The Adorkability Conundrum

It’s time to strengthen your vocabularies, my loyal reader(s)!

The new word for the day is “adorkable.”

“Adorkable” is an adjective that describes any action or behavior that is so far beyond the realms of normal dorkitude as to be deemed attractive and/or adorable by the opposite sex.

As used in a sentence:  David met Peter Mayhew at a Star Wars convention and got so excited he actually wet his Boba Fett cosplay outfit.  Thank God his girlfriend thought it was pretty adorkable.

Face it boys and girls, we all have our dork moments.  They are as wide and varied as the day is long.  For some of us it’s Star Wars, for others it’s Star Trek.  For some it’s D&D, others will dork out for the novels of Jim Butcher or George R.R. Martin.  For the slightly less nerd-ridden set who don’t get more than 64% of the jokes on The Big Bang Theory, maybe your inner dork gets all happy over Picasso, Mozart, Jordan, or Manning.  Maybe fashion is your goddess and words like Coach, Prada, Fendi, or whatever else is on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine this month make your inner little dorkess giggle with delight.  Maybe you still light the memorial bonfire on the day Dimebag died or you fight off the daily urge to paint a giant 3 on the side of your car.  The point is that all of us, no matter how high and mighty or lowly and trailer bound, have an inner dork that gets all stupid over something. 

The really interesting part is that some of us have a tendency to overindulge our inner dork on far to frequent an occasion for most of the rest of society.  But let me draw your attention for just a moment to the last time you saw a REALLY attractive woman with a fairly nerdy guy.  What was it about him that attracted her to start with?  Was it the death beam focusing crystal thick glasses, the oh-so-stylish double knit pants, or the more likely than not seven figure bank account?  Well, okay, the bank account probably helps a lot but the point is that somewhere in that hot mess of a man that woman found such a level of endearing dork that all his freakishness took on a sort of adorable and hard to resist quality.  Maybe she thinks if she can get him to love her just half as much as he loves Carrie Fisher in a metal bikini circa 1980 then she could be set for life.  Think of it kind of like a sexual version of Stockholm syndrome.  Lock a hot girl in close proximity with a dork long enough and something’s bound to become attractive eventually.  Call it the Leonard/Penny effect if you’d like, but I’ve now officially hit my quota for television references for one post thank you very much.

What is it about our various and sundry adorkable behaviors that our significant others find attractive?  God only knows and to be quite honest I’m not even 100% sure he’s got it completely figured out.  When it comes to adorkability, I picture God as sitting up on his celestial throne looking down at us all and saying “You know, I gave you an entire planet filled with pretty girls and all you losers can do is stampede at one Comicon after another and project your lust at yet another woman in a corset at a steampunk convention.  I don’t get it.  I just don’t get it.”  Either that or St. Peter now has two additional questions to ask at the Pearly Gates:  “Why?” and “Seriously?”

Well, shiny.  Now it’s time to run off and see if I can get in another hour long Star Wars pun marathon over Facebook.  Yes it happened this morning, deal with it.  Hopefully my wife will still find it adorkable when she sees it later this afternoon.

For now, zai jian!

(I know I know I know.  Jeez Brian, brown coat much?)   

Yet Another Scene at a Wal-Mart

Earlier this evening I had the fortune to observe the following scene unfold in a local Wal-Mart.  There’s really not much need for set up here except to note that, as usual, the lines were excruciatingly long and that I was standing in the Express Lane.  For those of you unlucky enough to frequent one of these said portals to hell on a regular basis, you’re familiar with the fact that there is a three foot by two foot sign over each of these Express registers on a twelve foot pole with reads ’20 Items or Less, Please.”

Now, I’m standing in a line with approximately five people in front of me and fifteen behind me because Wal-Mart, in all their cost saving glory, refuses to open more than five registers whenever their parking lot is over seventy-five percent full.  The cashier helming this impending disaster is obviously, or more probably obliviously, nonplussed by the entire situation and is taking her and everyone else’s sweet time in ringing up each item as if she was the first to examine King Tutt’s treasure.  About the time she has whittled the workload down to only about three more people in front of me, it comes to my and the gentleman’s behind me attention that the woman in front of me has a cart nearly full of items.  We begin to make increasingly loud conversation about the fact that apparently not everyone had the mental faculties required to count to twenty without starting over on their fingers or having to take their socks off.  General tittering and continued comments could be heard directly behind us for at least thirty feet.

Before we get to the real meat of the story, however, I need to describe this creature of inelegance that was camping out in front of me.  The woman was obviously middle aged but for some reason had the compunction and audacity to dress as if she had just raided Hannah Montana’s wardrobe collection (come to think of it, I think I may have seen most of her outfit on the clearance rack on my way through to look at power tools).  The woman was most likely an attractive African-American lady at some point before gravity, age, and significantly bad choices began to take their collective tolls, and now her multicolored peacock-esque travesty of a highly over glued hair discombobulation  was only outdone by her hi-I’m-auditioning-for-the-part-of-the-human-coke-spoon-in-the-next-Tarantino-opus nails which were carefully positioned away from any possible contact with her cart.  Her overall appearance, coupled with the fact that she seemed to audibly grunt and snort at our comments while she picked whatever small animal she had recently fed on from her teeth with said nails, forced my little writer brain to grant her a nickname there on the spot:  Haughty, Unimpressive, Bitch Like Entity, but we’ll just refer to her as the HUBLE for short.

Moving on, the HUBLE approaches the register and I hear what is one of the best conversations I have heard in quite some time while jammed in that eternal cautionary tale that is shopping at the local Wallie World.  It went a little something like this:

Cashier:  “Ma’am, I’m sorry but you have too many items for this line.  I know you’ve had to wait but I can’t ring you up here.  The next register is just opening with no wait and I’ll get her to hold for you.”

HUBLE:  “I’ve been waiting fifteen minutes so no, I’m not moving.  Ring up my shit.”

Cashier, smiling ever so slightly:  “Ma’am, you are over the item limit for this register and I can’t process you through here.  You need to move to the next register.” 

To clarify, the other register was wide open and actually waiving off someone at that second to accommodate the HUBLE as quickly as possible.  Hey, it’s not often the blue vest squad gets it right so I guess you have to call it for them when they do, you know?

HUBLE:  “Look bitch, what you need to do is ring up my shit and let me get the fuck up out of here.  Plus, I’m in a hurry and just got my nails did (sic) so you’re gonna have to empty my mofuckin’ cart.  So how bout you snap too and do your fuckin’ job ho.”

Before anyone in line could start in on her, and believe me there were a number of volunteers aside from little ol’ me, the cashier smiled just as sweetly as she could and spoke.

Cashier:  “Honey, what you need to do is get your ghetto country ass out of my line and in the back of someone else’s before I have security through your common ass on the sidewalk.  Now move.” 

