24 Things I Think About on a Regular Basis

1.  Day to Night Barbie.  She was amazing and well before her time--career woman who may or may not fill her brief case with trashy magazines. Likes a cocktail or two after work.  Wears a pencil skirt and a sequined top at the same time, and pulls it all together with pink Candies.  Every bit of yes.

2.  Why would anyone wear knock off TOMS?  They are hideous and not really that comfortable and the only reason to buy them is to show the world that you are a selfless saint who will compromise style to make sure less fortunate orphans or whatever have a pair of shoes.  If you wear knock off TOMS, you are a horrible human being. The end.


3.  Pears are the sexiest fruit.


4.  Why does Just Fab think my name is Debbie?  Reason 915 why I  have yet to shop with them.


5.  Why is all the food labeled "snack size" food you would never make an actual meal out of anyway?  Is anyone really eating Baby Ruths for dinner?  Full disclosure:  I have, I am, and will probably continue to do so.


6.  This conversation:
    
      Joe: I don't see how you can eat that blue cheese.  Blue cheese tastes like the way crayons smell.
      Me days later eating blue cheese in a salad and thinking to myself "damn it!  he's right!": So
      now you've ruined blue cheese for me.  I think it's only fair that you know I don't like brie
      because it tastes like semen."
      Joe:  The only thing I've taken away from this conversation is that semen must be delicious.


7.   Almost everyone I meet is just a different version of someone I already know. 


8.   And it is likely that I have imagined what you look like as a muppet and/or a Planet of the Apes character.  I'm probably doing it right now.


9.  But I also think it's pretty rare for someone to be truly ugly.  I can usually pick out something attractive about anyone's face.  Even if they are wearing knock off TOMS. 


10.  Beautiful women usually have the most disgusting feet.


11.  Why is there always an unwrapped baguette in a grocery bag on television--as if everyone only buys and eats bread that has been laying in the open air and rubbed against every homeless person on the subway before it makes its way into the kitchen.


12.  Why has every city had a Great Fire or Great Flood? 


13.  Running away from home.


14.  Watching Anne of Green Gables in elementary school.


15. Why are contest winners always so awful?


16.  If an unwanted kiss or grope is now considered sexual assault across the board, how many times have I been sexually assaulted?


17.  And how many times have I been the assaulter?


18.  Death and dead bodies don't bother me.  I think about this on a regular basis because chances are if there is a fatal car accident, I pass by before the carnage is covered up.  I've somehow been present at enough deaths for this to be a thing.


19.  "Sweet Nothings"  I guess I don't understand this olden times term as a concept. Every song that mentions sweet nothings is usually about people who are fucking (or holding hands since it's 1960) on a regular basis.  If these whispers were "nothing" then they would be more appropriate in a song like "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" because obviously this guy is saying shit all willy-nilly to get into someone's pants.  And therefore it truly means "nothing".  Otherwise, it's just two people in love actually being nice to each other.


20.  Do my pets realize when I'm naked?


21.  I have to stop reading Chuck Klosterman.  I can't write when I read his work for fear that I will totally rip off everything he puts on paper.  He writes almost exactly the way I speak.  He validates and shares almost all of my opinions.  Reading Klosterman is like sitting on a friend's couch in your pajamas.  He makes you feel better by not giving any advice at all, but just by letting you be disgusting and letting you know that he's been through the exact same ridiculous bullshit.  He's not especially profound, just there to get stoned and help you eat a whole pizza, and probably be really uncomfortable when you cry. And he's probably heard this from all the girls, so it's really just best if Chuck and I break up.


22.  Who decided what would be acceptable to eat?  What asshole said 'let me break open this rock and see if something slimy is in it that I could put on a saltine'--or pulled a potato out of the dirt under a pile of buffalo turds and thought it would be a good idea to put it in their mouth?  (And see, I almost said mastodon instead of buffalo because I just read this Klosterman thing about mastodons.)  And to be fair--I know I am not in any way unique with this thought.  It's a conversation that happens on a daily basis I'm sure.


