Indignant, My favorites, Nostalgia, Underrated

Why childhood seems like a lot of work: or Outside

Spring has sprung! Yes, it’s warm out. Yes, the birds are chirping. But the reason I know it’s spring: People at my bus stop were smoking pot. Outside! That means it’s beautiful out. People are enjoying their activities outside! Even me.

I decided to take a bus trip to somewhere new and exciting for lunch. I wasn’t the only one taking advantage of the newly found warmth was enveloping the outside world. This meant eavsdropping! Because my adventure into the world outside my piles of pringles and dirty sweatshirts occured at 2:30, my fellow outdoorsians were all getting out of school. Whether they be coming from middle school or high school, these kids thought they had something important to say adn didn’t realize that the creep with the half face of facial hair writing fervantly on his LeeAnn Chin napkin (yes LeeAnn Chin was my adventerous food choice) was actually scribing glimpses of their conversations: (Note: none of the following things were said with any hint of sarcasm)

High School Girl: It’s so cool that you’re gay. I love it.

HS Girl: Mexicans are dying

HS Boy: Americans are dying.

HS Girl: Yeah but the people in Mexico are suffering… er… more people in Mexico are dying.

(I can’t hear so I move closer, just in time to hear:)

HS Boy: Note – The Mayans! Note – The people in the Argentina place.

HS Girl: The Incas?

HS Boy: Yes.

Fat Girl: I have a huge ass.

Friend Girl: Your ass is adorable.

Older HS Girl 1: I am not scary.

#2: You can be scary

#1: I am not scary. I’m nice.

#2: You can be a little scary.

#1: I give candy and hugs and kisses.

#2: Fine.

#1: Oh, by the way, I was making fun of Jews in front of Sarah today. I forgot she was Jewish.

Fag Hag 1: (To gay boy) When I first met you I thought you were fat.

Fag Hag 2: You’re terrible.

Fag Hag 1: No, I met him like three years ago.

#1: (on phone) Okay, I love you, bye.

#2: Who was that?

#1: My ex-boyfriend.

Student 1: My uncle was telling me about when he went to war, and I was like: “Oh my god, did you die?” and he’s right in front of me

Student 2: Oh my god, you’re so retarded, and I love it.

All these stupid people made me feel a lot better about myself, becasue even if they all became more successful than me, I was smarter than them and knowledge equals power. Though ignorance is bliss. Let’s hope power > bliss. Either way, it made me think about my childhood and how different it was than these kids. I recently found a piece of writing from my creative writing class than wraps up quite nicely how I felt/acted as a child.

I stared impatiently at my dad as he slipped the veggie patties into the oven.

“Mom’s gonna be home in 5 minutes.” He warned me.

“Then I’ll go ice skating for 5 minutes.” I replied, knowing that her arrival would be at least 15 to 20 minutes from now. “Will you please check my skates?”

He walked to the cabinet and pulled out three plates.

“Set the table with me and I’ll check your skates.”

I clomped my skate-ridden feet to the other side of the kitchen – each step a chore worthy of a sigh and a groan. I picked out three knifes and three forks. My skates balanced perilously as I moved toward the cupboard and pulled out three glasses. I set them down on the table and sat down in a chair with my feet up – ready to be checked.

“What are we going to drink?” My dad questioned.

“I don’t know. We can cross that bridge when we come to it.” I answered as I got up and balanced my way over to the refrigerator. “What do you want?” I said, looking in the refrigerator and pulling out the juice I wanted and the iced-tea that my mother would want.

“I’ll just have water.”

As I returned to the table, I checked to make sure there wasn’t anything else I could be forced to preemptively get for dinner. Catsup. I knew my dad was going to make me get Catsup. He hates Catsup. He hates Ketchup. He says that he liked it at one point in his life, but I don’t see how someone could like Ketchup and then learn to dislike it. It’s delicious. He hates Catsup, therefore he won’t notice it’s not there. He’s going to eat his veggie burger plain like a freak, so he won’t care that there aren’t any condiments.

“Ready when you are.” I tried to instigate the final steps of my pre-ice-skating-check-up.

