"Moose Out Front Shoulda Told Ya..."

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What Would I Say To You Now?

Over the past six months, I've undergone some pretty drastic changes. I've moved to a new city, started a new and totally unfamiliar job, and began in earnest the process of trying to piece together what exactly this crazy life of mine is going to look like.

As time has gone on, I've had to make some pretty important decisions regarding what things will stay in my life and what will be jettisoned. It's a process that I took on with trepidation but am now pleased to say has turned out remarkably well. For the first time in a really long time, I'm happy with things. It's not all looking exactly like I wished it would, but I am legitimately and seriously happy.

Back when I first started A Rapturous Verbatim--a blog whose title has, I've come to realize, been laughably ironic--I was not so much on the happy side. I was in the midst of my junior year at Princeton, and things were beginning to get a bit on the dicey side with the onset of my independent work. (I never did regale my faithful audience with the story of how I got the nickname "Fastest Thesis in the West," did I? Another time, perhaps.) I wasn't doing anything creative, and I wanted to have something just for me, something I could enjoy and create.

And, if you'll recall, in my very first post, I made what in hindsight is a stunning declaration:

I can't promise everything that ends up here will be polished or even fun to read. I can't promise that my ranting will go anywhere, that any ideas I come up with will ever come to fruition, or that anything I write here will make any sense.

How about that, huh?

It's funny the way things turn out. Before too long, I'd begun treating ARV like a clearinghouse for my most profound and well-reasoned ideas. It was a place to go to do seriously, thoughtful writing. It was an opportunity for me to take an idea and draw it out to its fullest without feeling the obligations of academic discourse.

It was also, ultimately, depressing as hell.

If you look back, you'll notice that within the first couple of months, I wrote not one but two posts declaring fresh starts. (That's right. Two fresh starts in the first four months. A real winner I had on my hands.) And even worse than that, most of the material in there was simply me bitching about how I haven't done enough writing lately.

As it turns out, that's still a legit problem. But over the last four years, I've discovered that whining about your problems doesn't actually, you know, fix them.

Fortunately for my faithful reading audience--and really, you guys are troopers--I figured all this out a couple of years ago. And so my response was to start up a new blog, one that would allow me to be a little lighter, more amusing, less polished (again), and more off-the-cuff. I launched A Tournament of Lies thinking that the two blogs would play off of each other but develop organically. I'd originally envisioned 1-2 posts per week on ARV and 3-4 posts per week (if not more) on AToL. I'd figured on it being a good way to showcase the two sides of my personality.

But, as I've said a few times already, things changed. Things have been changing. And to quote an old song by Mary-Chapin Carpenter (born in Princeton, no less!), "The old way isn't working anymore." As I've become less, shall we say, miserable, I've been neglecting ARV. (Or populating it with mostly book reviews, which it turns out not everyone digs.) All because I felt the blog had pigeonholed itself into a particular voice or style. And while my early AToL posts were fresh and funny, I've been noticing the same things happening over there lately too.

The straw came with my two latest AToL posts. I started by telling what I thought was a silly story--the kind of thing I'd originally intended the blog to do--but I realized that the story was getting more out of hand than I'd expected, for two reasons: a) it was running far longer than I thought it would (I do have a tendency to do that...), and b) it was less silly funny than sardonically funny, way darker than it seemed when I conceived the idea of writing it down (I tend to do that too, actually...).

Don't get me wrong: I think the story was totally worth sharing. But it didn't seem to fit the venue. It was too funny to be posted on ARV, and too dark to be posted on AToL.

Well damn it, now what?

My solution in the past had been to create a new blog, but we see how well that's worked out. I've run into the same problem again, where my style and tone have shifted so much that the things I'm writing don't seem to fit the molds that have been defined by what came before. It felt, I realized, like when I decided that it was time to abandon my old childish, immature Xanga from high school (which is still hanging around there somewhere on the Internet, if you go dig it out) in favor of what I perceived would be a fresh, mature perspective.

And now, dear readers, that time has come again.

I've come to the conclusion that A Rapturous Verbatim and A Tournament of Lies, fascinating and not-totally-ill-advised experiments that they were, have run their life spans to the end. After just over 100 posts on each, I just don't see how I can, in my present state, sustain these two blogs anymore and have them function the way I'd planned--or, rather, the way they've turned out. So the time has come to shut the door for good.

With the exception of one last forthcoming post, this will be the final entry posted on either of these two blogs.