23.  Choosing between Ryan Reynolds and Ryan Gosling.  It's one of the hardest 'what if' scenarios I've ever had to ponder.  Ryan G. is smoldering and sexy and sensitive and likely to just push me up against a wall and have a go.  But Ryan R. would buy me a beer and make me laugh, and he doesn't seem to realize how freakishly beautiful he is, so I wouldn't be self conscious about my Michelin Man physique.


24.  Exactly four months from today I will be 40.

I'm a Lincoln monologue...

So
mutha
fuckin
uninspired.
I don't even have the words for dumb blondes in ill-fitting denim jumpsuits.
the pillow too cool to want out of bed-
my body too heavy-
the ground too wet.
And you
too phone addicted for conversation.
And me
all décolletage,
and blunt bangs before botox.


unfinished books
unread mail
unfiltered cigarettes


pressure points
pressure gauges
pressure cookers


I have no insults for your inadvertent normcore,
no patience for your incoherent intonation.


fabric walls
Velcro
ergonomics


flu shots and pot lucks


I can't even muster up a hard on for my side piece.
I can't even bring myself to judge.
I.
can't.
even.
bored by my own stories
bored by my own songs
bored by my own breath
so




mutha




fuckin...

Motion in the ocean! Ooo Ahhh...

Road Trip 2016.  Part Quatre.

We left Salem and drove toward Maine--straight into a nor'easter.  OK, it probably wasn't actually a nor'easter.  But the sky was black, the lightning was fierce, and the rain came hard-and then harder.  So I creeped off of an exit in New Hampshire and into the parking lot of a not new 7-Eleven connected to a crappy car lot behind a chain link fence.  I'm not sure what I was expecting--Jessica Fletcher tending her flowers?--I just feel like New England should be all duck shoes and chinos with sensible haircuts.  But there I was eating gas station pickles looking at giant pickups and windowless Pontiacs.  And the same ol' rednecks I could see at home.   I guess I know now how bro-country got so popular.  It's not just a regional problem.
When we finally reached Maine I wanted to tell everyone that I'd survived a "wicked pissah!!"  But almost immediately upon arrival I learned that a wicked pissah is not a storm.  It's a good time of sorts-and I had not had one of those.  But just like I knew it would, the Pine Tree State stole my heart.  Aside from a liquor war with NH, a racist Governor, and the homophobic LL Bean, it's exactly where I'd like to be someday. 
I lost myself in ridiculous book stores.  I wondered how there could be zero garbage in the streets when there were zero garbage cans to be found anywhere (side note: there is also no place to buy gum).  I reveled in an art scene with nary a millennial hipster in sight--though a man-bun did serve me the most beautiful cup of coffee I've ever had.  I touched a piece of the Berlin wall (because what Jew wants to actually go to Germany?)  I fell in love with the roadside motels of Orchard Beach.  Further north I wandered into local bars with neon Budweiser signs and faux wood paneled walls. Toothless lady bartenders eyed my bag and stared at my nails.  Craggy old regulars offered me shots. 
I went into the smallest place I could find to experience a lobster roll for the first time.  I took a seat on a torn vinyl stool at the bar.  A latte-skinned woman glistening with sweat called me babe and slid it to me in a plastic basket.  It was the classic. No frills.  A buttered English roll overflowing with hunks of lobster meat.  Just a touch of dressing.  I'm not usually a lobster girl but I do as the Romans do--and it was perfect. My wife on the other hand, skeptical of her surroundings, decided to hold out for something else.  Somewhere along the way we ended up in a slick, trendy distillery where an unimpressed girl with an ironic 60s librarian haircut served up wifey's lunch.  Fuck around in a foodie town and find yourself picking pork rinds and pickled radishes out of your 'lobster roll'.
The last day there I went full tourist.  Whale watching and swimming with dolphins, their babies no bigger than my house cat-so close I could hear their little baby blow holes. I watched an adorable seal brutally mutilate and eat some poor sea creature, and let that be my consolation for not seeing any puffins.  And though I was warned by highway signs to be on the lookout for them, I did not see a single moose.  Maybe next time...