“What are you going to put on your burger?” asked my dad. It’s not a burger, but he refuses to accept the fact that a veggie burger is a completely different animal than a burger. In fact it isn’t an animal. He also used to love burgers supposedly. He used to eat burgers with ketchup for lunch every day, mom says. When they lived in New York he used to pour Ketchup on his pasta, and get a McDonalds burger after work. Now that we’re in Maine, my dad eats plain veggie burgers and says that iceberg lettuce is unhealthy.

“Nothing.” I responded. “I don’t feel like having Ketchup. I’ll just eat it plain.” I would have to eat a gross ass veggie burger without anything on it just to prove my point. Maybe mom would need ketchup and bring it out. Then I could use it without being a big hypocrite.

“Fine.” My dad started. And he came to tighten my skates.

I grew up analyzing and sometimes embodying the hypocracies and injustices around me. But they were small. I like to think (hope to think), that if I had grown up around the place I live now that I would have said the same type of things that the kid I tutor said to me yesterday: “I don’t watch Cops, I just look outside.”

Outside.

Horny, My favorites, Nostalgia, Underrated

Why tits and ass seems like a lot of work

I’ve just rediscovered my crush on Lily Allen. On a vaguely similar note, I’ve been unable to add any writing recently to my book. My book is a series of short stories based on events from my life that is to be called Memoirs of a Boy Who Can’t Get Laid. I’ve written nine of the seventeen stories that I’m planning on writing, and I can’t seem to write another one. I know which events I’m planning on writing about, but I can’t get the words on paper. It’s not that I have writer’s block, because I’ve been prolifically writing shit upon shit on this blog, but I’ve been struggling to find the words to describe the feeling of rejection – something I typically feel very connected to.

This is the reason I’ve become refascinated with the British pop star who sings about fucking over guys. I have had many a month since I’ve been rejected fully by a girl. The main reason for this is that I haven’t put myself out there to get rejected, but that seems like a lot of … well you know. So my laziness is now affecting my life in that I haven’t had to experience the feeling of being told I’m not good enough to fuck. And that sucks. I don’t know how to live my life when it doesn’t include being told by women that I don’t deserve to touch their poonanies. So, I’m gonna break my laziness – not for a job, not for love, but rather for the stories. So that, once again, I will understand what it’s like to be deemed sexually inadequate, and, once again, I will be able to write stories about it.

Thank you Lily Allen for waking me out of my lazy funk.

Nahh. This going out shit seems like it will take effort. Instead I’m gonna go get free samples from Whole Foods and awkwardly make eye contact with the MILFs in hopes that they will give me disgusted looks to feed my creative soul.

Indignant, My favorites, Selfish, Underrated

Why being me seems like a lot of work

There are two types of people who ride the bus: People who need to and people who want to need to.

They act very differently on the bus. People who don’t have the means to transport themselves in other ways besides the bus have other friends on the bus. People who could beg mommy and daddy to buy them a used Honda Civic look lonely. The former group is comfortable talking loudly and about personal issues while riding the bus because they are with their fellow community members. The latter group brings a book and stares into its pages as if looking away will cause their parent’s death the second they get on the bus. The poor group always knows how much the bus is and always has exact change. The wanna be poor group either has a bus card subsidized by their college or can never figure out how much money the bus costs and awkwardly holds up the line while they confusedly ask the bus driver why they can’t get change for the five that they just inserted into the money slot. Poor people know how to shave. Non-poor people who ride the bus have 7 o’clock shadow that looks like it has been enhanced with gravel.

I’m, depressingly, part of this second group. I hate myself. I making an addendum to my previous blog post and putting myself at the top of the list of people I have prejudices against. I always bring a book. I don’t have a backpack like my fellow poor-posers but I usually carry folders containing important business documents. I wear a sports jacket and have half a beard scruffily attached to my cheek. I’m a douchenugget.

So I try to align myself as much as possible with the other group – the one I respect more. I wear a hoodie instead of a knit hat. I don’t say thank you to the bus driver. I’ll sit too close to someone instead of standing. I’m not afraid to fall asleep on the bus. When I have phone conversations on the bus, I have them at normal speaking volume. If I had kids, I’d bring them on the bus and tell them to sit four to a seat.