Rest assured that I'm not dropping out of the blogging game. I've been hard at work over the past few days crafting the beginnings of a new, stripped-down project, one that I hope will better reflect me and my daily life and the things I want to write down and share with the world. My goal is to have it be devoid of the kind of defining characteristics that ended up strangling these two blogs as the years have gone on. But time will tell, I suppose.

So really, I'm seeing this as nothing more than the beginning of a new chapter. I have no intentions of taking down the blogs, since I feel strongly about keeping them intact as a landmark of a very specific period of my life. But the fact is, that period is over, and the time has come to move on and start fresh. There's more to say, just nothing more to say here.

Full details will be posted here when the new project is ready for primetime. Until then, thanks for indulging me around these parts for the past few years, and I hope you'll follow along to the new joint and keep up with things.

What would I say to you now? You'll just have to wait and find out.

Helmet Cup de Grace, Part Two

In yesterday's post, I told the epic tale of my epic fail to turn lemons into lemonade during a 14-hour layover in Minneapolis. But this was only the tip of the iceberg, the Thursday night of a long Friday-to-Monday holiday weekend. Allow me to regale you now with the rest of the story.

4:15am. A full 15 minutes before my wake-up call, I was wide awake in bed. It was just as dark out as it was when I'd gone to sleep. And I was just as famished. (And no, 4:15am Central Daylight Time is no easier than 4:15am Eastern. It's an ungodly hour no matter what time zone you're in.)

On the upside, once seated on the plane, I closed my eyes just before the flight attendants began their safety spiel. And when I opened them? The wheels were touching the tarmac at O'Hare. Now that is what I'd call an unmitigated success. From there, all that was left was to get the rental car and trek the three hours south to Decatur.

(Let me spare you the details of that part of the story. I'll sum it up in one word: corn. Lots and lots of corn. And when the corn gets boring, you can always entertain yourself by scrolling through the radio dial and trying to find Lady Gaga amidst the Christian rock and preachers. You'd be amazed how entertaining that can be.)

Once in Decatur, things really did start to pick up. Having met the wedding party in Denver for the bachelor party, I knew they'd all be stand-up guys. And with a rehearsal dinner at a combination bar-and-bowling alley, what could go wrong?

Try having there be only one operating lane. And that lane hasn't been oiled in, oh, seven years at least. So much for that.

But really, though I'm being cynical, Friday was fun. I bailed early from the after-party on account of my exhaustion, figuring that I could get some extra rest and make Saturday count. And boy, did I ever.

(Fun fact: when you're in the guys' side of the wedding party, you get to hang out, watch sports, and order subs in the hours just before the ceremony. The ladies were insanely jealous when we told them this story. Just one of the perks of having a penis, kids.)

As for the wedding, it was spectacular. Bride and groom were beautiful, the pictures were entertaining, and the reception was off-the-chain. I know this because I woke up the next morning with a hangover the likes of which I have rarely experienced. It was so worth it.

But unfortunately, this meant a super-slow start to my day. A day that I had planned to spend sightseeing in Chicago. But since I wasn't going to be at 100% until much later than I'd planned, I decided to give up on all the sightseeing and focus exclusively on one thing: getting a burger at Kuma's Corner.

(I don't need to tell you about Kuma's. Just check out the menu on the Web site. FOODGASM TO THE MAX.)

When I finally left around 3:00pm CDT, I knew I'd be arriving in Chicago right around dinner time. And I was anticipating a super-long wait. All of which, naturally, had my stomach growling.

Finally I pulled up to building, and managed to luckily find a spot right up front! And only two kids waiting outside! It was almost too good to be true!

Except...um...it was.

Kuma's was closed. For July 4th.

Now, I know what you're wondering. Hey asshole, how'd you forget it was July 4th?! To which I answer: easily. Because it was on Sunday, the Federal holiday fell on Monday, and that was my day off of work. So I had conditioned myself to believe that the 4th was on Monday.