#FBF

I first noticed my imminent adulthood in an abandoned hospital bathroom. I had a cousin who contracted spinal meningitis as a toddler and my parents funded the majority of his recovery. During this time I spent most of my weekends with my grandmother at the children's hospital while my parents were away. I stayed bored and often found myself exploring places I probably shouldn't have been. One day I took what was left of my amputated kin along for the ride. I pushed his wheelchair into a wing of the hospital that had been closed for years. The walls were a sickly green, decorated with mosaics haphazardly glued by special needs children years ago. The halls smelled of stale sickness, and every step I took brought a tinny echo back to me. Our voices seemed like screams in the vacant halls. And even though it would be a while before I saw a place like this in the movies, I still felt a fear that something wicked could jump from any shadow. I realized I had to use the bathroom and just left him and his wheelchair outside of the avocado green bathroom door. It was there that I looked down and saw the most vile thing that could've ever happened in that wing. There they were, two, maybe three of them--course and black against the pale baby skin of my pubic bone. I couldn't stop looking at them. I knew what it meant but didn't know what it meant next. I didn't want to touch them for fear they would fall out, and I couldn't tell anyone because--well, because. I know I stood in that old bathroom for 20 minutes while my invalid cousin sat outside the door--legless, probably terrified or in excruciating pain. When I finally got myself together and came out, I told him I was shitting. He giggled all the way back to his room. When we were asked what we were doing for so long, he looked at me and said we had gone to the fountain outside. He thought he was keeping a grown up secret--that I had cursed, or maybe that I had shit. But what he didn't know is that he was helping me hold on to my childhood.

40 Things About Adam

1. he smoked Marlboro Lights
2. he drank Coors Light and Wild Turkey
3. he was a winker
4. and a biter
5. he kissed me every single time someone pointed a camera at us
6. he had the blackest hair
7. and the bluest eyes
8. he has a 17 year old son
9. he had no shame in living at home with this mother
10. sometimes he shaved letters into his body hair just to get a reaction
11. he was rarely ever angry
12. he had one tattoo
13. he was an inventor
14. he had horrible taste in music
15. and sang badly at karaoke
16. but loved good books
17. he had a lifeguard's body, and sometimes wore those orange shorts in public
18. he wore a watch every day--even when the battery died and it took him weeks to replace it
19. he grew up in a house full of women
20. he would do a line and want to mow the lawn at four in the morning
21. he'd make fun of me for the way I could do a line, eat a sandwich, and go to sleep
22. but he'd always bring me hangover food in bed
23. I gave a woman a permanent scar over him
24. he was much smarter than almost everyone gave him credit for
25. he once took me out in sweats after I'd gotten home from sleeping in a van for two weeks and    hadn't showered in as many days
26. and then he called me the most beautiful girl in the room in front of everyone there
27. he'd say "let's go make dumb girls jealous" and take me dancing
28. he wore vintage jackets and leopard print flip flops because he gave no fucks
29. he had blonde fuzz on his earlobes
30. he thought hpnotiq was ridiculous, but would eat cherry bombs till he couldn't see
31. women (and a lot of men) practically dropped their pants at the sight of him
32. he always pretended not to notice the attention
33. he never judged. anyone. ever.
34. he loved kids, and taught them to swim
35. he talked to everyone, whether they wanted him to or not
36. he was just a little bit aimless
37. he was a gentleman
38. he was a jackass
39. one night in July 2003 he was out with a crowd I didn't want to be with. and I told him so. but he wanted to hug and kiss and nuzzle my neck. I looked him in the eye and said "fuck you Adam". And turned. And walked away. And left him where he stood.
40. he died five hours later.