Just as I was about to indulge in a bit of hero worship, a voice piped in from somewhere behind me and also suggested that what the HUBLE should also consider is sitting down next to one of her four or five bastard kids at the house and watch some damn Sesame Street to learn how to count.  The woman then began to imitate the Count on said program perfectly with a fast “One, two, three dumb ass bitches in Wal-Mart ah, ah, ah.” 

Needless to say the HUBLE’s pride, and possibly her pinkie nail on her right hand, was seriously injured as she slunk to the back of the now ludicrous line that had formed at the previously empty register.  It should be noted that she was all the while talking loudly about how much she hated white people.  For the record, my overgrown ass and the lady with the improv skills were the only two Caucasians in the vicinity.

You know, boys and girls, life isn’t the easiest thing to slug through on a daily basis.  I think it’s important to be appreciative when the little entertainments like this come along.

That, and quite honestly, sometimes it’s just satisfying to watch a dumbass get theirs.

This Valentine's Post is Legen-wait for it- Seriously?

Happy Valentine’s Day, my dear readers.  In consideration of our nation’s most romantic holiday and the greeting card, floral, and candy industries which count so heavily on this day to keep the lights on for most of the year, I thought I might jump in today with a little knowledge for those men among us who just haven’t quite gotten the hints that the females of the herd have been trying to get across to them for a minor millennia.

To all the playas, pimps, hustlers, ladies’ men, cooz hounds, gigolos, and the like who are still convinced that they are the god of their choosing’s gift to the fairer sex I would like to offer a simple reality check for your Valentine’s gift.  This is free of charge; completely gratis as it were.  Take it as wisdom from someone who was somewhat among your ranks at one time as a younger buck and learned some valuable lessons the hard way.

I’d like you to perform a small, simple experiment.  Think back to when you opened your eyes in bed this morning.  Ask yourself one simple question.  Was I alone?  The yes or no isn’t the important piece here; it’s just a starting point.  Then ask yourself if you woke up in your own bed or in someone else’s.  Follow that with simply a count of how many different places you’ve woken up in during the past month.  How many different tumble partners have you had in the last thirty days?  Can you honestly remember all of their names?  Did you actually know any of them or were they just a long string of bouncy boobies that you used to mark the passage of time until your next visit to the clinic?  (Obviously I’m aiming this piece at the straight men out there.  Gay guys, well, all due respect intended but I’ve got nothing when it comes to how things work in your world.  Sorry fellas.  Gotta stick with what you know, right?  This piece also doesn’t really apply to any guy in his late teens and early twenties.  You can’t help it, we know it, and for the most part you’re excused.  Just try not to break any major laws while you do your Van Wilder impersonations, okay boys?)

Now, it should be noted that there are a few confirmed bachelors in this world who will never be anything else but.  There are those stricken with the Peter Pan / Thomas Crown syndrome that will go through life without the need to settle down or change their life in any real way due to a woman because they are profoundly happy as they are.  These guys still manage to live their lives without leaving a broken woodpile of female dignity in their wake, although they still seem to do pretty alright for themselves over the long run.  I have no issue with these men, it’s just that they are so few and far between in reality that most who aspire to that title really fall short and end up a caricature.  You’ll notice that at no time here did I mention Hugh Hefner, although he does deserve some recognition on this topic.  Good ol’ Hugh is the standard to which so many ass clowns aspire that it is truly an exercise in the absurd, but these gentlemen seem to be missing the point in their attempted emulations. Hugh is the white rabbit; I would hazard to say that the universe cannot tolerate more than one of his ilk at the time.  Nor should it need to.  We need someone like Mr. Hefner among us at all times, in my humble opinion.  Without someone like him around we’d have bimbos randomly scattered all over the country instead of heavily concentrated in southern California. 

So what’s wrong with living your life in such a way that you accumulate enough notches on your bedpost to actually begin to whittle it down?  Nothing really, BUT there comes a certain point where all the shenanigans in the world will result in you waking up one morning from your third random threesome that month and, after you wonder where that rash came from, you start to wonder why there is no real substance in your life.  Hey, Barney Stinson may be funny as a television character but come on guys, is that really how you want to live your life?

And while we’re on the subject of NPH’s weekly ode to the horny straight man, I want to pause for just a minute and say something about pickup lines.  There is no strategy, lie, game, bar trick, cologne, funny hat, or clever have-you-met-Ted witticism that will get you any more than ‘in the door.’  Unless you enjoy trolling for random hook up partners in that last thirty minutes before the bartender turns on the reality lights more than four times a month, you’re eventually going to have to talk to a woman at some point.  Now, here is where someone will want to tell me about their patented move that always turns a woman on so crazily that talking isn’t necessary at that point.  Sorry brother but I’m calling BULLSHIT.  Here’s why and it involves a little back story.  I will publicly admit that I am not the prettiest guy to look at.  The fact is that I’ve been keeping mirror companies fairly busy replacing cracks since around 1980.  I was a cute kid for the first seven years then, well, damn.  I think my parents used to let me play with buckets just to break up the visual horror on the off chance I’d stick one on my head.  Anyway, as I grew up and got older God compensated a little by making me much larger than ninety percent of the population, and also by giving me the ability to talk myself and others in to pretty much anything if I really put my mind to it.  My father, after all, is the real life version of Tommy Boy’s super-salesman father and what DNA didn’t provide the natural quick wit did.  My mouth got me into more interesting situations along the way than I;d care to ever discuss.  It also turned out to be an asset as well as a liability when it came to the female of the species.  Now with all that being said, I have to admit to never having a ‘move’ during my single life.  I never had some ‘thing’ I would do to get a woman’s attention.  I would just talk too much and occasionally things would happen.  Now according to reports I have inadvertently pulled off a couple of ‘moves’ in my life but they were totally accidental and were merely offshoots of once again ‘playing too much.’  I also didn’t even find out I’d pulled them off until much, much later.  So, to all the pickup artist wannabes out there I simply offer one question:  if it worked, did you land the second date?

Gentlemen, I promise you we are slowly coming around the bend to the point here.  With all of this being said I would urge you to evaluate one thing in your life before your next round of bareback bikini bingo with the latest object of your recreational substance of choice fueled affection.  Do you actually respect this woman or are you simply looking for the next place for the one-eyed demon to do push-ups until he gets sick? 

Look, I’m not one to judge anyone’s lifestyle.  Wait just a second, yes I am, who am I kidding?  I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I have learned from experience that there is a lot more to life than chasing random encounters.  True, relationships are tough sometimes but they are nowhere near as tough as constant loneliness.  For those of us old enough to know better there is definitely something to be said for having a real life and real relationships with real women.  I’m not advocating that everyone should run out and get married by any means but I am saying that actually taking the time to get to know someone before playing amateur gynecologist with her might make life a little more interesting at the very least.