And with this, my spirit was officially defeated. But, just like in Minneapolis, karma wasn't through with me yet. Here's what else happened in the 24 hours before I finally landed again in Washington:

• Let's start with the fact that I decided to go right to the hotel (which was a mile from O'Hare) rather than drop my rental car off, save a few bucks, and take advantage of the complimentary hotel airport shuttle. So instead of saving maybe $50-ish, I spent an extra $22 to park the car in the garage overnight. Ugh.
• I had a marvelous hotel for the night, and the woman at the front desk told me I had a "city view" room, so I might be able to see the fireworks. Upon entering my room, I opened the shades and saw...trees. It took me three minutes to find the city skyline--and by "city skyline," I mean "the very tippy top of the Sears Tower, the only building visible."
  • Sub-item: Fuck Willis. It will always be the Sears Tower.
• The only restaurants at this hotel were The Capital Grille and McCormick & Schmick's, both way too upscale for me. So I opted to order a room service salad and burger for $33. And only after it arrived did I do some research and learn that McCormick & Schmick's has a bar menu...featuring a half-pound burger for $2.95. MONEY SAVING FAIL.
• While I did see the fireworks from my window (all two hours of them), I decided I needed to get to bed. Which was easy enough. But you know what's challenging? Getting back to sleep when you're woken up at 2:00am by some drunk/angry/who knows? guy in the hallway pounding on a nearby door over and over and over again and screaming, "Debbie! Hey Debbie! Debbie, let me in! Hey Debbie!"
  • Sub-item: Should I have called the front desk? Probably. But at the moment, I'd figured my only recourse was to go out there myself. And frankly, I wasn't prepared to walk into what I was sure was a domestic-dispute-waiting-to-happen.
• And just when it should have been all over, I got on the plane to Detroit, my layover, and quickly learned the hour in the air would pass with a young girl behind me, kicking my seat and shrieking and howling in Spanish the whole. damn. flight. And, even better, that her mother was either mute, indifferent, or both. Puta.

I mean, let's face it. When a three-hour layover in Detroit is the highlight of your day, you know you're in trouble. But then, I was in trouble, on account of the fact that I realized, an hour before takeoff, that I had no ride home from the airport.

What more, karma? What more?!

Fortunately, for once that weekend, my luck turned. I was saved by my good friend Alicia, who graciously offered to transport me from National back to my home. (Thanks, 'leesh!) By the time my plane landed, the last snag had been unhooked. All that was left was to walk into the house, drop my crap on the floor, and face-plant on my sweet, glorious, horribly missed bed.

I mean, don't get me wrong. The weekend wasn't all that bad. But it's certainly given me something to think about next time a destination wedding invite arrives in my mailbox.

And to think, it all started with that darn helmet cup...

Helmet Cup de Grace, Part One

One week ago at this time, I was in Decatur, IL, the soybean capital of the world (I kid you not). What brought me to such a corny, open place was the wedding of a good friend, a man in whose companionship I had the privilege of spending almost all my primary education. The ceremony was beautiful, the reception was a hoot, and the company I met were super friendly and engaging. All told, mission accomplished.

Of course, as you may have deduced, this was the weekend of the Fourth of July, and with four days free and only two days of obligations for the wedding, I decided to be a little ambitious and add some fun times into the mix.

(And by "add some fun times into the mix," I mean, "make up for the fact that I stupidly didn't realize my flight to Chicago went through Minneapolis and left me with a 14-hour layover since I can't read "pm" and "am" correctly. I suck.)

So, being in Minneapolis from 5:30pm until 7:00am, I decided I needed to make the most of this. (A wise choice, as it turns out, because if I'd been stuck in the hotel I chose for the whole time, I'd have gone blind from the utterly garish combination of aqua blue walls, sunflower yellow comforter, and orange shag carpeting.) After a little research, I discovered two solid stops that were reasonable enough to make: a hamburger joint called The 5-8 Club that serves a burger called the Juicy Lucy, a Minneapolis specialty; and, of course, a stop at Target Field to see a Twins game and visit my 16th Major League ballpark.

At the start, the plan looked good: arrive at 5:30pm, complimentary shuttle to the hotel to drop off my bags and check in, shuttle back to the airport, light rail to the ballpark for the 7:05pm start, watch the game, get my obligatory helmet cup, light rail back to the airport, taxi to The 5-8 Club (which closes at midnight), get my burger, taxi back to the hotel, and sleep until I needed to get to the airport around 5:30am. I'm sure I'd be exhausted, but it'd be so worth it, no?

Well, funny story...

Everything went swimmingly until I got to the park. Don't get me wrong: Target Field is super nice. I'd never been to the Metrodome, but just passing it on the way there in the light rail, I got the sense it's not nearly as grand as it appears on TV. Plus, outdoor parks always trump the indoor places, if for no other reason than the views. And though I was seated in literally the top row of the stadium, the field did not look too miniscule, and the straight-ahead view was pretty spectacular:



By the 4th inning, I was itching to accomplish my helmet cup goal, so I alighted from my seat, the Twins ahead 2-0 behind Carl Pavano (!) and his superb pitching (!!), and began to make my way towards the long-lined ice cream stand.

