My foot hurts. Like, bad. And it's getting worse. It hurt a little bit after the 16-mile run almost two weeks ago. It hurt enough more on Saturday that I didn't run my 12. And now it hurts like I dropped a bowling ball on it. I wonder how long the denial will last ... and when I'll finally admit that I should see someone about it before the marathon.
We're out of food. I was in Iowa for a small-ish family emergency last weekend and the husband has been traveling for work for most of the last week and I've been living at work since I got back and we're so out of food I actually ate crackers for dinner tonight. And the last of the eggs. And the last of the cheese. And the last of the jelly. Now all that's left is grapes.
I hate grapes. That deserves its own bold listing. I'll eat grapes because they're supposed to be good for me, but they're tart and slimy and they make my TMJ tingle and they go bad easily and they freak me out so I refuse to like them.
It's cold. Fall = the death of summer. Which = the death of hot guys in shorts and tank tops. So fall = the death of all things good and wholesome and true. Fall should be renamed I Kick Puppies. And cold weather makes me want to snuggle in bed instead of hop up and be productive. And when the husband's gone all week, what is the point of snuggling in bed?
My TiVo doesn't work. It freezes up when I try to watch stuff on it. It hasn't updated its menu since the Sotomayor hearings. And it takes at least half an hour to warm up to do the few piddly functions it can handle.
My disk drive doesn't work. When I stick in a CD, it thinks about it for a couple seconds and just spits it back out. Very disrespectful.
My cell phone loses battery power faster and faster. I'm holding out on replacing it until Apple wakes up and makes an iPhone that works with a cellular service that isn't a joke.
I'm going through withdrawal. I haven't had a refreshingly delicious, caffeine-laden diet carbonated beverage in over 72 hours. And I miss the chemicals. My body needs the chemicals, man. But I don't want to drink anything dehydrating for two weeks before the marathon so I went cold turkey after the #3 McDonald's value meal I snarfed down on my drive home from Iowa on Sunday. And frankly, I don't miss the jumpy Diet Coke tummy. Or the rusty Diet Coke breath. But I do miss the refreshingly delicious, caffeine-laden carbonated chemical rush. Oh, do I miss it. I miss it more than Sally misses Ben. Or abstinence-only education misses reality. Or the pope misses relevance.
Matt missed a hair. I got my nose waxed on Monday. Because I refuse to have old-man spiders hanging out of my nose. It hurts worse than the stupid that drools out of Maggie Gallagher, but ten seconds of pain keeps the spiders at bay for over a month. But Matt (he's the nose waxer) seems to have missed one stray spider leg. And getting up from my computer to find a scissors so I can cut it seems exhausting.
My foot hurts. Still. But I'm also still in denial. So all I can do about it right now is complain.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Married Republican Senators I have had sex with
Actually, this blog post is not about anyone I have had sex with, married Republican Senator or not. (Don’t piss me off, though, Vitter.) But the above title was way more interesting than my first attempt: Marathon clarification.
But since we’re on the subject, I should probably clarify from my last post that two weeks from Sunday is not my last marathon. Just my last time running Chicago. I’m guaranteed (so I understand) to run New York in November 2010. And as my dreams of running any marathon in under four hours have dried up more thoroughly than Maggie Gallagher’s inner beauty, so have my dreams of running Chicago and New York back-to-back.
Besides, I have completely lost interest in running marathons. But I really want to experience New York, so I’m going to spend one more summer training. And then I’m retiring from the sport. If a slow old guy who has no hope of ever finishing in the top half of any major marathon again can technically “retire.”
So: Chicago this year. New York next year. Then I wipe my ass with my running shoes and take up recreational Oreo gorging.
Actually, I already have a bit of a lack-of-control issue with Oreos. But I’m not ready to talk about that right now.
I can, however, list for you the reasons I’m all marathoned out:
1. It hurts. And the older I get, the more it hurts. And not in the motivating, I-can-be-bigger-than-this-pain kind of way.
2. It’s a second job. I already work well over 50 hours a week at my first job.
3. It’s a social-life killer. Which is one reason I set up this year’s marathon training group: so I’d have people to talk to and brunch with to counteract the fact that I went to bed at 10:00 every Friday night all summer. But we all went out for brunch a grand total of four or five times this year. Then we splintered into subgroups and nobody wanted to run together or socialize and pretty much every reason we were training together was lost. Poop.
4. It makes me shrink. There, I said it.
In case you hadn’t noticed from my ramblings on here, my aging-gay-male vanity has manifested itself in an unquenchable need to get huge. I pay shit-tons of money and get up at 5:45 most days of the week to get my ass kicked around by a no-bullshit, no-bodyfat, all-muscle trainer. I also pay shit-tons of money for supplements and undersized clothing. And while I’m slowly building up some mass, I take giant steps backward every time I run more than 10 miles. Which is maybe why my times are getting so much slower. I might try running forward this weekend to see if that helps.
Also! There’s this muscle god at my gym. He’s both my motivation and my intimidation. And my lustful crush, but that’s a post for a different kind of blog. And he always wears his headphones—the international symbol for “don’t talk to me while I’m busy getting bigger than you”—so I haven’t gotten more than a slight nod of acknowledgement out of him in the 14 months I’ve trained there.