I know for a fact that there are going to be those that read this and laugh heartily at the married guy who spent some time on Valentine’s Day to write a blog post about the merits of relationships and respect for women.  Laugh all you care to fellas and enjoy whatever carnal chicanery you can work yourselves into this evening.  Don’t spend all your money tonight though.  You need to keep a little on hand so you can pay the deductible for your clinic visit tomorrow.  After all, that cotton-swab-up-the-pee-hole test to cure that burning sensation isn’t free anymore.  Oh who am I kidding?  You got that deductible covered right after New Year’s, didn’t ya stud?

Family By Definition

This will not take but a minute.  I swear.

North Carolina has an opportunity to vote on an amendment to our state constitution that will allow marriage to be defined as the union between a man and a woman.  The proponents of this law feel that it is a Biblical mandate.  The opponents fear that not only will the limitations it proposes limit their rights but will eventually erode things like benefits and estate planning for their more non-traditional family units.

I'm going to keep this simple.  ANY time we allow our government to narrow the definition of what is allowed in the choices we make in our lives, even in the slightest way, we open that wide door to the slippery slope of governmental mandated control over an ever increasing portion of our freedom.

Simply put, I am a straight man married to a straight woman.  It is my highly less than humble opinion that if two people, regardless of gender or orientation, fall in love and choose to marry then who in the name of all we as a people hold holy are we to stop them.  This world is so short of loving homes in which to foster a family.  Why do we seem so determined to narrow mindedly forbid this from happening just because some of us are uncomfortable because someone is different from us?

Guess what folks, the last time we went through this it was called segregation.

Growing pains are just that, even for a society.  Let's hopefully have the sense to not presribe morphine for them.

Like I said, just my less than humble opinion.  I intend to act on mine by voting.  How about you?

Parenting 101

I'm sure by now that most of you have seen the YouTube video of the father from Albemarle, NC who finally had enough of his teenaged daughter's nonsense.  Here's the link if you haven't seen it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kl1ujzRidmU

What baffles me is the sheer number of ignorant dick tards that are openly critical of this guy and have the audacity to say his actions are damaging his child's self esteem.  This man was doing nothing here other than trying to get a point across to his hard headed, disrespectful, brat of a child.  To EVERYONE who has anything critical to say to or about this man and his methods, if they are themselves a parent, I have only one question.  Why aren't you willing to go to those lengths for the betterment of your child?  I also hope you realize that it's the irresponsible and negligent fuck stick parents like you that are raising the reprobative little mall trollops that are making this world so damnably hard to enjoy anymore.  How about you stop critiquing someone else's parenting skills and try to do something about your little demon crotch offal now so those of us who believe in the second amendment and have our concealed carry permits don't have to fix the problem later. 

I'm not a parent but I will sit here and say publicly right now that I hope when and if the time comes that I have the balls to take responsibility for my child's behavior the way this man has.  With all the problems in this world, I am sincerely glad and it does my cranky little heart so much good to see a man put foot to ass where needed in an attempt to raise a decent human being.

Bravo sir.  Thank you for doing the right thing.

Why

One of the things I’ve noticed since I decided to take on the public persona of an author / writer / guy who tries to get paid for scribbling words onto paper is that people tend to ask the same series of questions when they find out what you do.  Usually they go something like this:

1)     What else do you do?

2)     No seriously, you’re really a writer?  How long have you been doing this?

3)     What kind of stuff do you write?

4)     What kind of novels do you write?

5)     Do you sell a lot of books?

Of course in my case you can also add in “What’s your blog about?”  I’ve found that it didn’t take but about two weeks and I had developed a rather pat form of responses. 

1)     Yes I’m seriously a writer.  Do I look like my male modeling career worked out?

2)     I’m a fiction writer, mainly novels, and I also write a blog.  I’ve been writing since I was about ten.

3)     I write modern fiction across several different genres that usually focus on what happens when seriously damaged people impact each other’s lives.

4)     I’ll let you know what my blog’s about as soon as I figure it out myself.  I usually just rant and rave about things that annoy me and people seem to like it.

5)     My books will be available for sale beginning late March.  Give me your email address or subscribe to my blog and I’ll make sure you know when they’re available.

These questions are all well and good.  To me they are no more involved than the inane questions you get asked at a dinner party or when you make a new professional acquaintance.  However, I had a really interesting experience a few days ago where I encountered a fairly educated man who happens to be the owner of a local gun store.  We were discussing the nuances of the firearm industry and swapping a few stories in the usual gregarious male fashion when he paused and asked me if he could ask me a question.  I told him by all means and he asked me the best question I’ve been asked yet:

“Why?  Why choose to be a writer?”

It just so happens that at this moment, and to be truthful for the majority of this past week, I’m in the process of completing my first book for publication, The Bounce at the Bottom, which is in reality my second novel.  To be completely honest I’m fighting with a bit of writer’s block and a motivational issue as well.  Any time I find myself fighting with these little demons I ask the very same questions my new friend asked me the other day.  My response to him was a quip to the effect of when I had it figured out I would let him know.  The truth, however, might be a little harder to comprehend and the more I analyze it and roll it over and over in my mind, the more I come back to a really simple truth that is actually fairly disturbing.

Why choose to be a writer? 

Honestly, I don’t think I have a choice.

Now before the ten of you who actually read this blog take turns laughing at me or collectively take a deep breath before ripping me a new one for being some self-important, melodrama ridden, affectation driven artiste who needs to be taken down a peg, hear me out.

First, there have been two periods of my life when I did not write at all.  The first was during my second year of college where my creative efforts were focused more into the conquest of the opposite sex.  The second was during the latter portion of my marriage to my ex-wife who felt and would occasionally vocalize the fact that writing was a waste of time and I really had no talent for it anyway.  It should also be noted that I count both of those periods as among the most miserable I have ever been in my life.

Secondly, and this may take a little bit of a leap of faith to understand and I hope you will come along with me on this, I think that creative people’s brains may work a little differently than those who do not feel the Muse’s pull.  I have friends who are extremely talented musicians who complain sometimes that they cannot get a tune out of their heads even though they’ve never heard it before.  A painter may dream of an image to the point of distraction until they finally put brush to canvas.  I’ve even talked to other authors that I know very well and they will admit that sometimes a project will become so fascinating to them that they can’t seem to get it out of their heads until it’s done.  For me, I have to say that once a story or a character gets in my head the only and I do mean the ONLY way it’s going to go anywhere is to get it on paper.

Allow me to illustrate in detail, if you will, what the experience of being a writer is like for me.  About eighteen to twenty-four months ago a friend of mine introduced me to this little band named Halestorm.  Being somewhat of a metal monkey, I was instantly hooked.  One of Halestorm’s songs from their most recent album is entitled “Innocence.”  The very first time I heard the opening hook of this song it grabbed my attention.  Something about this song seemed to haunt me.  I found myself listening to it over and over for the next week.  Trust me when I say that my fiancé and friends were growing rather annoyed with my suddenly limited choice in music, to say the very least.  One morning as I was driving to work I had this image of a man sitting in the crow’s nest of a beach house hearing this song coming from a beach bar across the harbor from his home.  I must have listened to the openening thirty seconds of that song fifty times in a row to try to clear up the image in my head.  Nearly a year later I heard the song again and suddenly I had another image of this guy pulling up to the beach bar in a boat and watching this local band, fronted by a distractingly beautiful lead guitarist, shred this song on a throw together stage as a storm started to threaten the beach.  I spent the next two days trying to get a rough idea of who these people were and within two more days I had twenty pages written as a treatment story to see if the idea worked.  Six months later I have a full story map / outline written and about eighty pages complete with an anticipation of three hundred total pages by the end of the year.  That is essentially the story of how I got the idea for Hurricane Carolina.