Then, as I was next in line, disaster struck. I overheard the server telling the woman in front of me that, alas, there were no helmet cups. (Shock.) Then, an even more dastardly twist: they were shipping in from China and had gotten held up at the port. So there might not be any in the stadium at all. (Horror.)

Believe me, my friends, I left no stone unturned. I left the line and walked through every. concourse. in. the. stadium. looking for a stand that had helmet cups. All four levels, two laps each. Plenty of time to observe that, while the park is sleek and nice and has some interesting Minneapolis touches, the walkways distinctly felt like...well...being inside a Target store. (Still not sure how I feel about that.) But most importantly, I had run clean out of ice cream stands.

The result: no dice. Operation Sixteen was not going to be succeeding that day.

Now, you may think me overdramatic here. I was crushed, sure, but I was still at the park, and the game was still solid, and it was only a minor hiccup, right? Why should I let something like that bother me?

Because with that one little bad karmic stroke, things went downhill.

• First off, the Twins blew the lead. In the bottom of the 9th. With two outs. And two strikes. The damn closer gave up the tying run, and then the 10th inning reliever gave up another run in the 10th. They were one strike away from a victory, and ended up losing 5-4.
• Secondly, since the game went into extra innings, it took almost four hours. Which necessitated taking a cab right from the stadium if I wanted to get to The 5-8 Club before closing.
• My cab driver was incompetent. He expected me to give him directions and know where this place was. Hey jerkwad: this is your town, not mine. I've been here 4 hours. Shouldn't you know where things are?!
• You may have noticed I have not linked to The 5-8 Club's Web site at any point in this post. That's because when I arrived, at 11:20pm, the place was closed. Lights off. Empty parking lot. They were supposed to be open until midnight. I hadn't had dinner. So yeah, I'm pissed. No link for you. Jerks.
• Did I mention my cab driver was incompetent? He had no idea how to get me back to my hotel. And I had to tell him at one point that we were going the wrong way. I did. How does he not know that Bloomington is south of Minneapolis, and that heading towards downtown is going the opposite direction?! Asshat.

And so I returned to my hotel at midnight, due to awaken at 4:30am, in a sour mood, having had no dinner, and unable to sleep because of my hunger. On the upside, the decor of the room was far less of an eyesore with the lights off. Small blessings, I suppose.

So concludes Day 1 of my trip. There are more misadventures to come, so stay tuned for the rest of tale in tomorrow's post!

Hairy Potwasher and the Pavlov of Poop

In my last post, four short weeks ago, I made a point of talking about the perks of living on my own. But that statement, I've come to realize, needs a slight amendment.

See, Karen's return to Texas has left me living on my own within my room. But in the windowless basement that serves as my home, office, and vampiric playground, there is another bedroom. And that bedroom is rented out to someone who...well, let's just call her She Who Shall Not Be Named. (This is not, I promise, just me being coy. I just feel like maybe, if I'm going to slaughter the shit out of this person, it's best not to publicly out her by name.)

(Yet. If things get worse, anything's fair game. You heard it here first.)

What I can tell you is that this person is, to put it lightly, a train wreck. She's in her mid-thirties, just returned from time abroad in Costa Rica, and has moved to the DC area in order to take a shitty job teaching douchebag wannabe-dropouts in an especially economically crappy and gang-ridden part of Alexandria. Clearly, a winner.

But I'd be callous if I was only judging her based on her choice of profession. The truth is that I judge her based on three distinct qualities: inconsiderateness, laziness, and slovenliness.

How inconsiderate is she? Try getting woken up most mornings at 6:45am because the person in the room next to you has decided the only way to make sure the door is closed is to slam it as hard as possible. Multiple times, too, since she always seems to forget something just when you think she's finally gone.

How slovenly is she? Try a kitchen counter that went unwiped for over two weeks. Or a stovetop that's had the same stain under the burners for over a month. (I know it's disgusting, but I'm sorry, it wasn't my mess, and I'm not her fucking father.)

But the real kicker is trying to describe just how lazy she is. Because she takes this to a WHOLE new level.

She's committed the standard egregious sin of not replacing the toilet paper roll when she uses the last of it. She's also refused to clean her hair out of the shower drain, resulting in a clog that slowed drainage enough for me to need to remove the hair myself. (Fun fact: I'm still traumatized over what I saw.)