Until this morning. We happened to walk out of the locker room at the same time for the first time ever, so I grabbed the opportunity to ask him about the half-marathon shirt he’d worn to work out inand if I paid him $5 could I have it if it was still sweaty. First of all, the man has an easy 15 pounds on me, but he still runs half marathons 20 minutes faster than I do. So I technically hate him. But then he said the one thing that made us cosmically joined in a way that no laws of he’s-straight-and-it’s-never-gonna-happen could break asunder: He quit running long distances because he hated losing muscle mass.
It was like we were brothers. Who don’t make out.
And he said it so rationally and matter-of-factly that I realized I never again have to apologize for my size fixation. Not that I’ve ever really apologized for it, but I always try to be the first to call myself vain about it so nobody can feel all superior to me because they use their gym time to knit hats for kittens or feed mints to underprivileged models or some other act of heroic selflessness that trumps my never-ending obsession with the way I look in an elfin T-shirt.
So there you have it: I’m gonna be a slow, galumphing mess in my last Chicago Marathon and I’m just fine with that. And as soon as the strains and the sprains and the stress fractures heal, I’m gonna devote all my recreational energies to getting unapologetically huge. Until I start training for my real final marathon next summer, of course. But after that, watch out. Because I have a guy at the gym I need to intimidate back. And a couple more Republican marriages to destroy.
But since we’re on the subject, I should probably clarify from my last post that two weeks from Sunday is not my last marathon. Just my last time running Chicago. I’m guaranteed (so I understand) to run New York in November 2010. And as my dreams of running any marathon in under four hours have dried up more thoroughly than Maggie Gallagher’s inner beauty, so have my dreams of running Chicago and New York back-to-back.
Besides, I have completely lost interest in running marathons. But I really want to experience New York, so I’m going to spend one more summer training. And then I’m retiring from the sport. If a slow old guy who has no hope of ever finishing in the top half of any major marathon again can technically “retire.”
So: Chicago this year. New York next year. Then I wipe my ass with my running shoes and take up recreational Oreo gorging.
Actually, I already have a bit of a lack-of-control issue with Oreos. But I’m not ready to talk about that right now.
I can, however, list for you the reasons I’m all marathoned out:
1. It hurts. And the older I get, the more it hurts. And not in the motivating, I-can-be-bigger-than-this-pain kind of way.
2. It’s a second job. I already work well over 50 hours a week at my first job.
3. It’s a social-life killer. Which is one reason I set up this year’s marathon training group: so I’d have people to talk to and brunch with to counteract the fact that I went to bed at 10:00 every Friday night all summer. But we all went out for brunch a grand total of four or five times this year. Then we splintered into subgroups and nobody wanted to run together or socialize and pretty much every reason we were training together was lost. Poop.
4. It makes me shrink. There, I said it.
In case you hadn’t noticed from my ramblings on here, my aging-gay-male vanity has manifested itself in an unquenchable need to get huge. I pay shit-tons of money and get up at 5:45 most days of the week to get my ass kicked around by a no-bullshit, no-bodyfat, all-muscle trainer. I also pay shit-tons of money for supplements and undersized clothing. And while I’m slowly building up some mass, I take giant steps backward every time I run more than 10 miles. Which is maybe why my times are getting so much slower. I might try running forward this weekend to see if that helps.
Also! There’s this muscle god at my gym. He’s both my motivation and my intimidation. And my lustful crush, but that’s a post for a different kind of blog. And he always wears his headphones—the international symbol for “don’t talk to me while I’m busy getting bigger than you”—so I haven’t gotten more than a slight nod of acknowledgement out of him in the 14 months I’ve trained there.
Until this morning. We happened to walk out of the locker room at the same time for the first time ever, so I grabbed the opportunity to ask him about the half-marathon shirt he’d worn to work out in
It was like we were brothers. Who don’t make out.
And he said it so rationally and matter-of-factly that I realized I never again have to apologize for my size fixation. Not that I’ve ever really apologized for it, but I always try to be the first to call myself vain about it so nobody can feel all superior to me because they use their gym time to knit hats for kittens or feed mints to underprivileged models or some other act of heroic selflessness that trumps my never-ending obsession with the way I look in an elfin T-shirt.
So there you have it: I’m gonna be a slow, galumphing mess in my last Chicago Marathon and I’m just fine with that. And as soon as the strains and the sprains and the stress fractures heal, I’m gonna devote all my recreational energies to getting unapologetically huge. Until I start training for my real final marathon next summer, of course. But after that, watch out. Because I have a guy at the gym I need to intimidate back. And a couple more Republican marriages to destroy.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Still Life with Peanut Butter and Marathon Guide
My last Chicago Marathon is less than three weeks away, and my official participant guide arrived this week. That creepy woman made out of shoe prints is all over Chicago as the city prepares to welcome 45,000 runners and assorted friends and family members. And now she's in our kitchen, posing with our peanut butter. And probably leaving footprints all over the counter.