The sad thing about the story I just told you is that it is in no way the first time this has happened to me.  I find inspiration in music constantly and I have so many story fragments and character ideas jotted down in random notebooks and 2kB word files that I truly have lost count.  Somehow I seem to find a use for most of them as time goes on, interestingly enough.  Believe it or not I found a notebook the other day from back in High School that had both a character idea that will work perfectly in the new book and a fairly long short story that I might just be able to turn into a book at some point.  I’ve been a manager for ninety-five percent of my professional career since college but it turns out that I’ve been a writer for over twenty-five years now.  Who knew?

You know, there is one thing about being a writer or for that matter being in a creative field whatsoever I would wager makes it worth all the obsession and focus and abject distraction that a really great idea can cause.  That one simple thing is that you never know when that next idea is going to hit nor do you know where it’s going to come from, period.  Case in point:  if you had come to me a year ago and told me I was going to write a book about a foul mouthed misogynist whose ego and libido get him into one misadventure after another and that everyone I have sent test chapters to has loved the story I would have laughed at you with every fiber of my being and asked what you were drinking and why you weren’t sharing.  Yet all it took was one glass of whiskey, one decent cigar, a douche bag neighbor in a white fedora hat and a Rolling Stones song and the rest will come out in March for public consumption, judgment, and quite possibly ridicule.

So there it is, my little guided tour of the mind of a writer.  Do I have a better answer for my new friend’s question of why write to start with?  Not in the slightest.  I promised him I’d get back to him one day with the answer.  Maybe I’ll figure it out in time to use it as a clever little witticism to use when signing his copy of my book.

Wit(less) Protection

I have a fairly simple question.  What ever happened to good old fashioned wit?

As I've made mention before in this blog, I am a fiction writer on top of being an over-opinionated semi-professional jackass.  As a fiction writer I am shall we say more than observant of how people express themselves during a conversation.  After all, it's almost impossible to create realistic characters if they are unable to sound like real people.  No matter who you are or what you write, your characters must sound believable to get your audience to buy in and willingly suspend just enough of that disbelief to buy the next five or six of the books in the series (yes, I mean you Ms. Rowling).  Unless of course your last name is Tolkien or Martin and you write epic fantasy with its own languages and mythologies, or you just think you can and that is a whole other matter.  (Before anyone gets up in arms, yes I know there are Elvish and Klingon dictionaries and the like.  My glasses just aren't quite that thick anymore.  I got contacts and attempt to keep the true depths of my nerd cred somewhat private.)

As part of my casual, meaning when it catches my attention, study of the way in which we members of the herd express ourselves collectively, I've noticed something interesting.  It occurs to me that we seem to be losing the art of general wit in our conversation.  Worse yet, when presented with reparte at its most minimum, some of us seem to just resort to profanity as a retort and go on with our existence.  My only question is why?  Consider this example:  I'm at the gym the other day and notice a young kid's rather flamboyant footwear.  Okay, I'm being kind.  This kid's Nikes looked like somebody let a horny gibbon loose in the leather storeroom with a bucket of paint, a raging erection, and bad intentions.  Anyway, his friends were gathered around to watch this kid attempt to deadlift an amount of weight that for an adult male would have been considered embarassing but apparently among his tribe was somewhat heroic.  One of his friends looked at him and said "Nice shoes, when did you mom say you had to give them back?"  His reply, "F U."  As I stood to the side putting plates away after I use them (it's really not difficult) I couldn't help but marvel at this numbskull's ineptitude.  He couldn't have been more than 18.  A simple "Anytime tonight after your mom finishes blowing me" or something otherwise juvenile and maternally insulting would have worked just fine.  Instead, he not only lost some credibility among his peers but also appeared to have strained something trying to throw that 135 pounds in the air like his nut hair had actually started to grow.

We were all kids once, weren't we?  Didn't we all learn how to trade insults and 'your mama' jokes?  Granted some of us were better at it than others, but hey, we still all had the experience.  Guess what boys and girls?  Those little barb tossing sessions were the foundation for wit later in life.  It just amazes me that we seem to be losing the art of conversation.  When did we decide en masse to become the unarmed victim in the battle of wits?  It's not as if we don't have daily examples of it in our lives.  All you have to do is watch some of the better written television shows and you at least have somewhat of a guideline.  Granted some of them get a little heavy handed with the wit on occasion, but in the overall they can still show you the way as it were.  (To the writing staff of The Big Bang Theory:  I'm sorry guys but honestly, I don't think that full comprehension of the nuances of string theory is necessary to execute every third joke.  It helps, but I think you might be reaching to the minority audience.  Granted I are that minority audience (grammatical flub intended Mr. Hunt, calm down) but still, ease back a little for the undereducated, okay?) 

Do I think we should all carry on sparkling conversations full of wit, banter, and reparte on a consistent basis?  No, we'd hurdle down the turnpike toward the ridiculous faster than Madonna's half time show.  Is it necessary to interact with others in a way other than monosyllabic grunts and gestures?  No, but according to my parents around about the time I was two years old I believe we are supposed to 'use our words.' 

Now, what I am suggesting is something that may be a bit radical.  Allow this to sink in for just a moment before you pass judgment.

I suggest we slow down just enough in our daily race to Oblivion (or Skyrim, or whatever else holds your current obsession) to actually care about engaging someone else in actual conversation.  Have you ever stopped to consider how many people you actually talk to on a daily basis versus how many you communicate with via social media?  I'll give you an example.  When my wife and I decided to get married rather suddenly last week we called maybe ten people to personally let them know what was going on.  Our collective Facebook announcements had well over fifty combined responses and the blog post regarding stories from our wedding had over one hundred page views within twenty four hours.  We live in an age where a large number of us limit our discussions of any topic to 140 characters or less because that is all Twitter will allow per post.  I have several friends that I used to talk to on the phone fairly regularly.  As our lives became busier we trended toward the occasional email  to catch each other up.  Now I follow them on Twitter and feel like I know what's going on in their lives.  It occurs to me that I know as much about what is really going on in my friends' lives as I do what happens daily for Nathan Fillion, who I find to be a good actor and funny as hell but have never actually met in person.  Damned if the dude doesn't give good tweet though.