But if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a half-assed job at doing the dishes. And man, does she deliver.

Never mind that she leaves dishes lounging in the sink for days before finally cleaning them. Never mind that we haven't had dish soap for about three weeks and she never once offered to go buy more. Never mind that dishes disappear at will because (I think) she brings them into her room and lets them languish in their filth for weeks before bringing them back into the kitchen.

Forget all that. What really grinds my gears? Drying rack abuse.

The drying rack is designed, oddly enough, to let things dry. And once they are dry, those things are meant to be put away until their next use. They are not meant to sit there and wait until the next time they are to be used, because that only leaves less room for the next round of dirty dishes. Which results in more dishes piling up in the sink. Which keeps the vicious cycle going.

Today, I found two pans, one pot, and a collander in the drying rack. They'd been there for days, and I'd finally reached my breaking point. I took them off the rack and placed them atop the washing machine, hoping above all hope that when she went to change over the laundry that was in there, she would put the pans away.

But later this afternoon, I found the laundry changed...and the pots back on the drying rack.

So I did what any insane person would do: repeated the same action, with the expectation of a different result. Back went the pans back on top of the washing machine. And, stupid me, I went off to work believing they'd be put away when I returned.

Naturally, there weren't. They were put back on the drying rack.

And my blood pressure was back through the roof.

I told this story to Karen today and she suggested I stop being so passive-aggressive, which was a fair critique. I opted to take the high road, to approach her and ask her if she could put the pans away now that they were dry. So I did. Just like that, too, with no snark or sarcasm to speak of.

And what happened when I went to put my glass in the sink tonight before bed?

I saw the pans. Still on the drying rack. And I was beyond livid.

I felt sure I'd exhausted all my options. How can you possibly make a thirtysomething with the maturity level of Lindsay Lohan realize that she's being a bitch and needs to change her ways? What ever could hope to foster some kind of change?

That's when Karen came up with the next brilliant suggestion: drop a deuce in the toilet in the morning and leave it there for her to find when she gets home. And every time I find a pan not put away or a mess not cleaned up, she'll have to interrupt her first morning pee by flushing my stanky shit down the toilet.

Will it get her to change her ways? Who knows. But considering that all the other attempts have failed, I'm actually considering this one. And hoping it's not as shitty an idea as it may seem.

Anything But Boring

One of the fun things about living alone is that, when the time comes to load up on food and beverage, you don't have to ask anyone's permission before whipping out the greenbacks. Hypothetically, you can buy whatever your little heart (or larger stomach) desires, and there's not a damn thing anyone else can do about it.

Unfortunately, my recent solitariness was an unforced decision, so while I've enjoyed the ability to buy my foodstuffs at will, I've also noticed during my treks to the fridge that there are plenty of previous purchases remaining from the days when Karen was here.

Now, I have a thing about wasting food. (I know what you're thinking, and yes, I genuinely do believe that's a big part of the reason why I look the way I do, but stay with me here, okay?) It goes back to many, many years ago, when I lost my appetite one night at dinner and got a mighty parental guilt trip for wanting to throw away three-quarters of an uneaten hot dog. Since then, my plates have almost always been spotless, because I just can't bear to be wasteful.

So when I looked in the fridge and saw several perishable items that were approaching their date of perishing, I felt an obligation to send them to my gullet as opposed to the garbage.

One such item was a bottle of Simply Limeade (which, if you haven't had it, is delicious). Karen and I had acquired it for use in making margaritas, but the tequila was gone and, since I'm not much of a tequila guy anyway, I wasn't inclined to get more. But I am a vodka man, the one connection to my Polish ancestry that my ancestors must actually be proud of, so upon discovering the remaining limeade, I retreated to the Internet to discover what drinks could be made with vodka and lime juice.

Turns out there's a drink made from just those two ingredients: the gimlet.

I made my first one last night, true to the proportions I'd found in all the recipes I saw online: four parts vodka to one part sweetened lime juice.

I'll say that again, so that it sinks in: four parts vodka, to one part lime juice.

I made a single gimlet in a glass that couldn't possibly hold more than 12 ounces, and I didn't even fill the glass. And let me tell you, my friends, I wasn't a third of the way through it and I was feeling it like I couldn't believe. The thing was an absolute powerhouse. And the best part? The limeade was so sweet that it didn't even taste too liquor-ish. What a deadly concoction!

