The Bloggy Blogface!

 A letter to my older doppelganger self spotted at a very large department store Hello,      This may come off as rather bizarre, but I know who you are and why you are here tonight. Creepy, I know - but please allow me to explain. You are quite possibly some thirty years my senior, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. You see, you are me in the future. In shape (hopefully), shopping alone, and sporting that increasingly irritated look on your face. I couldn't help but notice your sheer disdain of even being at this behemoth repository on such a wild evening. I'm sure your wife sent you here on your own to get some items for her, and for some reason you begrudgingly accepted the task. It's raining like a motherfucker outside, no? I had to park hundreds of yards away myself, since all the lazy asses here hogged all the spots near the building. I made it inside without anyone splooshing big puddles on me, and it looks like you were able to keep dr...

     For lunch today, I had a Thai peanut chicken bagel sandwich. Had being a choice word, as I was barely able to keep the bagel together and enjoy it in its entirety. The ingredients kept slipping out, in addition to the bagel itself being poorly cut in half. I powered through most of it like a champion, and that's of utmost importance. I am not a fan of sloppy sandwiches, so it's unlikely I'll be enjoying this again anytime soon. On the side was a little container of peanut sauce, where you could either drizzle onto the bagel or simply dunk it down. It made for quite the delicacy, and I was looking forward to using the sauce more and more as the sandwich became less and less. But soon that joy was gone.  I feel a strong sense of sorrow for those who have a peanut allergy. I mean I really feel bad for them. Imagine going through life never able to have Reese's products. Never able to enjoy PB & J. It's dreadful, because peanuts are awesome. Peanut bu...

Welcome to America, ebola! Glad to have you. Well, alright, we're probably not that glad to have you. But that's okay. The awkwardness will wear itself out soon enough. So, what brings you to America? Really? You don't say? Well, that is really terrible. Oh wow. I didn't know that. Well, it seems like you might not be too popular with the townsfolk there, so maybe it's a good thing you left. Or maybe you haven't left there, it seems. Looks like you've been coming over here from time to time. Great. Um..sure. Well, uh, maybe you should just have a seat way over there for a bit. And don't spit on me, please. Does anyone have a hazmat suit I can borrow? Anyway, I thought you'd like to know just how much we love you here, we really do. It may not seem like it, but we care deeply. We want to understand you better, learn what makes you tick, and maybe develop better medicine to..well, fight you. Fight? Sorry, that's too negative. To... work with y...

        Last week, with just a few short clicks, I put to rest (or likely, a Rip Van Winkle-esque nap) my internet version of an ankle monitor. I've tried this plenty of times before, so I am not putting much stock into it for the time being. The URL still rests in the drop down menu, Google magically filling in what it thinks I must be looking for whenever I type anything with an "f" or the word "book." Chrome auto-fill settings can be such a manipulative little bitch. Come on, it's right here, ready for you.  No. Not any time soon.  There were events that led up to this unhinging. For starters, a long time ago I disabled commenting. For some reason, this upset a great deal of people. Birthdays would pass and people would get very angry because they couldn't write on my wall. Okay then. Noted. Interestingly enough, once I removed my date of birth from my profile, the happy birthday notifications died down considerably.  Another action I...

     On a casual jaunt to the local grocery store for items I probably don't  need  as much as I  want , I came across a startling discovery. Within the empty trenches of a recently-obtained hand basket, I caught glimpse of the above grocery list. This is important! Or, was important at one time or another. They seem like critical items, almost hastily composed. Let's analyze the list, in order - Raisins - this seems so out of place here. The fact it is listed on top of the first item on the first line suggests to me it was a last-minute add.  Fuck, I need raisins! And this folded paper is too small to fit it in! 2lbs ground beef - Two pounds! That's a lot. Well, not really. They must be feeding more than one person. And what kind of ground beef? 90% fat free? All the fats? It's not quite specific, meaning whomever wrote it likely doesn't give a shit. 12 peppers - Twelve! They had better be making this right away, because twelve peppers t...

     "Your leg looks disgusting, Bob" I'm reaching back into the congested bowels of my parent's refrigerator when I hear my mother say these words while staring at my left leg. I know it was my left leg she was staring at, because that is where all of this crap started way back when almost fifteen years ago. Shortly after that day when all of this crap started, I was dipping my ankle into a bowl of ice water. My mother was convinced I had somehow sprained it, even though I wasn't feeling any pain. I believed her. Maybe it's an internal sprain. Maybe it's so internal I can't even feel it. The ice water, aside from freezing the hell out of my ankle and foot, naturally did nothing to remedy the situation. The ankle was considerably swollen, and the rest of the calf wasn't looking much better. I had no idea what was going on, but I didn't have time to worry about any of that. I was getting ready to ship on down to The Pelican State. I chroni...