Simply put, actual conversation takes work.  For those of you who are married, remember dating?  You know, when you actually had to talk to someone before the possibility of seeing them naked was a given?  (Okay for some of you that may not be the most pertinent example, but you know who you are you dirty little monkeys.)  I have always maintained that not so attractive men can do just fine with the ladies as long as they are confident and learn to actually carry on a conversation.  Maybe it's time that all of us, not just those of us trying to sell a novel, take a moment and pay attention to what someone else is saying.  You never know, with a little practice, that sparkling wit we all used to know, have, and love may find its way back to the light of day and turn us once again into someone with whom another person may actually want to carry on a conversation.

Scenes From a Wedding

Hello all.  It appears that I may have shocked a good portion of my tiny corner of the universe by unexpectedly getting married yesterday.  Hey, for what it's worth, there was a completely random set of circumstances that led us to the conclusion that it was something that needed to be done and done quickly.  We're still going to have our planned wedding later this year but, hey, for now at least the pressure is off. 

Yes, for the several of you who mentioned it, I am aware of exactly how random and out of the blue this was.  Trust me, lack of planning on our part does not equal social obligation on the part of anyone else!

And no, for the 485th time, my new wife is not pregnant.  I swear.

However, as is par for the course of my little eighteen holes on this rock (too far with the golf metaphor?), nothing goes off without at least a couple of funny stories cropping up along the way.  So, for your general amusement...

1)  It appears that in Johnston County, North Carolina, you really can put together an impromptu wedding in literally no time flat.  Start to finish, including drive time, was less than two hours.  Considering the discussion as to whether or not we should go ahead and get married now instead of in October began at 9 p.m. Thursday night and we were married by 3 p.m. Friday, I guess I shouldn't have much to say on the subject.  Moral:  if the process for a major life event can be concluded in less than a twenty-four hour period, it probably should have already been taken care of to start with.

2)  During the brief period of time between completion of the paperwork and the arrival of my parents to serve as our witnesses, my fiance and I decided to grab a soda at the deli that sits in front of the magistrate's office.  Don't ask, it is after all Johnston County.  The following conversation occurs at the counter:

Smart Ass Deli Owner (SMAD):  What can I get you?

Me:  Two cans of Mountain Dew.

SMAD:  Anything else?

Me:  Nope, that will get it.

SMAD:  Want me to shake them up for you?

(Apparently at this point my body language and/or my expression gave away my internal  sentiment of 'Dude I'm twice your size and not in the mood to be fucked with right now so just gimme the damn soda you lactating sphincter wrinkle!')

SMAD:  Or not?

Me, trying to be nice: Considering I'm about to get married right now, probably not the best idea.

SMAD:  Oh so I should just shake up hers then.  Make it a comedy wedding.

Me, realizing my own inner smart ass had just been engaged:  Followed rapidly by the comedy divorce.

SMAD:  Never heard of a comedy divorce.

Me:  Should of been there for my first one.

SMAD:  stunned look followed by bending over the counter laughing.

Moral:  Sometimes being quick witted is much more useful than being large and a little intimidating.  Interestingly enough, a little research proves that it is never against the law to double someone over with laughter while punching a douchebag in the gut for annoying you usually comes with jail time, or so I've been told.

3)  My father, proud progenitor of the DNA that apparently spawned my twisted sense of humor and need to be socially inappropriate as often as possible, walks into the magistrates office and proceeds to announce to the magistrate that he needed to "get these two arrested," in reference to me and my fiance.  The magistrate reaches to call for a deputy then my father interrupts and says "I'm sorry I meant married."  Cue smarmy look from magistrate.  Moral:  I have no idea.  The man's been that way for the 38 years I've known him and I'm getting more like him every day. 

4)  In the Johnston County magistrates office waiting room is a sign that warns that you may be held in contempt of court for profanity, yelling, or attempts at violence.  Obviously taking cues from my father's antics and trying to pass the time while we wait I reference the sign to my mother and ask her if she thinks that it is only in reference to those waiting to get married or if it's for those involved in small claims actions as well.  Laughter ensues.  At that moment, the apparently female and redneck version of that little critter who sits on Jabba the Hutt's lap in Jedi and her companion, a female cross between said Hutt and a Wookie with a mange issue, storm out of small claims court.  I make some comment about I guess Jabba and Chewie lost and my mother has to tell her 38 year old son to hush.  Suddenly the aforementioned sign captures my father's attention.  Now it should be noted that my father is a bit (selectively) hard of hearing on occasion.  He decides to ask my mother if that sign was only for the folks there for weddings or if it was just for general principal.  My mother and fiance promptly crack up laughing at both of us.  Moral:  My wife is a brave, brave woman.  She's seen the strength of that particular strand of DNA and went through with it anyway.

5)  While completing the paperwork before my bride and I can say our 'I Do's' and continue on into wedded bliss, the magistrate chooses to regale us with the story of the poor girl who started his day by insisting on bawlling her eyes out and refusing to enter his office, then crying during the entire ceremony, then only hugging her new husband.  He then chose, in concert with my father, to speculate as to how fast they would be back in his office for the other end of the transaction, so to speak.  While rolling my eyes slightly and making faces at my intended to keep her amused I noticed that during this entire conversation the magistrate had 'The Talk' playing on the flat screen in his office.  Moral:  Civil servants, God bless them, must endure the entire gambit of humanity.  Much like retail managers, I imagine that magistrates must develop a very jaded view of the world.  The question lies though as to how much of it is a survival skill and how much of it is for their personal amusement.

So there they are boys and girls, five silly things that happened the day we decided to get married.  At this point all I can really say is that if we get all this in the giggles department with not much more than an afterthought of planning, may God and any other deity of your choice help us when it comes to the wedding later this year.  I wonder if February is too early to hire the midgets with video cameras. . .

The Uncommon Sense

I am so very, very done with stupid people.

Let's be clear from the beginning.  I have no issue with those who DNA, fate, or Mommy's choice of recreational substances during pregnancy have forced into a life of limited intelligence due to disability.  The mere fact that a majority of those individuals find ways to overcome those disabilities and lead fulfilling lives is truly heroic in my opinion.  I also take no issue with those who suffer an injury that diminishes their capacity.  It's not their fault, plain and simple.

My issue lies with the normal, everyday, modicum of intelligence bearing jagoff who can't seem to find a way to make it through their existence without pissing off the rest of the herd on a regular basis with their lack of common sense.  Don't get me wrong, I like to laugh at a moron as much as the next person, but when their idiocy gets in the way of everyone progressing down the turnpike of life I tend to get a bit impatient.

I still stand by the idea that we as a race are getting stupider by the day.  I remain thoroughly amazed that we need warnings on our coffee cups about the danger of hot liquids.  I am constantly confounded by cars with warning labels regarding sticking an infant in the front seat and sitting too close to an air bag.  It tickles me to no end that gas stations are switching to illustrated warnings about smoking at the pump instead of the written warning.  I find it baffling that we have to spend tax revenues to build traffic islands to help people make the correct choice when turning right or left in traffic.  Please note that I'm not talking about the random improvement here or there, but in the last two years I can think of three MAJOR construction projects on the roads (the new roundabouts on Hillborough Street around North Carolina State University, the removal of an entire lane of interstate at the intersection of I-40 and the Highway 70 bypass in Clayton, and a large chunk of Highway 70 through the city of Havelock) that we as taxpayers have had to pay for simply for the fact that too many of our brethren have decided to spontaneously thin the herd in those areas by not knowing how to properly merge into traffic or make a freaking left turn correctly.