So tonight, I tried to temper things a bit by mixing one that was a bit gentler: this time, equal parts vodka and limeade. And guess what? Halfway through, the stuff still gave me a feeling of noticeable impairment. (Intoxication is probably a bit too strong a word.) I was stunned. How did the gimlet do it!

I've yet to figure out an answer to it, but I can't tell you how excited I have found something that can balance my old standby, the screwdriver.

But if you'll excuse me, I need to go run to the store now to grab some more fixins. And more limeade.

"There's One in Every Family, Sire. TWO in Mine, Actually..."

He inspires strangely Nabokovian angst, making everyone in sight groan exasperatedly, "Really?...Really?! Yeesh!"

Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. (Seriously. Me saying "Yeesh"? You all know I have no problem working way bluer than that.) But while much of my tenure in DC has been good--including but certainly not limited to my work, which I was very nervous about at the onset--I am already growing weary of something on which I think all corporate peons can relate to me.

I am currently entering week four of a five-week intensive classroom training session to be a background investigator. It was insanely overwhelming at first, but as I've become more comfortable with the material, built a rapport with my instructors, and made some nice friendships amongst my classmates, it's become easier and more pleasant. That last part is particularly helpful since, of the thirteen people who are in this session, at least eight of them are in their twenties as well. Yay peer group!

Of course, the problem is that there were still four other people in class who are not our age. And while I'm not exactly a fan of broad stereotyping, the truth is that this job, which is very much computer-intensive, is proving to be much more of a challenge for the old folks than it is for us young whippersnappers.

Consider this: of the four elder statespeople, two of them combined at one point during the first week to generate easily 90% of all the questions asked of our instructors. Now, don't get me wrong: I've asked my share of questions myself, and I certainly don't judge anyone who does because, for the most part, there really are no stupid questions--especially when you're learning something new and radically different for the very first time. But when we were shown a program three days ago, and you still don't know how to open a damn file? Well, sir, maybe this job just isn't for you.

What's really interesting is that this whole thing proved too much for one of this dynamic duo, who resigned from our class and switched positions in the company to better accommodate his abilities. (And I sincerely wish him all the best.) But as it turns out, question askers are like testicles. When one of the testicles needs to be excised--for whatever horrid, unfortunate, devastating reason--the lone nut psychically takes over and performs double duty, so that the, er, output doesn't suffer any noticeable change. So it is with question askers. With his partner in crime gone, the lone confused older gentleman somehow managed to pick up that slack and ask even more dumb questions than he did before.

And so he has become...That Guy.

You know what I mean...

That Guy who takes three and a half hours to do what everyone else was able to complete in roughly two hours.

That Guy who mumbles, hums, and narrates to himself while he struggles in the seat behind you, distracting your attention while you try desperately to beat the goddamn poker game on your BlackBerry.

That Guy who insists upon talking to you when you're trying to read because God forbid you have one quiet moment to enjoy your book, damn it.

Yup. That Guy.

I could go on but, really, I think we've all known someone like that. Hell, maybe you are That Guy yourself. If you think you might be, please, do us all a favor and STFU already. We'd really appreciate it.

Of course, I bet I know what you're all wondering. Who is That Guy?

What? I didn't mention it right off that bat? I thought I did. Hmm... Well, it's probably best to just keep it hidden away to myself.

But believe me, he's there. And who's got two thumbs and can't freaking wait to get out of classroom training as a result?

This Guy.

Radio Gaga

I know, I know.

I have been horribly negligent around these parts. It's true, I get it. I have excuses, but like the old expression goes, excuses are like assholes: everyone's got one, and they all stink.

So you probably don't care that, since my last post, when I was just getting myself acquainted with the greater DC Metro area, life has been a veritable whirlwind of emotion and, generally, awesomeness.

Where to begin, where to begin. Well...

After one week of working I managed to find myself feeling like I was in way over my head but it was okay because so were the rest of the people in my class and a lot of them are really nice so it was good to think that I might make some friends after all but I was still lonely because I missed Karen really bad and was hoping she would find something soon so she could come up here but then she told me she felt like she'd have better chances finding work if she was local so I talked to my landlord and he was cool with her coming up here to stay so she took care of her stuff down in Texas then packed up her car and drove up here and that made both of us really super happy and it's been general domestic bliss ever since except for the fact that we both suspect my roommate is resentful of the two of us for some strange reason but despite that we haven't really let us get it down and instead we've channeled our energy into improving the state of my humble basement including but not limited to getting these sweet stainless steel coasters from Bed Bath & Beyond as well as nifty household stuff like a pizza stone and a pie plate that we were going to use to make a chocolate pecan pie for a Pi Day party on Sunday but Karen got sick last week with what we thought was a cold but ended up being a sinus infection and she hasn't started shaking it until today so we had to buy a pie from the store and no one showed up anyway but that was fine because Emily and Sam are really good people who let us borrow their futon mattress so neither of us has to sleep on an air mattress anymore and besides between they two and my Princeton friends in the area and Steph and John who are also super cute and oh yeah can't forget about Alicia who comes over for dinner and 24 every Monday night and did I mention that Karen's watching 24 too and I think that's super sweet and I couldn't be happier right now and really feel like my life nay our life is beginning to fall into place really really nicely and it looks just as great as I'd always imagined.

