ending and September is sweeping in right on time behind it. I don't have to worry about packing my life into boxes and moving back into college. I don't have to look up a book on sparknotes because I forgot to do my summer reading. And I don't have deal with the pressure of choosing seats on the first day of class. But with the end of summer comes the end of opportunity for me. I dropped the ball and have just come to grips with what I lost, even though it was at my finger tips.

It has been another summer without driving an ice cream truck. My dreams and ambitions of playing the tunes of children's happiness is washed away when Auntie Autumn shows up, wearing something way to revealing for a woman her age, and making all of the leaves change color from embarassment. Only once in my life do I want to drive around that magic truck of good times, delievering joy in the form of an overpriced Flintstone's push-pop. It is very important for me to accomplish this at a young age because the girls that babysit these children aren't getting any older and soon it will not only be illegal; it will just be plain creepy.

Sure, most girls of legal age have legitimate jobs working at ice cream stores but every so often there's one whose job revolves around the lives of their neighbor's children. Those are my targets. How do I know how old they are? Simple, I would have to card every person coming up to my truck because who can make enough money just selling ice cream. I'd be a moble liquor store, tabacoo palace, and gun shop. Kids love ice cream, but they also love firearms. There's nothing qute like the look on a youngin's face when you hand them a fully loaded 12-guage shotgun and they can live out their wildest counter-strike fantasies. Of course, I don't let the kids keep the gun, that would be immoral and wrong. I just let them pick off a few pigeons; feel the power.

In fact, I probably won't have enough room on the truck for the ice cream with all the other merchandise. But I'll still have the jingle. The sweet call of the ice cream man, who sells knives, chinese throwing stars, and electronics he got from a guy. The innocence of children walking up the truck and ordering their choco-taco, pep-pills, and placing a bet on Hope Mom Doesn't Walk In to show in the 5th race at Saratoga. The warm feeling in my heart after a toddler walks away from my truck with his Astropop, proximity trigger mines, or cigars of only the finest Cuban tabacoo.

Some think what I'm doing for these children is going to make the headlines someday. They stand on the street yelling "I am calling someone about this. You will get what's coming to you!" and I simply tell them not worry themselves with rewards. I'm not in it for the fame or the money. I'm all about seeing those little faces smile.

What Ever Happened To...

There are a few moments of transition in a person's life. Around my area, going to highschool was one of those transitions because two different elementry schools emptied into one highschool. This meant that half the school would not know about the time you cried at the 7th grade dance when Tiffany Howard wouldn't dance with you, then you went into the bathroom slipped and broke your arm in three places but they never checked so you were stuck inside that bathroom until Monday morning when the janitor found you. Your past was mysterious and you could recreate yourself into a smooth mamajamma. At least that's what I thought could happen until I got to highschool and everyone was still refering to me as the Bathroom Kid. Teenagers are harsh.

But another thing that happened with that transition is some of the people you hung out with in the eariler grades started to slip away. Whether they did not make the football team or they sprouted boobs and suddenly became more popular with the upperclassmen, some of our close friends became not so close until ultimately at graduation you did not even acknowledge each other's existance. Its no one's fault, and it happens throughout life.

They move away to another state or the court decides you are no longer allowed to contact them; usually something gets in the way of that connection you used to have. You lose touch with people and most of the time its people you've seen naked. Now, I have lost touch with people I haven't seen naked. But most of the time, you've seen them naked. No matter how hard you try you will not be able to forget you saw them naked. Especially if she's ugly and your friends know about it because friends never let you forget about the ugly girl. Oh, they will forget that time you got Tiffany Howard at junior prom in the coat check room, but the time you skipped gym class and made out with Bridgette Kovolski because "it was dark, and her snaggletooth wasn't as dominant" will plague you until you die.

As you grow older maybe those old connections with people will florish in your life again along with your three kids, beautiful wife, house almost paid off, and Bonkers the family dog. Then you can throw it all away for a fling with some girl you met in college that you ran into visiting your old school on Homecoming. Fourth floor of the library, like old times. And just like old times, you walked away with an unpleasent sensation and I am not talking your conscious. Some people are best left in the past.