Yes, I said thinning the herd.  If you've ever seen a video of a busy city sidewalk and the sarcastic part of your brain hasn't occasionally made moo-ing noises, well, maybe you're in the wrong place at the moment.  Face it, unique individuals among us are awesome but when you take humanity as a whole in all of its, well, glory, you have to admit that it may not be the most stellar of species.  You are also correct if you made the intuitive leap that this concept is not exactly a negative in my opinion.  There are some members of our herd that are just using our air and resources kids, in my somewhat less than humble opinion.  When they finally find their particular choice of grand exit even the least jaded of us must admit it occasionally serves as a source of inadvertent public amusement.  In fact, if you want to get down to the bare bones of it all, you almost have to acknowledge that every now and again it probably is a good thing to pour a little chlorine shock in the gene puddle anyway.

Look, we as individuals are all morons on occasion.  While Alice can think of six impossible things before breakfast I can accomplish just as many feats of sheer dumbassery well before lunch time.  All I ask is that we all try to apply that little notion of common sense at least when out in public.  Is it necessary to go to WalMart at 2 in morning?  Hey we all run out of batteries, cat litter, and whipped cream at inopportune times.  Do you have to take a moment before running out to at least decently cover yourself?  Please for the love of all that is holy.  (Yes, I know the good folks at peopleofwalmart.com would disagree, but hey, we are striving for improvement here.)  Are we all proud of little Johnny for getting his first smart phone and becoming part of the information age?  Definitely.  Does Johnny need to walk around with his music loudly playing from his jacket pocket like a personal soundtrack while he does his best Usher imitation down the aisle in a convenient store as if he really is little Michael reincarnated?  Why God, oh why?  Does little Johnny also need to have his fingers broken with a hammer for texting while driving and causing a three car pile up on I-40 that makes everyone else late for work while his ignorant ass makes it in on time?  Let me get my tool box.

I guess when all is said and done you could say that I wistfully dream of simple things.  I am nowhere near naieve enough to think we can fix people.  We're dipshits at our very nature.  Christmas lights still up in April anyone?  All I really ask is that we try to strive for self improvement.  Maybe, just maybe, if we all focus in on doing one less stupid thing in public today we could get the trend to catch on. 

While the rest of us work on it, I'll sit here in front of the television and wait for the news report that good ol' Gus yanked the emergency brake on an Amtrak yet again because he thought he saw a pretty deer on the tracks.

Two Minutes and Thirty Seconds of Politics, With Apologies

I promise that this will be one of the few times that you will ever read anything remotely politically oriented on this blog.  Normally I keep my personal politics, well, personal.  Today, however, I have something I feel like I need to put out there. 

For the record, I am a lifelong Independant.  My political leanings and motivations fall based upon my opinions, not along the mandates of any particular party.  I tend to try to think before I vote, no matter how ineffectual the realities of that vote may or may not be.

Unlike our status quo, I actually hope this doesn't offend anyone.  If anything, I truly hope you share the core sentiment I'm about to express.  Whether or not I like Obama or our current Congress has nothing truly to do with this, trust me.

I watched the State of the Union address Tuesday night.  It left me, frankly, sad and a little disheartened.  I like to envision myself as, at least in broad terms, a critical thinker with some leanings toward romanticism.  As I listened to our popularly elected President speak, I found myself truly listening and imagining the picture of the country he was painting as he laid out his plans for the coming year(s).  I found myself profoundly wishing we could truly be that country.  Within that speech Obama created an image of our country where we worked together and supported one another on both a societal and a business level.  He spun a web of ideas via tax reforms, fair trade enforcements, and business and education opportunities that showed a nation that cared deeply for the wellfare of its citizenry as well as its impact on the world at large.  He showed a road paved with achievement through cooperation where 'Mission Accomplished' was not just a military phrase but a true feeling of national sentiment.

I am at heart a patriot.  I truly love the United States.  If this country was not founded as she was I couldn't say what I wish and do as I do.  I hesitate to suggest that this blog would be allowed to exist in many countries and even in the ones that it would the content would be dramatically different on occasion. 

Sadly, by the end of the address I was left with an odd taste in my mouth as if I had eaten too much rock candy.  The entire speech closed and the reality of what we truly viewed set in.  Obama created a beautiful sculpture while on stage last night of a country that truly functions.  The problem lies in that he created it out of the verbal equivalent of spun sugar and sparkles, beautiful to look at but so fragile to the touch as to be ethereal.  It's a beautiful image of this great nation but it left me with only one true response:  I wish.  I wish our politicians would put aside their petty nonsense and truly try to work together.  I wish we could create that country from the ground up if need be.  I wish our leadership, as a whole, would truly lead instead of spend their time telling us what they would like to do, if only... 

I wish that that beautiful sculpture of spun sugar and ideas would be truly used a model for action and ideaology, not as yet another long form campaign promise and a target for criticism by yet another self serving bureaucrat who has become far too used to fat checks from lobbyists to be of any real service to their constituency.

I wish.

(By the way, special props should be given to John Kerry for sporting two black eyes and a broken nose on the floor of Congress during the State of the Union.  These were supposedly the byproduct of a friendly game of hockey over the weekend.  Don't necessary care for the man's politics, but I will definitely support a referendum to grant him +10 points on his man card.) 

Oh Dammit, That Was Kryptonite Again, Wasn't It?

If you've ever bothered to open a Superman comic, have seen a cartoon, or been stuck in front of the odd movie or random episode of Smallville, I'm going to assume that (a) you speak at least a small variant of nerd and (b) you understand what Kryptonite is on at least a basic level.  If you don't, well, I guess there's always Wikipedia.  The thing that always cracked me up about Kryptonite is that depending on what the color du juor was that month at DC, it always had a different effect on ol' Kal-El.  Never did two different colors do the same thing.  Over the years there have been so many colors that I'm surprised that by now they haven't come up with a rainbow crystal of the stuff that makes Superman ditch the old reliable red and blue tights for oversized glasses, a snow leopard fur trimmed cape with matching hat and a neon green lounge suit.  Think about it... Up, Up, and Oh-Darn-I-Think-I-Chipped-My-Pedicure-In-My-Open-Toed-Warrior-Sandals.  Not to take the metaphor too far but I wonder... if Superman went flamboyant one day, who would be his sidekick?  Carson Kressley?