There, I think that about sums it up.

Well, except for one thing.

Turns out I've undergone an interesting and somewhat alarming change since I've gotten here. One that I never anticipated I would ever experience. One that took me quite by surprise.

It all started when Karen insisted upon playing me the video for the ubiquitous Lady Gaga hit "Bad Romance". Now, at first, I thought the song was silly, and it drove me nuts every time I realized that it had gotten stuck in my head. But after a few such instances, it was hard to deny that the song was getting into my brain. I fought it for a long while. I kept it buried deep inside, but it was getting harder and harder to refuse.

Could this really be happening? Could I... ...actually like "Bad Romance"?

I tested the waters of my newfound admission the weekend before last, as Karen and I ventured into downtown DC on a museum double-date with Steph and John. While in the car on the way to lunch, I bet John a dollar that he couldn't find "Bad Romance" on the radio before we got to the Olive Garden. Equipped with Sirius XM, he began flipping through the channels.

Friends, it took him a mere ten minutes. Found the song, and we listened to it in its entirety.

Later that night, on the drive home, we tried again. This time it took us fifteen minutes, but there it was once again.

And so it was done: I had to confess I was a fan.

The final blow came the next day. We were in Target, searching for coasters (in what proved to be a frustratingly elusive effort), when we wandered into the music department. Karen was slyly suggesting that I might want to buy something, and I was not fighting this suggestion. And yet, every time I walked past either the L or the G section, it was nowhere to be found. The moment of reckoning was clearly not to be. Another time, perhaps?

Then, as we had just given up, we walked past one final end cap--and there it was. Askew, out of place, and glaring at me behind that black vinyl sleeve. The piercing eyes of a woman declaring proudly, "I'm a free bitch, baby."

How could I not buy it?

And so a page has been turned. I'm not going to be ashamed of my purchase. And, in fact, every person I've mentioned it to has agreed with me that it's good stuff!

So if you're looking for me in the near future, my sincerest apologies. I'll try to be better about blogging and keeping up, and I'll do all I can to make my online presence more clearly felt.

Know this though: you can call all you want, but there's no one home, and you're not gonna reach my telephone.

Home Is Where the Arf Is

This post is a bit longer than the posts you're used to seeing on this blog. I'm sorry about that. But trust me--you're going to want to stick with this story. It's a good one.

Earlier today, I drove from my house in New Jersey to my new home in Northern Virginia. I'd already moved the vast majority of my things in at the end of January, but I went immediately from moving in to taking a two-week siesta in Texas, so I needed to still bring some things down from New Jersey before getting my new DC life going.

So this morning was, as you can imagine, pretty stressful. I, as a rule, tend to forget at least one or two things, no matter how thoroughly I double-check, so I was trying to be as careful as possible.

At last, I found myself standing in my room--not empty, but substantially barer--taking one last look at everything before I departed. My mom strolled in as I was pondering, walked over towards my guitar, and immediately lifted an aged but no-worse-for-the-wear stuffed dog off a pillow laying on the floor. She gave me a look and said, "And what about Wraggles?"

There's a little more backstory necessary here. (Again, I urge you to bear with me.) Wraggles was a gift from my aunt, received almost twenty years ago when I was just five years old. He was a replacement for my former beloved stuffed animal, Snuggle Bear (yes, the fabric softener spokesplush), which I'd lost on a family vacation to North Carolina. I was very attached to my stuffed animals, so the unceremonious loss of Snuggle Bear had affected me powerfully, and my aunt felt that perhaps if she was able to attempt, in some small way, to replace him, I might start feeling better. Well, it worked like a charm. I immediately adored Wraggles. And while over the years my taste for stuffed animals undulated like a rolling tide--at one point, I slept with no less than four--many came and went from my bedside but Wraggles always remained.