And as much as I'm completely over marathon training in general—as much as I honestly welcome the fact that this is my last Chicago Marathon–I'm getting excited about it. I love tapering after my last long training run. I love being able to say I'm running only 12 miles this weekend and genuinely mean only—as in "12 miles is seriously nothing to me"—while still getting a thrill out of the reaction non-runners have to that number. I love my final pre-marathon rituals: buying new padded running socks, timing out the last of my energy gels so I won't have any left over during the winter, getting GO JAKE GO printed on whatever marathon shirt I decide to wear, hanging out with the other runners at the packet pickup, carbo-loading with Matthew the night before the race, and getting my hair cut extra-short so I don't store any more heat than I have to on race day. And so I look presentable for my marathon pictures, which aren't cheap. In fact, I'm gonna squeeze some added value out of last year's pictures and gratuitously re-post a couple. Here I am around mile 19 with my nice square haircut and my bouncy, fly-away shorts:
And here I am crossing the finish line covered in homemade salt, which I cannot guarantee is kosher:
All of which brings me to this year's wild hair, so to speak: Since this is my last Chicago Marathon and I have plenty of pictures of me looking semi-respectable in the last five marathons, I've been toying with the idea of getting a mohawk for this run. And I'm totally stealing the idea from my new favorite boyfriend on my new favorite show, though I doubt I could ever look as dreamy as a mohawked Mark Salling:
But if a 41-year-old guy's gonna get a mohawk and not look like he's having a pathetic midlife crisis, a marathon is the perfect excuse for him to try it out, yes? The people at work look at me like I'm proposing learning how to shit kittens when I bring it up. But they're not my real friends. You are. So what do you think? Should I get a harmless little mohawk for the marathon or should I spend the rest of my life being a corporate drone who's too terrified to have a little fun?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
ChicagoRound: AT&T Corporate Center
Here’s my reward for getting up at 5:45 every morning to meet my trainer: a glorious, neck-straining view of Chicago's tallest building peeking out from behind its fifth-tallest building as the sun rises over the steel-and-stone canyons of the Loop:
That’s Willis Tower (née Sears Tower) in the center. At 108 floors, it’s the tallest building in the United States and the seventh tallest building in the world. Completed in 1974, it comprises nine square tubes bundled into a 3x3 footprint and rising to different heights with dramatic, efficient setbacks. You can clearly see the two tallest tubes in this picture ... though from this perspective they don't look at all like they tower over the city.
(The next three tallest Chicago buildings in order are the brand-new 96-floor Trump International Hotel and Tower, the 83-floor Aon Center and the 100-floor John Hancock Center.)
The building on the right is the fifth-tallest building in Chicago and the taller half of the 61-story AT&T Corporate Center complex, which is actually two buildings (the other is the 35-story USG Building) connected by a grand (and I mean over-the-top, Art-Deco-meets-Prairie, worth-a-stop-to-stare-up-and-gawk grand) 16-story atrium.
Constructed in 1989, the AT&T Corporate Center effortlessly represents the personality and exuberance of postmodern architecture. It takes the clean, efficient aesthetics of modernism and elevates them beyond the movement's midcentury austerity with ornament, technique and stylistic references. Obviously the dominant reference here is Art Deco, with soaring verticals, pale colors, dramatic setbacks and low-relief detailing.
Here’s a shot I stole off the Internet showing the complex from the USG Building side. Notice how the vertical channel in the center of each face expands as it rises—a fabulous twist on standard Art Deco detail that makes the building seem both taller and wider:
That’s Willis Tower (née Sears Tower) in the center. At 108 floors, it’s the tallest building in the United States and the seventh tallest building in the world. Completed in 1974, it comprises nine square tubes bundled into a 3x3 footprint and rising to different heights with dramatic, efficient setbacks. You can clearly see the two tallest tubes in this picture ... though from this perspective they don't look at all like they tower over the city.
(The next three tallest Chicago buildings in order are the brand-new 96-floor Trump International Hotel and Tower, the 83-floor Aon Center and the 100-floor John Hancock Center.)
The building on the right is the fifth-tallest building in Chicago and the taller half of the 61-story AT&T Corporate Center complex, which is actually two buildings (the other is the 35-story USG Building) connected by a grand (and I mean over-the-top, Art-Deco-meets-Prairie, worth-a-stop-to-stare-up-and-gawk grand) 16-story atrium.
Constructed in 1989, the AT&T Corporate Center effortlessly represents the personality and exuberance of postmodern architecture. It takes the clean, efficient aesthetics of modernism and elevates them beyond the movement's midcentury austerity with ornament, technique and stylistic references. Obviously the dominant reference here is Art Deco, with soaring verticals, pale colors, dramatic setbacks and low-relief detailing.
Here’s a shot I stole off the Internet showing the complex from the USG Building side. Notice how the vertical channel in the center of each face expands as it rises—a fabulous twist on standard Art Deco detail that makes the building seem both taller and wider:
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Not to drop names, but ...
I stood next to Vince Vaughn while I was on Wrigley Frickin' Field in the middle of the Cubs starting lineup on Monday night.
All of this would be especially cool if I could name one Cubs player or one Vince Vaughan movie (besides Wedding Crashers, which I went to only because I would divorce my husband in a second if Bradley Cooper showed up at my door in a towel and demanded that I kiss him).
But rubbing elbows with famous people you know nothing about is just one of the things you have to endure when you sing the National Anthem at a Cubs game. So I just put up with it and move on.
For the record, Vince (I call him Vince) was there to throw out a pitch and lead the crowd (extremely well!) in "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and I sang the National Anthem with the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus, though singing it solo is totally on my bucket list. I've emailed the Cubs repeatedly to figure out how to get an audition but I've never heard back. I suppose I could call and try to talk to an actual person. Or ask the CGMC general manager for a contact name. Maybe I should make this an official 2010 resolution.