   I was just finishing up with dinner at a friend's house yesterday when I heard the news. I wasn't particularly shocked by it so much as saddened. Robin Williams was a fantastic entertainer, performer, and one of the best comedic improvisers I have ever seen. All of us should be grateful we were around to have seen him now, in the moment, instead of settling for bygone Youtube highlights. In the coming weeks, we can expect considerable dialogue about the severity of depression, which is what ultimately took Williams' life. It is already happening across many forms of social media, where faux-machismo tends to reign supreme. There, tough guys exert their bravado and call each other a pussy , or a fag , for not being "man enough" to handle something such as whatever it may have been Williams struggled with throughout his life. It's comically sad, but very much not surprising. All one should do in order to witness proof we're still among some of the lowe...

   My grade school education was one of considerable peaks and valleys that I have since managed to tuck way in the back corner of my mind. In other words, I don't often reminisce my time with it. It was there, it happened, things were learned, and then I left. I'm always grateful for all the teachers, coaches, guidance counselors, and hell, even the janitors along the way who made sure I kept my mind fresh, focused, and relatively out of trouble. Like most grade school kids, I may have made a few mistakes from time to time, but I left with no regrets and quite thankfully, a diploma in my hand. The most difficult adjustment I faced throughout my education in this town came at the hands of the district itself. I can trace it all the way back to the beginning of third grade. My father had recently been laid off from a railroad company that was rapidly losing money and other services to the opposition. Both my sister and I were enrolled in Catholic school at the time, obliviou...

   I returned to my old stomping grounds in upstate New York just a couple of months ago, seeking relief for whatever was ailing me down in the hills of North Carolina. A slight challenge readjusting to the norms here, with that banal way of life always tugging at me to get the hell out of here time and again. For now, it's a good place for me. A self-imposed sabbatical to get my mind fresh again. As with many of my occasions here, returning home comes the inevitable opinions I form concerning the state of decay with this particular town. Streets I walked to schools - once filled with vibrant families, nice cars, and toys scattered on front lawns - now sit boarded up, condemned by health departments and HUD inspectors. Buildings completely disappeared from where I thought they were, now nothing but barren, shoddy parking lots with weeds bursting through asphalt cracks. My own childhood home is now inhabited by folks who seem too incompetent to own a home, tearing apart and ...

      Summer is about to blitz all up into your glaucoma-ridden eyeballs with lush amounts of sunshine, so you might as well get yourself some shades soon before it's all too late. I've yet to see Noah's Ark these last few days here in upstate New York. I'm expecting to soon, given the gallons of rain we've endured the last few days. The sun has refused to make an an appearance, much like it does here in the fall. Great! More time to do things outdoors before humidity might as well take a rusty jackhammer to my sinuses. The jackhammers wouldn't have been necessary in the great southwest. I'm talking Phoenix. Desert. Sun. Dryness. People that STEAL CARS YOU FUCKING ASSHOL...er, sorry. Anyway, that town was nuts, man. A good nuts. Hot nuts. Yeah, really hot. That's it. That town needed something, man. On one particular newscast, a local station featured an interesting story. A random gal severely disinterested in motherhood decided to say fu...

    I was, to put it mildly, an absolutely disgusting high school cross-country runner. No, disgusting is not slang for good. I mean bad. Real bad. A teammate - who wasn't a very proficient runner himself - often competed in what appeared to be casual street shoes or cross trainers. During some races I finished behind him. This happened for a variety of reasons, none of which have to do with him probably being a better runner than me. The most critical reason why I often found myself in the middle or close to the end of the pack of meet competitors is the fact that at some point during the races, I just stopped caring. I mentally shut down. Gave up. Waved a white flag. Why the hell am I even here? , I'd ask myself. Literally hundreds of runners have passed me already, and I'm barely halfway through. There may have been a race or two where I actually stopped running once we got into the woods and knew there was no chance of anyone seeing me. I'd walk a couple steps,...