Okay, before I go too far down the path here, let's try to get the ship back under control and get back on topic.  A good friend of mine and I were having a discussion the other night regarding weaknesses and obsessions when it came to the opposite sex.  Unfortunately, I have a VERY firm grasp on what my particular 'Kryptonite" was back in my single days.  If you put me within ten yards of a tall red head with curly hair and an athletic build I would immediately lose IQ points.  Saddle the poor lass with any form of brogue, be it Irish or even worse Scottish, and the chances of me being able to refrain from turning into a walking charicature of the old wolf-in-a-zoot-suit cartoons immediately goes from slim to don't even bother.  What's worse, load her up with a bad case of smart ass to boot and I would be done.  We're talking instantaneous de-evolution from moderately intelligent and erudite to fire-bad girl-pretty.  Take any three of those five items from that list and I could normally be counted on to find a way to ruin a weekend pretty quickly.  I've only met three in my life that were four of the five, thank God, and have yet to run into anyone with the perfect five of five.  My fiance is a partial red head with curly hair and a strong case of smart ass.  I think I'm pretty lucky actually.  Any more and I'd never have a chance in this lifetime of ever winning an argument.

(And yes, before anyone who knows me very well calls b.s., there are a couple of additional factors that fall into those initial head-turner qualities in a woman that I haven't listed.  However, as they aren't really relevant in any real way to my existence or social circle anymore, we'll just back burner those for another lifetime.)

My friend, on the other hand, has a more specific obsession.  It's one particular person and this obsession has grown over a number of years.  She has now made the determination that she will enlist whatever help she needs to, come hell or high water, to seal the deal with this poor bastard.  I call the man a poor bastard because knowing my friend she will probably introduce him to some form of bedroom gymnastics involving a part of her body she refers to as 'magical' that will not only injure the man but probably soften his will to live and maintain an independant existence outside of the happy place in betwixt her thighs.  To my friend all I can really say is Happy Hunting and make sure you take pictures.  All the really good stories need a slide show, after all.

All of this back and forth discussion the other night got my brain working regarding the whole idea of why members of the opposite sex get our attention and what makes us as otherwise rational creatures take that leap to mentally challenged when the nookie monster raises its somewhat dissheveled head?  Granted it also made about six people around us in that particular Starbucks highly uncomfortable, but alas, that is a story for another tme.

Sadly there is a simple answer to all of this.  Nobody knows and I would challenge the notion that we even really want to understand that about ourselves at all anyway.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about the science of attraction.  Five minutes on Netflix and you can find a number of Discovery channel documentaries on pheremones and body signals and all that kind of stuff.  What I wonder more is why certain things attract us as individuals, sometimes even to the point of distraction.  As an example, I once met a woman at a bar who was only nominally interesting to me until I found out that she played poker, liked whiskey, and smoked cigars.  Two weeks later the novel factor wore off and I realized she actually did annoy me, but that also is a story for another time, most likely never.

What I'd like to do is to open the floor, so to speak, to all my readers and ask a direct question:
What gets your attention / turns your head in members of the opposite sex?  Obviously I'm not after the easy stuff like 'boobs' et al, but more of specific things about a person you find attractive.  More specifically, I guess, is that I would like to know what is your particular Kryptonite?  Feel free to respond in comments or via email if you prefer a more private venue.

I'm looking forward to your responses!  I'll try and post some of the more interesting ones in a follow up posting within the next week.

Women Be Evil: A Field Observation

Oh the fairer sex, what amazing powers you all have over us poor mortal men.  Gentlemen, admit it, every last one of us has done something amazingly stupid at one point or another in our lives for a woman or because of a woman.  In fact, I'd be willing to bet you that if you got right down to it, down to the marrow as it were, we could empty a quarter to a  third of the population of most prisons right now if we suddenly granted amnesty based on proof that a woman motivated the crime.  Now ladies, don't take this as a condemnation, it's simply a statement of fact.

Women have a near mystical power over men.  We accept it, encourage it, and allow it.  It doesn't matter what age of man or woman either.  All that matters is that we as men allow it (most of the time happily) and they as women know and, on occasion, use it for evil.

I've seen this illustrated many many times in my life.  In fact, I've been victim to it many many times and have (literally) the scars to prove it from a few occasions.  However, I saw it happen last night in such a blatant manner that I just had to share the story. 

As I said, evil.

So late last night the fiance and I developed a sudden need for a burger.  Okay, to be honest she just wanted some fries and I was suddenly actually hungry for the first time in over a week and felt the need to feed.  I threw some clothes on, jumped in the truck, and hustled my little cookies toward the local golden arches.  After placing my order I pulled through the drive through to see a rather tall young man, I'm assuming late teens or early twenties, engaged in a rather voracious lip lock with a smaller and very curvy little blonde thing.  Hey, I'm all for everyone's right to the occasional PDA but they were (1) standing actually in the drive through lane, (2) were directly in full view of my headlights, and (3) were so busy getting a little handsy with each other that my front grill nearly ate them.  They broke off the vacuum seal of their lip lock just before I decided to be a grumpy old fart and hit the horn.  Assumingly for good measure he grabbed a very healthy chunk of her rear while she rather brazenly cupped him before running inside.  The young gentleman at least had the single functioning brain cell with adequate blood supply left to raise his hand and apologize to me as he adjusted and made for his car. 

I was ready to just continue to try to forget the little probably-more-lascivious-than-I-noticed-had-I-actually-been-paying-attention slobber festival that had just occurred in front of me when I saw the girl run behind the counter and approach the drive through window.  Apprently she was supposed to be handing out my food but instead was otherwise engaged on safari for some wild cockasaurus.  The window to both my truck and the restaurant was open and instead of receiving my food, I heard the following snippet of conversation:

Blonde to coworker:  "Sorry that took a second."

Coworker:  "Well?"

Blonde:  "He said he would run home, take a shower and change, and come back and work the overnight shift so we can go party."

Coworker:  "Damn girl, I don't know you get away with all the shit you do to him."

Blonde:  "Yeah it's amazing the mileage you can get from one blowjob six months ago."

Now at this point, she was beginning to hand my food out the window to me.  The process was made difficult for her by the fact that I had completely lost my composure and was laughing so hard I could barely breathe.  Have you ever gotten so cracked up that you suddenly stop making noise and are fighting for air?  Yeah boys and girls, I was there!

The blonde suddenly looked rather embarrassed and began to turn red.  "Did you just hear us?" she asked me while actually having the audacity to look appalled.

All I could think of to say was "What are you, like 35?"  I swear all I could think of was that this girl was playing that poor boy so superbly that Candace Bushnell or the CW needed to hire her for source material immediately before the fall pilot season hits. 

"No, I'm like 19." she replied and her look turned toward one of disgust as she shoved my sack of food at me and wrinkled her nose visibly. 

I laughed until I pulled in my driveway ten minutes later.

Women are evil and they are apparently training them younger and younger these days.  You know, I think I might have actually been in college before I ran into my first woman with those kind of skills and she was a Literature and Theater major. 

God help these poor young bucks today.  If those predators are in the wild at that young of an age... WOW.