In any case, I've been waiting for people to post decent pictures of us singing on Facebook, but so far nothing has surfaced. (Sheesh! We can find the funding to make a sitcom about show choirs but we can't get one decent picture of a bunch of homos singing at a Cubs game? I blame Joe Wilson. What a douche.)
There's a behind-the-scenes video of us singing on Facebook, but as usual I can't get the damn thing to work on my blog. But I did get a screen grab of Matthew and me singing our patriotic little hearts out. Do not mock me for my weird little-boy haircut or I will hunt you down and cut you. I totally cheated on my regular haircut guy on Friday and I am paying a terrible, terrible price right now. But my regular haircut guy had a waiting list longer than Rush Limbaugh's rehab so I impulsively went with someone else who had no waiting list. And it turns out there was a reason this street mountebank was so available; my simple little haircut takes 10 minutes in the hands of a sober three-year-old, but Signor Pirelli took a whopping 45 minutes to make me look like I'd had a plus-size yarmulke tattooed on my head:
After we sang, Matthew and I changed out of our monkey suits (in the Wrigley Field bathroom, which is about as repulsive as Papa Nazi in a Speedo) and took our seats with Matthew's fiance Craig and our friend Brad, who was my proxy husband while the real one was out of town, for what turned out to be a pretty exciting game ... even though the final score was only 2-0. And the Cubs totally beat the Brewers. SUCK IT, MILWAUKEE! (Did that little outburst make me sound butch? Does the fact that I'm holding a beer in this picture make me look even butcher?)
For the record, I'd rather eat a bucket of goat butts than drink a beer. But I had to hold Brad's beer so he could take our picture. Which gave me tons of street cred as a Cubs fan. Especially since I had such a horrible haircut.
Of course, I lost all street cred when we lined up like the Andrews Sisters for one more picture. But at least I didn't succumb to peer pressure and wear my jaunty Cubs apparel. Which would have looked totally gay.
All of this would be especially cool if I could name one Cubs player or one Vince Vaughan movie (besides Wedding Crashers, which I went to only because I would divorce my husband in a second if Bradley Cooper showed up at my door in a towel and demanded that I kiss him).
But rubbing elbows with famous people you know nothing about is just one of the things you have to endure when you sing the National Anthem at a Cubs game. So I just put up with it and move on.
For the record, Vince (I call him Vince) was there to throw out a pitch and lead the crowd (extremely well!) in "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and I sang the National Anthem with the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus, though singing it solo is totally on my bucket list. I've emailed the Cubs repeatedly to figure out how to get an audition but I've never heard back. I suppose I could call and try to talk to an actual person. Or ask the CGMC general manager for a contact name. Maybe I should make this an official 2010 resolution.
In any case, I've been waiting for people to post decent pictures of us singing on Facebook, but so far nothing has surfaced. (Sheesh! We can find the funding to make a sitcom about show choirs but we can't get one decent picture of a bunch of homos singing at a Cubs game? I blame Joe Wilson. What a douche.)
There's a behind-the-scenes video of us singing on Facebook, but as usual I can't get the damn thing to work on my blog. But I did get a screen grab of Matthew and me singing our patriotic little hearts out. Do not mock me for my weird little-boy haircut or I will hunt you down and cut you. I totally cheated on my regular haircut guy on Friday and I am paying a terrible, terrible price right now. But my regular haircut guy had a waiting list longer than Rush Limbaugh's rehab so I impulsively went with someone else who had no waiting list. And it turns out there was a reason this street mountebank was so available; my simple little haircut takes 10 minutes in the hands of a sober three-year-old, but Signor Pirelli took a whopping 45 minutes to make me look like I'd had a plus-size yarmulke tattooed on my head:
After we sang, Matthew and I changed out of our monkey suits (in the Wrigley Field bathroom, which is about as repulsive as Papa Nazi in a Speedo) and took our seats with Matthew's fiance Craig and our friend Brad, who was my proxy husband while the real one was out of town, for what turned out to be a pretty exciting game ... even though the final score was only 2-0. And the Cubs totally beat the Brewers. SUCK IT, MILWAUKEE! (Did that little outburst make me sound butch? Does the fact that I'm holding a beer in this picture make me look even butcher?)
For the record, I'd rather eat a bucket of goat butts than drink a beer. But I had to hold Brad's beer so he could take our picture. Which gave me tons of street cred as a Cubs fan. Especially since I had such a horrible haircut.
Of course, I lost all street cred when we lined up like the Andrews Sisters for one more picture. But at least I didn't succumb to peer pressure and wear my jaunty Cubs apparel. Which would have looked totally gay.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Gratuitous Speedo shot
I was all set to spend the entire weekend recovering in bed from my 20-mile run like any reasonable person would do. But Matthew and Craig are anything but reasonable, and they dragged me (because I sure as hell couldn't walk) to the beach to go sailing on Sunday.
I've never been sailing. And it was awesome! The water was delightfully warm (summer is here!), the waves were light, the sky was blue and the conversation pretty much stayed focused on the New Yorker cartoon caption contest. (Craig submitted a deliciously clever caption this week, and if it makes the finals I'll be sure to beg you-all to vote for it.) So it was a perfect day.
Best of all, I didn't drown the whole time. Not once!
I didn't have any jaunty nautical outfits to wear (I'd've been screwed if anyone recognized me and demanded I perform a chorus of "Anything Goes") so I wore the next best thing: a tiny black Speedo. And when our adventure at sea (well, technically at lake) was over, Matthew snapped a picture of me standing on the starboard side (we nautical people say "starboard" a lot) of our boat, which we nautical people call a "cat o' nine tails." Or something like that.