Summer Lovin'

Making it to August normally signals the end of summer is right around the corner. And even with global warming in full effect this season of sunshine and happiness is coming to a close waiting ever so patiently for the season of snow and depression to creep up on us. But for some people out there, they don't have to wait until Mr. Sun no longer listens to the praise of children to "please, come shine on me" to fall into that drafty basement of being down. No, for although these months were specific created by the Babylonians to assure that everyone got at least one round of Tickle the Grapes in the Garden, some people have been unable to find that summer fling; and its almost harvest season.

The summer fling. Either its a time of adolescent fun between two people shared for a few short weeks out of the year never to happen again. Or its a lie you tell your friends about a time of adolescent fun you had with this "totally hot girl named Theresa, but she lives in Oregon and I don't have her number." There is something about a summer fling that is different than a relationship that can last through winter. For starters; these people do not have to have anything in common with one another. She loves horses and writes in her journal every night telling it all the things she would die if her friends found out about. He likes Rage Against the Machine and once ate a wool sock on a bet. But their parents rented houses on the same block the summer of 2003, and she let him get to second base one night on a jetti; because that's how a summer fling works.

There's no love. In fact, there's no love at all. Not in summer flings, not in fifty-year marriages; love does not exist. They've done studies. Plugging people's brains into machines trying to determine which lobe controls the love function in the brain. Hell, they don't even have a definition of what love is. Ask anyone that's used that term to describe it, what do they say? "Love is indescribable" I can't see love, I can't taste love... you can smell love, but that's something a good roommate will ignore when you're driving his ass to the train station the night after you had a date.

Love is something that science cannot prove its existence in the universe. But you know what they can prove exists? Big f**king rocks. Hell, they don't even need all those equations, I can see the rock. Its right there! That rock is REAL. You can metaphorically be "struck by Cupid's Arrow" but I can literally "throw a big f**king rock at you."

The End of College

Graduating from college really opened my eyes to a lot of things. Walking up on stage and getting a diploma from a man who you have not had a full conversation with in four years time is not much of an accomplishment. I am sure if I paid any average Joe on the street $120,000 to stand up on stage wearing a silly robe and give me a xeroxed piece of paper with my name on it many men would stand up to the call. But I sat through the graduation speeches and heard my mom screaming from the crowd as I strolled across the stage and shook hands with some guy making more money than I will ever manage to scrape up for a degree I won't use. I know not everybody graduates from college but a lot of people in this day and age do, and it is starting to lose its prestige. Its enjoying a band before they hit it big, and then afterwards realizing their nothing too great. The Nickelback Special as I like to call it.

I am not saying I didn't learn anything in college. I became a pretty good bartender at school. And as the years went by I got better and better at slight of hand because all the girls started to ask questions like "What did you just put in my drink?" and "Why is there a large bottle of GHB next to the cherries?" And as the time passes in the real world I am starting to realize my professors were right in saying the skills I learn at college will help me in the real world. Just yesterday I was walking down the street when a crazy man wearing nothing but a trench coat brandishing a box cutter asked me; "What does The Block World Theory institute about the construction of the universe?!" Well its a good thing I attended a lecture last semester on a book written by Stephen Hawking because after 20 minutes of debating the practicality of the String Thoery with this man, he let him guard down to reiterate a point and I hit him with a trash can lid.

College has become what highschool was 25 years ago. It is the myth of what the minimal basis for being successful and has gotten easier. I graduated a few points shy of Cum Laude and never read a full book. Hell, I had a class my senior year whose final was 35 multible choice questions and no essay. At the time I was not going to complain but looking back I can get more information from an article in Rolling Stone than I can get sitting around listening to a professor for 16 hours a week. There is more useful information about global politics in an Audioslave song than there is in the classroom.

Ok, so maybe college now just is not supposed to be the intellectual boiling pot of ideas to achieve a higher understanding of a specific area of study. I think the sooner colleges accept this to be true the sooner they can start charging even more than they charge now. Think about it; when you were applying to colleges every brochure looked the same. Beautiful shots of the campus, people in labcoats pouring liquids into basins, two black guys and an Asian kid studying under a tree; its the template for every one of them. Now what if a college had the brass to put out some media on what college was really about. Pictures of eight people shoved into a Cavalier in line at the drive-thru of Taco Bell at one in the morning, pictures of the latest Whores and Smores party, a drunken note written from one roommate to another about where he went that night that just kind of trails off at the end about Yoda and Twinkees. If colleges were to take one person's Facebook photos and mail them out to prospective students their attendance would triple.

College is over. This is the new Acts of Randomness.