So when Mom asked me "And what about Wraggles?" I was a bit torn. He would be coming with me, sure--that much was non-negotiable. But my current residence has a certain temporary feel to it because, with Karen's DC job search in full swing, it'll be only a matter of time before we strike out and look for a place together. So as much as I wanted Wraggles to join me, I didn't feel like now was the right time.

And so I told Mom he was staying. Then I asked for a moment alone with him, which she gladly obliged. Once she'd left, I clutched my plush pooch, gave him a big hug, and said, "Don't you worry. I'll come back for you. But for now, you hold down the fort here." I went to replace him on the caseless pillow on the floor, but it just didn't seem right. And as I'd stripped the bed to have the sheets washed, I couldn't replace him there either.

So instead, I opted to give him a significant, if less cushy, vantage point:



There I laid him, and with that, I took another load out to the car, leaving only my guitar and my computer bag behind.

Now, my mom had been helping bring stuff out to my car as well, but my dad and my brother were both in the garage working on fixing the shocks on my brother's truck. So I had a pretty good idea of where everyone was while I was in the car arranging things to be transported. When I went back into the house, my brother and father were still in the garage and my mom was, I assumed, back inside.

Once I got inside, I heard my mom's voice call out to me, "Changed your mind?" I didn't know what to make of this, so I asked back, "What do you mean?" At that point, I deciphered that her voice from coming from my room, so I went immediately there. As I walked in, she looked at me, then pointed, and said, "About that."

"That," dear reader, being this:



I giggled a bit. After all, it was pretty cute. So I looked at my mom and said it was very cute. But what she said next was far from cute: "What are you talking about?" Oh, you know, Mom. The way you moved Wraggles so he'd be sitting on my bag like that. "I didn't move him." Yeah you did. I left him on my desk. "Dave, I didn't move him." You had to have. "I really didn't." Oh, come on...

But then came the pièce de résistance: "I swear on my mother's grave."

Talk about a gut check. My mom lies about lots of stuff (hell, we all do), but I learned a long, long time ago that if I wanted to get the truth out of my mother, I'd only have to ask one question. Back when my grandmother was still alive, that question was, "Do you swear on your father's grave?" Then it became, "Do you swear on your mother's grave?" Either way, the result is the same: my mother will lie about a lot of things, but she will never swear on her parents' graves if she's telling anything less than the truth.

In other words, she did not move Wraggles.

Of course, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that my brother or father had moved him--perhaps on her request. But in my mind, I'd already ruled them out: they were in the garage the whole time, and besides, Dad would have had better things to do, and my brother probably would've just picked on me for still keeping a stuffed animal around (even though he, manly man that he is, moved his old blankey to his new house when he got married). And besides, it would be a loophole for Mom to be able to swear on their graves and not be lying--but again, I figured that was a bit too deceptive and tricky for such a serious oath.

Nevertheless, after I loaded up my guitar and computer case, I asked my brother and my father if they'd gone inside during my last trip out to the car. And neither one of them did. Nor did they have any clue why I would ask something like that.

So Mom didn't move Wraggles. Dad didn't move Wraggles. My brother didn't move Wraggles.

And there was no one else home.

So what exactly happened?

Truth be told, I don't know. But what I do know is this: even if there is a plausible, rational explanation for what happened, I can't shake the bizarreness of what transpired. Somehow, Wraggles was meant to come down here with me, no matter how temporary my present situation. He was like the Hobbes to my Calvin, vital and essential. Or perhaps, as Karen suggested, he needed to be there so that no matter what happened, I would have something to hug--because really, don't we all need to be able to just do that sometimes?

But really, none of that matters. What matters is that, after seeing what happened, and not being able to explain it, I became convinced of one very obvious thing: there was no way I could leave him in New Jersey.

So he did come with me this time, temporariness be damned. And before long, he had a new fort to defend:



And I wouldn't have it any other way.

It Must Be Love

Me (11:07): http://selleckwaterfallsandwich.tumblr.com
Me (11:07): i have NO IDEA why i find this cool
Me (11:07): but i do
Karen (11:08): hahahaha
Karen (11:11): ok, this is brilliant
Me (11:11): i know!
Me (11:11): but WHY?!
Karen (11:12): 1. Tom Selleck
Karen (11:12): 2. Waterfalls
Karen (11:12): 3. Delicious Sandwiches
Me (11:12): it's all so clear now
Me (11:12): how could i have missed it?
Karen (11:13): no idea