In any case, here I am holding in my stomach and pretending like I know the difference between a yaw and a clove hitch. And feeling all smug because I didn't drown. Not once.
I've never been sailing. And it was awesome! The water was delightfully warm (summer is here!), the waves were light, the sky was blue and the conversation pretty much stayed focused on the New Yorker cartoon caption contest. (Craig submitted a deliciously clever caption this week, and if it makes the finals I'll be sure to beg you-all to vote for it.) So it was a perfect day.
Best of all, I didn't drown the whole time. Not once!
I didn't have any jaunty nautical outfits to wear (I'd've been screwed if anyone recognized me and demanded I perform a chorus of "Anything Goes") so I wore the next best thing: a tiny black Speedo. And when our adventure at sea (well, technically at lake) was over, Matthew snapped a picture of me standing on the starboard side (we nautical people say "starboard" a lot) of our boat, which we nautical people call a "cat o' nine tails." Or something like that.
In any case, here I am holding in my stomach and pretending like I know the difference between a yaw and a clove hitch. And feeling all smug because I didn't drown. Not once.
Helpful running tip
When you've run 15 miles and it's just starting to settle in that holy shit this hurts and you're physically and emotionally drained and you still have to find the fortitude to get through five more miles before the I want to die NOW thoughts completely take over ... do NOT run by a rally for cancer survivors. Because you will LOSE. YOUR. SHIT. And it will take you at least half a mile to regain any semblance of composure.
So I did my longest pre-marathon run yesterday. I like to peak at 20 (for those of you who didn't put 15+5 together in the last paragraph) around four weeks before the marathon and then taper into the low teens until race day, which is for my increasingly slow self no longer a "race" but "race day" makes it sound like I'm some kind of athlete.
And my training group? As you may recall, it started out even bigger than this (we never got everyone together at once) last spring:
But after tons of injuries, a lot of summer-travel training disruptions, a fewtotal losers dropouts and a handful of non-marathoners who were just running with us for fun so they had no reason to inflict 20 miles of personal injury on themselves, we were down to two of us yesterday. And since I'm a big slow behemoth of an old guy, the two of us stayed together for only four miles. So we ran the last 16 miles (I ran 16.5 because there was no damn sign at the 10-mile turnaround and my bajillion-dollar GPS running watch is about as accurate as a Glenn Beck opinion) on our own.
And that's probably good, because everything hurt so damn bad that I couldn't stop whimpering through the last three miles. And since I was whimpering in rhythm (step, step, step, unghh, step, step, step, unghh) I'm sure I was more irritating than ... well ... a Glenn Beck opinion.
But I somehow finished and I somehow got myself home and I somehow filled up the hot tub that 99% of the time we hate having because it's hard to keep clean ... and I somehow convinced myself there's nothing even remotely inappropriate about posting this picture of me soaking away the pain in whirling spearmint-scented bubbles:
So I did my longest pre-marathon run yesterday. I like to peak at 20 (for those of you who didn't put 15+5 together in the last paragraph) around four weeks before the marathon and then taper into the low teens until race day, which is for my increasingly slow self no longer a "race" but "race day" makes it sound like I'm some kind of athlete.
And my training group? As you may recall, it started out even bigger than this (we never got everyone together at once) last spring:
But after tons of injuries, a lot of summer-travel training disruptions, a few
And that's probably good, because everything hurt so damn bad that I couldn't stop whimpering through the last three miles. And since I was whimpering in rhythm (step, step, step, unghh, step, step, step, unghh) I'm sure I was more irritating than ... well ... a Glenn Beck opinion.
But I somehow finished and I somehow got myself home and I somehow filled up the hot tub that 99% of the time we hate having because it's hard to keep clean ... and I somehow convinced myself there's nothing even remotely inappropriate about posting this picture of me soaking away the pain in whirling spearmint-scented bubbles:
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Dear Michael Duvall,
You're one kind of douchebag for cheating on your wife, defiling your "sacred" marriage vows and being a fucking hypocrite about your bullshit "family values."
But you're a whole new level of douchebag—the kind that goes way deep into places nobody ever wants to think about—for bragging so cavalierly about the women nobody really believes you have the actual capabilities to screw.
Oh ... and you're just a plain-old douche for being too retarded to know how a microphone works.
And your resignation? Though it's the only smart choice you made in this epic fuckup, it just shows the world that douchebag is exponentially too polite a word for you. I quote: “I am deeply saddened that my inappropriate comments have become a major distraction for my colleagues in the Assembly, who are working hard on the very serious problems facing our state. I have come to the conclusion that it would not be fair to my family, my constituents or to my friends on both sides of the aisle to remain in office. Therefore, I have decided to resign my office, effective immediately, so that the Assembly can get back to work."
We're not as stupid as you are, Michael. We all see very clearly the subtext left swirling around in the gaping hole in your words. Allow me to translate:
"I am deeply saddened that my inappropriate comments have become a major distraction for my colleagues in the Assembly. I am not, however, deeply saddened by any harm or humiliation or devastation or medical danger my actions have caused my family. You can tell because I didn't say I was saddened by the effects of my actions. I mentioned only my comments. Because I am an arrogant piece-of-shit scabby-whore douchebag. And those sexual things I said I did to those women? You and I both know I'm way too old and unattractive for any of that to be true. So I'm basically losing my job and my family over nothing."