40 Weight Motor Oil, 20 Feet of Logging Chain, and a Case of Chocolate Magic Shell

Guess what kiddies?  Your buddy the Cynical Sarcastic is finally back from his protracted week long bout with the nastiest stomach flu he or his doctor has ever heard of in recent memory.  I'm telling you folks, this mess was pure evil.  We're talking the-end-of-the-third-season-of-Buffy-when-Angel-goes-evil-on-Slayer-nookie evil.  Yes, I swear to you this virus was mean enough I think it even killed a gypsy computer teacher.

Yeah, you got the reference.  It's okay though, we won't tell anyone else.

So to crib Varsity Blues as shamelessly as possible:  I'M BACK, PUKING ROWDY!!!

And it just so happens that there's a reprobative finger sniffing little ass gremlin who has found themselves so squarely in my sights that I'm actually having a hard time trying to figure out which Weapon of Massive Psychological Destruction to unleash upon the wanktard.

So what's on my mind today boys and girls? 

Well why don't you just go on ahead and get comfortable while I get good and wound up. 

We might be here for a bit.

Over the past week I have had a number of people call to check in on me while I have been as extremely ill as I have.  I'm not usually the sickly kind of dude so I guess it struck some folks as unusual.  Well, one of the calls I received was from a pseudo-friend from back in the days when I lived in Asheville.  I'm not even Facebook friends with this bundle of goo so I'm not even sure how they found me but hey, whatever works.  This female person who will remain nameless (mostly because she's probably gonna want to sue somebody by the time I get finished today) was calling to say hello since we hadn't talked in forever blah blah, blah, blah blah blah blah.  Mind you I'm so sick at the time that talking was effort but hey, I can be pleasant even when I'm doing my best hourly impersonation of the Technicolor Yawn.  The conversation was benign enough and blessedly short until she made some offhanded comment about the fact that she and her husband were about to pull their kids out of their preschool because she found out that some of 'THOSE' people brought their kids there.

For those of you that know me fairly well, allow me to drop back out of the pocket just a second and catch everyone else up on a few things.  Three things shocked me at this point in the conversation:  (1) This individual conned some poor monkey into marrying her hateful, bitter, and condescending ass,  (2) That disturbing mental image of a conjugal union managed to bear fruit and provide this cretin with two little crotch dumplings of her own to ruin, and (3) that in the year 2012 her now apparently well off and underfucked little twenty years late to be a REAL yuppie behind had the audacity to refer to ANYONE as 'those people.' 

WHAT THE FUCK JUST DOESN'T SEEM TO COVER IT, NOW DOES IT?

Now, granted, I was extremely unwell at the time so maybe that should excuse the next thing that came out of my dumbass mouth.  "What people," I had to ask like a moron?

"You know," this labially challenged trustee of priviledge and personal pharmacists replied.  "The gays."

Needless to say the phone went dead fairly quickly and if I'm not totally misremembering the situation I believe I ranted at a dead phone line for a good ten minutes before falling back to sleep.  I know it started with "you ignorant bitch" and included my patented line inquiring as to which mickey-mouse-fantasia-broomstick-army-your-parents-were-on-leave-from-when-your-simple-ass-was-conceived and then went from there. 

And so this brings me to my topic for today:  Sexual Diversity.

My dear readers, there are so many things in this world to get upset about or develop prejudices over.  I personally hate stupid people.  I can't help it, I just do.  But when it comes to what two or three or however many consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedroom, I mean really, why do we even care?  Straight-Gay-Bi-Tri WHAT THE HELL EVER!  Does it really matter people?  Really?  Are we still that cloistered in our thinking as a society?  Do we still judge people based on their bedroom activities because someone else convinced us it was wrong?  Not to be mean here, but I'm even talking to you ultra-conservatives.  Unless you can prove to me that God Almighty came to you through one of his angels and personally told you that any definition of sexuality and family other than the traditional construct is immoral, I'm sorry but at some point someone else read it in a book and made the argument to you that it was right and you bought in.  Am I saying you're wrong? No.  Am I saying you have just as much right to your opinion as the next group of fudge packing butt ninjas who choose to sodomize each other in a daisy chain while wearing burlap sacks on a main runway at the airport while they take turns licking flaming tequila off of a scalded teddy bear while waiting for the great god Bacchus to descend and take them to Valhalla?  Yes. That's all.

(Author's Note:  Sorry to offend anyone if I'm misquoting the exact deity in question in the preceeding description of ritual.  I was laughing too hard to hold the video camera still and the audio got a little muffled.  I mean, let's be real.  Even missionary position is pretty funny when viewed in the right circumstances.  Don't believe me?  Try watching your favorite porno with the volume down while Hanson's MmmBop plays in the background.  Classic.)

Folks, what you do in the privacy of your bedroom, as long as it doesn't harm anyone permanently or break any real laws is your freakin' business.  If any of us were EVER to be fully judged for the nonsense we've pulled in the name of sexual discovery, exploration, or conquest it would not be a good situation.  Guys, it's kind of like this.  How would you like if your boss could fire you based on knowing about the time you snatched open your towel and did the Mr. Happy Dance at your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/Great Dane, etc?  I mean, we've all had our little Forgetting Sarah Marshall impersonation, right? 

Haven't we? 

Guys?

Or was it just me? 

Shit........

Oh fuck it, I'll have to just own that one then.  At least I had the sense to stop doing it after I saw it done in that movie.  Once Marshall from How I Met Your Mother did it, I can't in good conscience allow myself to do it again.  Unless I was very drunk of course.  That's the only time where almost anything, including attempting to pee in a linen closet, is basically forgiveable.

But I digress, big time, once again.  All I'm saying here is that by this point in our evolution as a culture, species, and country is it really okay for anyone to still harbor that ridiculous of a prejudice?  Sure, it's their right.  But is it okay for them to act on it in a way that will impact their children?  Not so easy of an answer, is it?

To wrap this up and go back to my meds, I'll leave you all with this.  If you have a problem with people with different sexual preferences than yours, I encourage you to embrace your own beliefs wholeheartedly yet silently and in a profound manner.

In other words:  SHUT THE HELL UP AND GO FUCK YOURSELF.

The Mother of All Shameless Plugs

I would like to take a minute to publicly congratulate my friend and fellow author Meghan Kelley on the publication of her novella Clockwork. 

The book is currently available through CreateSpace (#3714168) and will be available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other book stores shortly.  I will update everyone when the other outlets are ready to go. 

Her first novel, Cursing Fate, is also available through the usual outlets as well.

Meghan is a fellow member the Proud Failures Writing Group here in the Raleigh area.  Check out her stuff, stalk her on Facebook, but whatever you do buy some of the woman's work! 

Well whaddya know.  The Cynical Sarcastic now has its first official endorsement.

Maybe I should apologize to Meghan now, huh?

(UPDATED 1/21/12) Clockwork is now available on Barnes and Noble Nook!