It doesn’t work. I’ve got to much privilege running through my veins. You can’t blend with the lower class while you’re reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay. If the conversations you have at normal speaking volume are about ranking SNLs newest crop of performers, you blow your cover. But I still refuse to belong to the backpack toting confused, lonely, and sad looking Macalester students who accidentally sit in the handicapped section and then awkwardly realize a little too late because they’re entrenched in The People’s History of the United States that they’re supposed to move when an old man in an electric wheelchair nudges them to get out of the way. So I just stay in the limbo area of self-identity.

I’ve always been good at limbo. I am skinny and have amazing balance, so bending over backwards has never been that hard. But I also hate limbo. There’s either too intense of a competition going on, or too little of one. Usually there’s a little of both. I don’t like any game where people get eliminated because then the people who lose really lose out on the fun of playing, but then I get annoyed when some people don’t take those rules seriously, or don’t understand the rules and just go back in for another round when they feel like they might be able to get below a pole that is lower than the pole they couldn’t get lower than. I lost this metaphor.

People who need to ride the bus, don’t constantly try to create meaningful metaphors. DAMNIT!

Indignant, Lazy, My favorites, Pathetic, Underrated

Why hatred seems like a lot of work

I’m not in good shape. I played basketball yesterday and almost threw up and passed out twice. Maybe it was the fact that I had just eaten a Strawberry Cheesequake/Cookie Dough Blizzard, but I think it had more to do with the fact that I haven’t moved at a faster pace than a brisk walk in months. The first time I went up for a layup, I also started seeing tunnel vision and hearing a ringing sound in my ears. Not a good sign.

After that incident I thought about maybe trying to exercise more often. So, I drove the three blocks home from the gym watching all the super-humans who were jogging through the streets. I don’t get jogging. I’m all about doing stuff that involves not going anywhere, but when not going anywhere involves tight fitting pants that aren’t made of leather, and owning an i-pod, I am no longer down.

The other thing I re-realized in my drive home was my hatred for holidays. I’ve always had a problem with the idea of planning to have fun on specific days of the year. I try to have fun on all days of the year, at all hours of the day – that’s why I don’t jog. Nothing illustrates the forced enjoyment that makes me so anti-holiday better than St. Paul on St. Patty’s. As I watched middle aged couples walk hand in hand to O’Gara’s pub for a day of “crazy, earlier than usual drinking” with their gentle smirks as they worried that other pedestrians were judging them because they had decided to wear a bowler cap and a green jersey in an attempt to be wacky but instead were coming off too wacky, I felt like vomiting. That might have been the Cheesequake and cookie dough combination fighting with my body for exerting itself physically, but either way hurling was on my mind and I think it’s correlated to holiday celebration.

My abhorrence with holidays has led me to have a strong prejudice against anyone who says they love Halloween, or Christmas, or Valentines Day, or Easter, or Kwanza. (I don’t have a problem with birthdays, but I think that’s because I love myself, and any holiday that allows me to celebrate me is going to turn me on a little.) But holiday celebrators aren’t the only ones I have prejudices against.

Here’s a list (in order) of my top ten groups of people I have prejudices against:

1) The rich

2) The pretty

3) People who celebrate holidays

4) People who have sex regularly

5) Tall people

6) People who own “Will and Grace” on DVD

7) People who own “Friends” on DVD

8 ) Athletes

9) People with “Emotional problems”

10) People in long term relationships

Obviously I can get over these prejudices. Otherwise I’d have no friends. In fact I’ve dated someone from each of these groups except #1 and #6. I refuse to date anyone from group #6 and I aspire to date someone from group #1 so that I don’t have to work anymore. I mean, work, period.

How am I going to wrap all these ramblings together? I hate holidays, I hate people, and I hate physical exertion. You know what has allowed me to avoid all of those things for the past week? A car. Also, because of the CD player in the car, I’ve learned all the words to that opposites song by Katy Perry.

Lazy, Lonely, My favorites, Underrated

Why laziness seems like a lot of work

Last night I bought a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Americone Dream (sponsored by Stephen Colbert) and sat on my creaky chair that rolls backwards because of the slant in my room’s floor watching Jim Gaffigan’s stand up. It was the comedian’s reaction to being broken up with by a boy. The problem was, I hadn’t been broken up with. I was simply bored.