It's because of the words and the actions of bullshit "family values" douchebags like you, Michael, that I will never ever be polite or kind or respectful or understanding to anyone who says or does anything to perpetuate the myth that my family is not worthy of the rights and the protections that yours enjoys. The rights and the protections whose mouths you just pried open and shit into. I hope the pain and humiliation you feel—or at least should feel—right now never go away.
But you're a whole new level of douchebag—the kind that goes way deep into places nobody ever wants to think about—for bragging so cavalierly about the women nobody really believes you have the actual capabilities to screw.
Oh ... and you're just a plain-old douche for being too retarded to know how a microphone works.
And your resignation? Though it's the only smart choice you made in this epic fuckup, it just shows the world that douchebag is exponentially too polite a word for you. I quote: “I am deeply saddened that my inappropriate comments have become a major distraction for my colleagues in the Assembly, who are working hard on the very serious problems facing our state. I have come to the conclusion that it would not be fair to my family, my constituents or to my friends on both sides of the aisle to remain in office. Therefore, I have decided to resign my office, effective immediately, so that the Assembly can get back to work."
We're not as stupid as you are, Michael. We all see very clearly the subtext left swirling around in the gaping hole in your words. Allow me to translate:
"I am deeply saddened that my inappropriate comments have become a major distraction for my colleagues in the Assembly. I am not, however, deeply saddened by any harm or humiliation or devastation or medical danger my actions have caused my family. You can tell because I didn't say I was saddened by the effects of my actions. I mentioned only my comments. Because I am an arrogant piece-of-shit scabby-whore douchebag. And those sexual things I said I did to those women? You and I both know I'm way too old and unattractive for any of that to be true. So I'm basically losing my job and my family over nothing."
It's because of the words and the actions of bullshit "family values" douchebags like you, Michael, that I will never ever be polite or kind or respectful or understanding to anyone who says or does anything to perpetuate the myth that my family is not worthy of the rights and the protections that yours enjoys. The rights and the protections whose mouths you just pried open and shit into. I hope the pain and humiliation you feel—or at least should feel—right now never go away.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
The Pornstache Project: FAIL
So I'm back from Rehoboth. And I'm typing this with the remnants of my first clean-shaven face in probably five years. Actually, I'm typing this with my fingers.
In any case, the Project Runway party was as big a success as my pornstache wasn't. And before I show you, I'll tell you that three perfect strangers (three! as in ... three) pulled me aside before the end of the party to tell me that I really should get rid of the facial hair before I went to the camouflage party that was next on the party schedule. Because a Rehoboth weekend is really just a string of three-hour parties with short breaks for costume changes. And a party circuit is apparently no time for pornstache failure.
Anyway! The beach house where I stayed is at 5 Prospect. Which pretty much wrote itself into our party theme ... and even our logo:
No theme party is complete without a grand entrance. Here's ours: a red carpet with a runway at the end. Which is just like any Tuesday night in our living room in Chicago.
Here's the view to the front gate from the runway. It's amazing how easily you can fancy up a party with $2 curtain panels from Walmart.
Speaking of fancy, it's never a party without a sparkly kitty.
Speaking of sparkly kitties, I almost made a pornstache. And by "almost made a" I mean "never had a genetic chance in hell to grow a decent." So here's how I looked right before the pornscaping, with 10 full days of beard growth. Notice the baldness on the front of my chin ... right in the Pornstache Zone.
The baldness proved to be unfixable, which means I wasn't able to pull off the pornstache. Not even a little. So—just like in any challenge where the dress doesn't fit the model or the hem looks too matronly with the shoes or the bric-a-brac doesn't match the hat and Tim Gunn is giving the five-minutes-until-showtime warning and you just have no choice but to improvise—I went for a standard-issue mustache and a soul patch. And wispy little rocker sideburns. And fake arm tattoos across the front of my neck. And a fauxhawk. And vacuum-packed stretch-leather jeans. And a little leather wrist cuff. Throw in a red Saturn and someone's crying mom and I'm a dead ringer for Jeffrey. Or your standard-issue show-me-on-the-doll-where-the-bad-man-touched-you bad man:
And here I am a little too wrinkly around the shins and a little to focus-y on the crotch on the runway. That growth on my left hip is my tiny little phone in the one pocket in my trashy, trashy pants. Which should tell you just how vacuum-packed they are.
And here are all but one of the weekend's residents of 5 Prospect. Notice that very few of us made any effort whatsoever to wear a Project Runway-themed costume. Harumph.
And here are our dear guests. Notice again what kind of fabulous you can create with $2 curtain panels from Walmart and a roll of twine. It's like the Project Runway Don't-Dress-Up-For-The-Theme Challenge come to life.
Here are more of our non-costumed guests, including no doubt at least one of the three (three!) strangers who told me my facial hair was an abomination before the Lord, who makes all things tax-exempt.
Notice that Tim Gunn isn't among the guests in this picture. But! He's actually friends with one of the residents of 5 Prospect. And he has family near Rehoboth. And there was a time when he actually planned on coming to our party! Imagine his surprise had he showed up to find out that Jeffrey was actually at the party too. Taking pictures from the runway. Because his cheap little point-n-shoot camera made an excellent prop for hiding his wispy little abomination of a non-pornstache failure. Which was denied three times before the sun came up. Or at least before it was shaved off for the camouflage party.