I've been told it's beautiful to see this time of year...

2016 Road Trip.  Part Trois.

I woke up alone in Brooklyn on a twin bed under Minions sheets.  I took a sticky, unairconditioned shower in a window facing the street.  I drank strong coffee and ate a gigantic egg bagel--which I never forgo up north, no matter in whose company I find myself or the amount of lye involved.  And then it was time to crawl over the bridge and out of the city into New England.
Some highway construction and GPS confusion sent me into New Haven, so I took the opportunity to explore Yale's campus and the people milling about it.  Floppy-haired boys with belts, blonde girls in day dresses.  Lining up outside of popular pizza places on tree lined streets.  I wondered what my life would've been like if I'd gone to the Ivy League school I was meant for-or even finished school on time-and met a nice boy there who wanted to take care of me.  I almost wondered it out loud but remembered my wife was there too.  Scrolling through facebook in the passenger seat.  So I found my way back to the highway.  Through redirected lanes and construction zones, Rhode Island, Boston, some slum--it was on to the next destination, Salem, MA.
Which at night was everything I wanted it to be.  Foggy, too quiet, leering statues at unexpected turns, a proper Irish pub-but by day a little less romantic.  Vaccination clinics and law offices sprinkled among the tourist shops, each one the same as the next and all manned by bookish emo fatties. And in the light of day a little disappointing that the whole witch hunt affair was just the out of control cattiness of a gaggle of Mean Girls. Though I of course found the one place I could buy a coyote jaw (and maybe even a Mogwai or something) and was given a tarot card, which I would later learn was because I have practically the same face as a young woman put on trial for witchcraft.
But there is obviously some real history here, and plenty of kitsch.  Jon Bon Jovi served me breakfast. There's a healthy appreciation for Bewitched. And the wax museums give every bit of 1989 low budget realness-and thankfully, air conditioning.  All that said, Samantha and those Mean Girls aside--I still believe in witches.

Patrick Dougherty-StickWork

Thompkins H. Matteson, 1853

We'll go to Coney and eat bologna on a roll...

2016 Road Trip.  Part Deux.



Having survived Lexington Market it was time to make my way to the always ass-numbing Jersey Turnpike.  Smooth sailing other than Mickey and Mallory Knox from North Carolina in the car ahead at the toll booth heading out of Baltimore.  Mickey drove shirtless and clearly unshowered, giving the finger to every northbound horn honker who refused to let him into the cash only lane--Mallory beside him,  alternately leaning into the shattered windshield and out of the passenger window to take pictures of anything and everything.  Including the toll both worker.  The old Celica held together with bungee cords.  I'm sure neither of them were wearing shoes, but they probably got some slippers at whatever county jail they ended up in.
But $6200 in tolls and four hours later, I made it to Surf Ave.-Brooklyn.  My intent was to spend a couple hours at Coney Island then surprise some friends in Greenpoint--but what have we learned about what really happens when WGW wants to do something?  Of course when I suggested this I may as well have been swallowing a sword.  So instead I sat drinking Kentucky moonshine in New York while my wife and her friend talked about all the people in West Virginia that I don't know. Then the rain set in.
This is how I like my amusement parks.  A little ominous--like an eighties child's cartoon with the villain drawn to appeal to the parents.  With a staff whose very last priority is you having a good time. I want to give a pretty Middle Eastern boy in an alley $30.00 to park my car--and watch the nausea come over my travel companions as they debate whether or not we'll ever see him again.  I want to watch people take wedding photos, then see them berated by knock-off Hello Kitty for not tipping her.  I want to drink beer and eat knish at a boardwalk Go Go dance party (and you all know how I feel about Go Go).
I want to know there's still a good kind of wrong place in the world.  Where the word freak isn't dirty. Where family friendly clashes with burlesque--cotton candy with dumpster dust.  Where I can see the ocean from a cage in the sky.