I don’t think that heartbreak exists – or at least not how most people assume it does. Heartbreak to me is simply the realization that you are soon to be bored. When you are broken up with, your first question is: What am I going to do without them? That’s because we don’t know what we are going to do. What could we possibly occupy our time with if not with that person that we’ve spent the last 2-24 months calling, visiting, and fucking.

So our initial reaction is boredom. Boredom to the XTREME!

Why do we react by eating a pint of haagen dazs or a whole cheesecake? Because if you’ve eaten multiple pounds of pure dairy then your body refuses to allow you to move, thus you can blame your body instead of yourself for being to lazy to go out and dance, or walk your dog, or go to work. Why do we watch shitty shallow movies? Because then you’re completing a task that nobody can expect you to get up in the middle of – even if that task is watching someone else perform a task. Why do we sit on the couch masturbating? Masturbation is just the lazy person’s version of getting some.

Next time some girl/guy breaks it off with you, and you spend the rest of the day watching Hugh Grant movies and eating Phish Food, realize that you’re not heartbroken, you’re just lethargic.

When was the last time you heard of someone being told: “It’s not you, it’s me” and their reaction was to complete a model plane, write a novel, and apply for a new job? Never. Why? Because we’re all really lazy, and we’ll take any excuse we can to act that lazy. Heartbreak just happens to be the one excuse that our society has come to accept.

So, I’ve decided that I’m not a sloth – I’m just constantly heartbroken. The reason I can’t get out of bed in the morning: Some girl stomped all over my feelings. The reason I eat ice cream for breakfast: I miss her and wish she hadn’t pissed on my emotions. The reason I’ve worn the same clothes for four days straight: I can’t look at a new pair of clothes without thinking of her taking a dump on my soul.

Now that I’ve got all my excuses lined up, I’m ready to tackle the world; one jar of peanut butter at a time.

Lazy, Underrated

Why the bus seems like a lot of work

Every Monday and Wednesday I have to tutor two kids. From 4-5pm I tutor a 6^th grader who refuses to listen to his teacher, follow directions, or stop playing Madden on his Playstation when his mom asks him to. I like him. From 6-7pm I tutor an 8^th grader who still adds with his fingers, has a mom who won’t let him play Halo because there is too much killing involved, and takes long drinks of water and pretends to be sleepy when he doesn’t want to do math. I… am okay with him. I usually have to set an alarm on these, oh so busy, days so that I make sure I have all my shit ready for my two long hours of work.

Every Monday and Wednesday I tell myself I’m going to leave the house at 2:15 and print out the materials I need for tutoring, prepare the lesson plan for the day, and eat a decent meal before I leave.

Every Monday and Wednesday I play a game on kongregate.com until 2:55 then realize I haven’t brushed my teeth yet today and am still wearing my towel. I run out the door at 3:15, sprinting to catch the 3:21 bus to get to my tutoring appointment. I spend half my time on the bus formulating a plan of action that won’t involve the lesson plans that I forgot to print out (this usually involves scribbling math problems on the backs of old lesson plans). The other half of the time I’m on the bus, I’m regretting the fact that I forgot to bring a book to read.

I have to wait 10 minutes in the freezing cold between my two busses I have to take to get to my 6^th grader and it’s because of those ten minutes that I have seriously contemplated quitting my one form of barely-income. It sometimes doesn’t seem worth $18.75 to huddle around a “warming” lamp with a bunch of other poor people.

After tutoring my first student, I have to take the busses back home for my second student. Since I’ve already been annoyed by waiting in the cold, and because I’ve only eaten one “bowl” of cereal at this point in the day (read my first blog entry for an explanation of what a “bowl” is), I usually grab a $0.99 Chicken Snacker and a small Frosty from Wendy’s while I wait for the bus. I always sit in a seat near the window so I can see down the street far enough that I will spot the bus coming before it gets to the stop, then I cross the street and get on the bus while it waits for the red light to change. Today the bus came before I finished my meal. I still had two bites left of my sandwich and I had only slurped down half of my frosty.

I pulled a Kobayashi, shoving the chicken down my throat and chugging my frosty in the time it took me to get to the trash can. Then I ran out the door to catch the bus. You know what’s more painful than sprinting immediately after eating the cheapest thing on a fast food menu? No, you don’t. Because nothing is more painful. It’s like your body is saying: “seriously dude? You really thought any of the things you just did were a good idea? Are you trying to kill me? You know what, fuck you. I’m gonna make you feel an ounce of pain for each year you just took off your life. That’s like a pound of pain. And a pound of pain is a large amount of pain. It hurts.”