In any case, the Project Runway party was as big a success as my pornstache wasn't. And before I show you, I'll tell you that three perfect strangers (three! as in ... three) pulled me aside before the end of the party to tell me that I really should get rid of the facial hair before I went to the camouflage party that was next on the party schedule. Because a Rehoboth weekend is really just a string of three-hour parties with short breaks for costume changes. And a party circuit is apparently no time for pornstache failure.
Anyway! The beach house where I stayed is at 5 Prospect. Which pretty much wrote itself into our party theme ... and even our logo:
No theme party is complete without a grand entrance. Here's ours: a red carpet with a runway at the end. Which is just like any Tuesday night in our living room in Chicago.
Here's the view to the front gate from the runway. It's amazing how easily you can fancy up a party with $2 curtain panels from Walmart.
Speaking of fancy, it's never a party without a sparkly kitty.
Speaking of sparkly kitties, I almost made a pornstache. And by "almost made a" I mean "never had a genetic chance in hell to grow a decent." So here's how I looked right before the pornscaping, with 10 full days of beard growth. Notice the baldness on the front of my chin ... right in the Pornstache Zone.
The baldness proved to be unfixable, which means I wasn't able to pull off the pornstache. Not even a little. So—just like in any challenge where the dress doesn't fit the model or the hem looks too matronly with the shoes or the bric-a-brac doesn't match the hat and Tim Gunn is giving the five-minutes-until-showtime warning and you just have no choice but to improvise—I went for a standard-issue mustache and a soul patch. And wispy little rocker sideburns. And fake arm tattoos across the front of my neck. And a fauxhawk. And vacuum-packed stretch-leather jeans. And a little leather wrist cuff. Throw in a red Saturn and someone's crying mom and I'm a dead ringer for Jeffrey. Or your standard-issue show-me-on-the-doll-where-the-bad-man-touched-you bad man:
And here I am a little too wrinkly around the shins and a little to focus-y on the crotch on the runway. That growth on my left hip is my tiny little phone in the one pocket in my trashy, trashy pants. Which should tell you just how vacuum-packed they are.
And here are all but one of the weekend's residents of 5 Prospect. Notice that very few of us made any effort whatsoever to wear a Project Runway-themed costume. Harumph.
And here are our dear guests. Notice again what kind of fabulous you can create with $2 curtain panels from Walmart and a roll of twine. It's like the Project Runway Don't-Dress-Up-For-The-Theme Challenge come to life.
Here are more of our non-costumed guests, including no doubt at least one of the three (three!) strangers who told me my facial hair was an abomination before the Lord, who makes all things tax-exempt.
Notice that Tim Gunn isn't among the guests in this picture. But! He's actually friends with one of the residents of 5 Prospect. And he has family near Rehoboth. And there was a time when he actually planned on coming to our party! Imagine his surprise had he showed up to find out that Jeffrey was actually at the party too. Taking pictures from the runway. Because his cheap little point-n-shoot camera made an excellent prop for hiding his wispy little abomination of a non-pornstache failure. Which was denied three times before the sun came up. Or at least before it was shaved off for the camouflage party.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Letter from Ottawa
Dear all. Stop. Ottawa rocks. Stop. Never coming home. Stop. Please send my stuff. Stop.
Our day started at 4:00 am Chicago time in Kingston. Since then we've spent five hours shooting, one hour eating, three hours driving, one hour scouting locations, two more hours eating, one hour sightseeing ... and I'm not good at math but it's now almost 10:00 Chicago time and I feel like I've put in an entire week since I woke up.
But! Our project is swimming along fabulously, everyone here is freakishly nice, I have no idea how anyone got anywhere before GPS devices became standard issue in rental cars, I have no idea how GPS devices actually work but I'm so very, very glad they do, and I've crossed a few firsts off my list.
For instance! I finally had poutine. This Canadian standard is just french fries with gravy and cheese curds. And while it was very tasty, I've never been a gravy person. Though the bowl was conspicuously empty once I got done with it. But only because I wanted to be a polite guest in this lovely city.
I also had a Beaver Tail, which is little more than flat, fried sweet dough slathered with any number of sweet, delicious goo options. It's apparently very Ottawa. And the place we had ours is the very same place Barack Obama had his on his last visit. So he and I are almost exactly alike. Except I support marriage equality.
The Beaver Tail and the poutine places, by the way, are part of this charming street of markets and shops:
Which is not far from this beautiful river:
Which looks like this at night:
It runs by the breathtaking Château Laurier, which is literally a freaking castle:
Which looks like this at night:
And it's down the street from the not-un-castle-like Lord Elgin Hotel, where I'm typing this as we speak. I'm in one of the corner rooms on that knee-like structure sticking out of the building on the left:
And the people and the history and the scenery and the Beaver Tails and the Lord Elgin are so incredibly fabulous I've decided I'm never coming home. So please send my stuff. And throw in a few bucks while you're packing it up for me. My expense account runs out tomorrow. And I seem to have expensive tastes in hotels. Plus Beaver Tails aren't exactly cheap.
Our day started at 4:00 am Chicago time in Kingston. Since then we've spent five hours shooting, one hour eating, three hours driving, one hour scouting locations, two more hours eating, one hour sightseeing ... and I'm not good at math but it's now almost 10:00 Chicago time and I feel like I've put in an entire week since I woke up.