     Recently, one of my housemates received a chair in the mail. A 1970's art deco chair, faux-white snakeskin with a chrome bottom. The chair was not in a package, but rather completely assembled. No stickers, no packing slips, nothing attached to it. It sat there right outside the main door, fully put together and just hanging out waiting to be used. Or maybe it was already used? Could whomever delivered a couple Amazon boxes with it have simply been returning the chair, as if they borrowed it? I dragged the boxes and chair inside, perplexed. I sent a picture to my friend, inquiring if he knew anything about the chair. Initially, he did not. A few moments passed where I began to make some sort of connection with the chair. It looked remarkably similar to one of the chairs in my bedroom. In fact, it looked exactly like that chair. What sorcery is this? , I asked myself. Someone did borrow the chair! Could she have just bought the exact same chair? Given the rare s...

     From 2001-03, I called the northwest corner of Louisiana my home. My initial foray into the real world was met with a trip halfway across the country - a trip that consisted of a thirty-six hour bus ride (with plenty of transfers in sketchy towns in between) and a friend in Little Rock who took me the rest of the way to the Pelican State. Prior to this, my only moment spent in the state was interviewing for the position. That was early June, where I hopped aboard a couple planes and was whisked away to campus for hours upon hours of interrogation. The interview process wasn't really that bad, but what was bad was my ill-fated idea to take a walk around campus shortly after the interview ended. I was drenched in sweat upon my return, completely oblivious that the humidity there stuck around much longer than it did back in upstate New York. Regardless, I was in love. I was in love with this idea of continuing (starting, maybe?) my life elsewhere. The first few weeks...

 I guess I'm either just old-fashioned, or an old fart (probably both), but a brief moment during this year's Westminister Kennel Club Dog Show made me cringe for what remains of our culture. Lost among all the captivating bulldogs, dalmatians, sheepdogs and other breeds was the lack of care by some human beings during what should be a considerable duteous moment. The guilty party in question? Some gal in the stands. That's right, in the stands. She had nothing to do with the show at all. Well, she kind of did. She paid her $55.00 to get in and watch all the adorable doggies. Totally worth the cost of admission, sure. But what she did...what...she...did...! Unfortunately I do not have a screen grab of the incident. What I do have, however, is a grab from a sporting event that depicts the exact same thing. Maybe it's the same girl, who knows. Can you spot it? Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not some sort of patriotic nationalist or anything of the sor...

     My horror was brought to life a few short nights ago while shoving appetizers in my face at a fancy chain restaurant. It was at this very place I discovered, to my devastation, the interaction of two gentlemen that defied the laws of the utmost manliest logic. The characters, one bartender and one patron, delivered such a lecherous dialogue that I was almost prompted to ask them to surrender their man cards immediately. The gorging commenced in style, casually nibbling on all the delicious hopefully-not-microwaved offerings of boneless wings, spinach dip, and washing it all down with a couple Blue Moons. The patron, an older mustached fellow, apparently had been there for a couple hours, enjoying himself while waiting for dinner to be served. He was quite chatty with a friend who sat next to him briefly, but eventually the friend parted. This left our loquacious protagonist with our trusty bartender, a seemingly late twenty-something guy with considerable ink o...

Eyeballs are very dumb. Mostly in how we have to take care of them. Such a drag. Most of us have two of them, and that's pretty awesome. Some of us only have one, and that's still okay. Maybe more honorable, depending on how you only have just the one. Some of us have none, and that's both unfortunate and perhaps honorable, again depending on the back story. Above all, eyeballs are just stupid. Yeah, I'm talking to you, eyeballs. You and your gross composition of fluids and membranes and rods and cones and photoreceptor cells. I hate touching you. In fact, I can't even touch you. It freaks me the hell out, much like touching soft foam does. Nobody touches you. Not even the eye doctor lady trying to put contacts in for the very first time. That experience lasted roughly forty seconds until I was slumped on the floor outside of the bathroom, my brain and stomach nauseous from the mere idea of someone touching my eyeball. You literally make me sick just thinking a...

 In case you haven't noticed or anything, it's winter. How do I know? Because everyone is complaining about it. Some places are recording record lows all across this land. Here in western North Carolina for example, we had recent overnight wind chills of maybe twenty below zero. It's pretty brutal, and like most stories, aren't legit enough unless they include some ration of death. How many deaths have there been? Depends on where you read, really. Six? Seven? Two-hundred? Which one draws the most shock, and more importantly, more ratings? Throw around some cliches like "...cold enough to take your breath away" , or "life-threatening wind chill" , and what we have is another painstakingly desperate state of panic.  The most enjoyable part of this cold chill - I'm sorry, I guess the trendy correct  reactionary ratings term for this is Polar Vortex - is not so much mainstream media's orgasmic reaction to it, but by overly-cliche re...