When I finally got to the bus, breathing like a 500 pound man on a treadmill, I tried to say thank you to the bus driver but it came out “spanks” and I had a little frosty come back up into my mouth.

I made it to my second tutoring assignment and walked home. I think I’m gonna go to sleep early today, I’m tired.

Lazy, My favorites, Pathetic, Underrated

Why the third dimension seems like a lot of work

Chuck came out in 3D on Monday. I don’t have a television, but I do have a new-age-television that displays programs a day late (a computer). After some diligent research – going to hulu.com – I found that the 3D version of the pseudo-comedy spy show was online.

Chuck is not a great show. It’s not even a really good show. It’s also not a really bad show. So I have watched every episode of this season, and I sure wasn’t going to miss this once in a lifetime event of watching television in 3D. Something about watching my computer perform 3D action while I lie on my bed in my boxers and eat cereal out of the box and drink soy-milk from the carton because I’m too lazy to wash a bowl and spoon felt… pathetic isn’t the right word… mind-blowing. Mind-blowing is the right word.

One problem though, I didn’t have any 3D glasses. I assumed you had to go to some grocery store and get them for free. Well Whole Foods is right next door. I didn’t really think they’d have the glasses, but it was worth a try. So, after watching Heroes, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and searching for any new shows to pass the time, I finally pulled myself out of bed and took a shower. By the time I cleaned up and convinced myself it was worth going outside, it was 4pm. Whole Foods awaits!

Of course they don’t actually have 3D glasses at Whole Foods, but I did get some free cheese samples and bought a new product they were selling – cottage cheese in single serving yogurt containers. They had different flavors too! There was Pomegranate Orange Cranberry, Cucumber Dill, and Sundried Tomato Basil Pesto.

Lately I’ve been trying to go with my second choice. My instinct always leads me to the same type of experience, and so I’ve been testing out a theory that my second choice has more variance. Maybe I won’t have my favorite option each time, but I will experience more things, and that’s important. My friend Wes once said; “At any given point, I’d rather be playing Warcraft.” While he does play a fair amount of the tower defense game, he does more than just sit in front of his monitor and pretend he’s defending the ogres from the elves… or whatever. This is because while he recognizes that each individual point of his life would be better spent playing Warcraft, the entirety of his life would be worse off if he spent it on his computer. I’ve always liked his sentence and have used it multiple times to articulate my feelings. I once used this mantra in order to tell a girl I love her with out using those four icky letters. “At any given point, I’d rather be spending it with you, but that doesn’t mean I can spend every moment with you and be happy.” I was also using it to defend the fact that I had spent the last three nights with my boys instead of with her.

Anyway, I headed on home to try my sundried tomato basil pesto cottage cheese, whose combination of flavors was depressing me more and more the more I think about how well the cranberries would have complimented the oranges, and how deliciously the oranges and pomegranates would have mixed. I sat down at my computer, stared blankly at the screen and openned up my packaged cottage cheese. It was gross, if you were wondering. I’ve never liked cottage cheese, I’m just a sucker for fun flavors, and they got me.

I searched online where I could find 3D glasses to watch this decent spy-comedy and came up with this list of establishments.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/01/28/where-to-get-3-d-glasses-for-the-3d-super-bowl-ads-and-chuck-update/11681
There is a CVS and a Roundy’s establishment down on university which is 1.6 miles away. I guess I wasn’t doing that today. I convinced myself that it was because the website had said that CVS only carried them in select stores, and the Rainbow foods may be a Roundy’s associate, but I’m not sure if they count as Roundy’s enough to carry 3D glasses. I didn’t want to walk nearly two miles on a trip that could be fruitless. Also, it was already dark outside, and I don’t want to make any trips in the dark. I might as well make dinner and try to go to sleep.

I made dinner – again cereal and soymilk out of their containers – tried to call up some friends to no avail, and went back to my bed with my computer. After a lot of soul searching, I finally watched Chuck in 2D.

That was a big day – went outside a little, tried to search for something on the internet, ate three meals, took a shower – I was quite productive.

Nisse Greenberg

Category Archives: Underrated