But! Our project is swimming along fabulously, everyone here is freakishly nice, I have no idea how anyone got anywhere before GPS devices became standard issue in rental cars, I have no idea how GPS devices actually work but I'm so very, very glad they do, and I've crossed a few firsts off my list.
For instance! I finally had poutine. This Canadian standard is just french fries with gravy and cheese curds. And while it was very tasty, I've never been a gravy person. Though the bowl was conspicuously empty once I got done with it. But only because I wanted to be a polite guest in this lovely city.
I also had a Beaver Tail, which is little more than flat, fried sweet dough slathered with any number of sweet, delicious goo options. It's apparently very Ottawa. And the place we had ours is the very same place Barack Obama had his on his last visit. So he and I are almost exactly alike. Except I support marriage equality.
The Beaver Tail and the poutine places, by the way, are part of this charming street of markets and shops:
Which is not far from this beautiful river:
Which looks like this at night:
It runs by the breathtaking Château Laurier, which is literally a freaking castle:
Which looks like this at night:
And it's down the street from the not-un-castle-like Lord Elgin Hotel, where I'm typing this as we speak. I'm in one of the corner rooms on that knee-like structure sticking out of the building on the left:
And the people and the history and the scenery and the Beaver Tails and the Lord Elgin are so incredibly fabulous I've decided I'm never coming home. So please send my stuff. And throw in a few bucks while you're packing it up for me. My expense account runs out tomorrow. And I seem to have expensive tastes in hotels. Plus Beaver Tails aren't exactly cheap.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Can I just say one thing about Canadian customs?
My company travels to meet our Canadian client about four times a month. We do a lot of work for this client. Great work. Great work that generates staggering amounts of consumer spending. Canadian consumer spending. In Canada.
Now I'm sure that as a general rule it's important to make sure people aren't crossing into your country to write bad advertising about you. And I'm sure the Canadian customs agents wage monumental front-lines battles every day to prevent U.S. agencies from crossing the border and polluting the Canadian advertising landscape with slogans like We put a big can of Can in Canada!
But a couple months ago a Canadian customs agent wouldn't let one of my colleagues into the country on a business trip because she didn't have her college diploma with her. I am not making this up. She had her passport, a copy of our contract with the client and a letter of authorization from our company president. But as it was explained to my colleague, Canada is in a state of orange-level alert against a looming threat of improperly credentialed business travelers. So my colleague was flat-out refused entry into the country, where she might help stimulate the Canadian economy without knowing all her predicate verb conjugations.
This is my first visit here since she was refused entry. And I'm traipsing through three Canadian cities in three days with my goddamn college diploma in my suitcase. I know it's not a huge imposition to be carrying around a diploma. And nobody demanded to see it—or cast doubt on my professional abilities in any way—when I got off the plane this morning. But the fact that I have to have it with me just in case is more ridiculous than someone as retarded as Glenn Beck getting his own TV show.
And I know other people have far worse horror stories about crossing international borders. And I'm sure many of those stories involve U.S. border agents. Or those volunteer militia dorks who stand guard at the U.S.-Mexico border with their self-righteousness and their Second Amendments and their booshy moostaches. But none of this makes the college-diploma thing any less silly.
But! If you ever make it through customs and find yourself in downtown Kingston, Ontario, grab your passport and your diploma and make sure you have dinner at Chez Piggy ... preferably on the patio. The food is delicious, the ambiance is charming, the prices are reasonable, and the parking is free and plentiful. And the sign is just adorable:
Now I'm sure that as a general rule it's important to make sure people aren't crossing into your country to write bad advertising about you. And I'm sure the Canadian customs agents wage monumental front-lines battles every day to prevent U.S. agencies from crossing the border and polluting the Canadian advertising landscape with slogans like We put a big can of Can in Canada!
But a couple months ago a Canadian customs agent wouldn't let one of my colleagues into the country on a business trip because she didn't have her college diploma with her. I am not making this up. She had her passport, a copy of our contract with the client and a letter of authorization from our company president. But as it was explained to my colleague, Canada is in a state of orange-level alert against a looming threat of improperly credentialed business travelers. So my colleague was flat-out refused entry into the country, where she might help stimulate the Canadian economy without knowing all her predicate verb conjugations.
This is my first visit here since she was refused entry. And I'm traipsing through three Canadian cities in three days with my goddamn college diploma in my suitcase. I know it's not a huge imposition to be carrying around a diploma. And nobody demanded to see it—or cast doubt on my professional abilities in any way—when I got off the plane this morning. But the fact that I have to have it with me just in case is more ridiculous than someone as retarded as Glenn Beck getting his own TV show.
And I know other people have far worse horror stories about crossing international borders. And I'm sure many of those stories involve U.S. border agents. Or those volunteer militia dorks who stand guard at the U.S.-Mexico border with their self-righteousness and their Second Amendments and their booshy moostaches. But none of this makes the college-diploma thing any less silly.
But! If you ever make it through customs and find yourself in downtown Kingston, Ontario, grab your passport and your diploma and make sure you have dinner at Chez Piggy ... preferably on the patio. The food is delicious, the ambiance is charming, the prices are reasonable, and the parking is free and plentiful. And the sign is just adorable:
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
The Pornstache Project: Day Six
Today has been the Day Of Unbearable Itching. Plus the Day The Front Of My Chin Revealed Itself To Be As Bald As A Novice's Knees.
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