It's been some time since I rapped at ya, but things are good in the nation's capital, at least for me: I'm renewing my lease, which is nice because it's a great place; My girlfriend and I are getting along swimmingly. We're young(ish) and in love(est) and all is super. Despite all the elapsed time, I still smile like a dork when I think of her. She's the keenest.
In other news, in my ongoing effort to become less boring as I get older I've taken up Ultimate Frisbee again and now play with a crowd of lawyers on Sundays. The effect so far is that I feel like I've been beaten up by a crowd of Huns come Monday, but I'm sure that will fade.
A week ago, Sunday, one of the tinier lawyers among them (thank God) and I crashed into one another at velocity. She must weigh about 100 lbs soaking wet with friends, but I now tip the scales at a (fat) manly 182 lbs of pure taught indolence.
As I hurtled towards her and realized we were going to collide like a Buick into a kitten, I did some back of the envelope calculations in the back of my head and realized I might kill someone.
And that someone would be a lawyer; and have lots of lawyer friends around to bear witness, provide testimony, do pro bono work on behalf of their dead friend's family and whatnot. The homicide would occur, I figured, either by me flattening and running blithely over her or by her ricochetting off me like so much ping pong matter off a bowling ball and landing in the nearby river.
So I grabbed her.
I figured I'd either pick her up and cradle her safely where no fat blokes were likely to run her down, or at least I'd stop her from bouncing off this mortal coil all willy nilly. I think it worked and that she was as uninjured as possible considering the kinetic energy involved. That said, all her forward momentum that wasn't used minutely stalling my onrush shot into the only unrestrained part of her body, her head, which translated it quite nicely, thank you very much, into my trachea via the small surface area of her nose and teeth.
My mom, who I told about it quite a lot later during Call To The Folks, gasped and pointed out, as though I were dragging my feet about getting a lump checked out, that I could have been killed. It's possible her diagnostic skills are getting rusty, because here I was talking to her on the phone, using my very own larynx and everything, hours later. It's nice to be loved though, honestly.
Still, I can't recommend taking a lawyer to the throat. It made me sound like Kathleen Turner for the better part of a week - so I was dead sexy - but it also made me feel as though I was coming down with something the entire time. Like a law suit.
Other efforts to remain hip and with it have been much safer despite happening under 5 to 10 feet of water. I just finished learning to Scuba (no longer SCUBA it seems). I'm not prepped to take my open water certification dives should the opportunity present itself in Brazil, where I'm going next month - with my awesome girlfriend. My life sounds so interesting, doesn't it.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
The snowpocalypse is upon us!!!! Day 1
It's going to snow in D.C.
Let that sink in for a sec ... now do what comes naturally:
RUN!!!!! Or, if you like, check out this link for tips on how to handle the snow in D.C.
Anyway, this is my journal of these trying times. For posterity. In case I don't come through the other side.
We have only ourselves to blame, as Fallwell will no doubt remind us later. The warning has been ample. We've known for days the frozen water that lives in the sky was planning an attack. As early as yesterday the grocery stores were mobbed with people stocking up in case they were TRAPPED INDOORS FOR AN ENTIRE WEEKEND!!
Luckily the government took courageous action and in an ingenious preemptive strike, planned to close and send people home well before we saw even the first snowflake. I was done with work at noon. I was already at home because I'd decided ahead of time that I would stay home in case (also because i was up late at a show). Nevertheless, the government's wise planning let me stop working at noon and start preparing for the worst.
I got a haircut. You never know how snow can change the outlook for personal grooming, so it's best not to tempt fate.
Coiffed, I slogged across half a block of concrete, through literally millimeters of snow, to the grocery store for cheese and bread, because I'm out. It was like Crate and Barrel meets Lord of the Flies. Lines of yuppies stretched down the aisles and an air of frantic anticipation stirred every sensible being to greedily clutch to themselves whatever foodstuffs might bring them any succor in the approaching blight.
I left. I'll get cheese on Monday or something. I did stop in at the local market for a turkey and Stilton sandwich though. Yummy. Still, the privation has clearly begun. They were out of raisins! A chill went through me. Barring some sort of miracle (or the fairly good possibility that my gf will find raisins on her way home) my oatmeal this weekend may be largely unadorned. The horror. The horror.
Clasping what little food I'd been able to snatch to my breast out of the fingers of fellow men made hollow and feral through anticipating their own doom, I scuttled back to my home and contemplated the horrors of facing so merciless a God as could unleash this unnatural tumult upon us. What invades my waking thoughts with nightmare is the unnatural temperature. A blizzard in such warmth defies every expectation. What sort of hurdy-gurdy blizzard is it when snow scarcely has the chance to settle before it vanishes like some phantom. My teeth are set a-chatter - though not from the cold obviously.
Let that sink in for a sec ... now do what comes naturally:
RUN!!!!! Or, if you like, check out this link for tips on how to handle the snow in D.C.
Anyway, this is my journal of these trying times. For posterity. In case I don't come through the other side.
We have only ourselves to blame, as Fallwell will no doubt remind us later. The warning has been ample. We've known for days the frozen water that lives in the sky was planning an attack. As early as yesterday the grocery stores were mobbed with people stocking up in case they were TRAPPED INDOORS FOR AN ENTIRE WEEKEND!!
Luckily the government took courageous action and in an ingenious preemptive strike, planned to close and send people home well before we saw even the first snowflake. I was done with work at noon. I was already at home because I'd decided ahead of time that I would stay home in case (also because i was up late at a show). Nevertheless, the government's wise planning let me stop working at noon and start preparing for the worst.
I got a haircut. You never know how snow can change the outlook for personal grooming, so it's best not to tempt fate.
Coiffed, I slogged across half a block of concrete, through literally millimeters of snow, to the grocery store for cheese and bread, because I'm out. It was like Crate and Barrel meets Lord of the Flies. Lines of yuppies stretched down the aisles and an air of frantic anticipation stirred every sensible being to greedily clutch to themselves whatever foodstuffs might bring them any succor in the approaching blight.
I left. I'll get cheese on Monday or something. I did stop in at the local market for a turkey and Stilton sandwich though. Yummy. Still, the privation has clearly begun. They were out of raisins! A chill went through me. Barring some sort of miracle (or the fairly good possibility that my gf will find raisins on her way home) my oatmeal this weekend may be largely unadorned. The horror. The horror.
Clasping what little food I'd been able to snatch to my breast out of the fingers of fellow men made hollow and feral through anticipating their own doom, I scuttled back to my home and contemplated the horrors of facing so merciless a God as could unleash this unnatural tumult upon us. What invades my waking thoughts with nightmare is the unnatural temperature. A blizzard in such warmth defies every expectation. What sort of hurdy-gurdy blizzard is it when snow scarcely has the chance to settle before it vanishes like some phantom. My teeth are set a-chatter - though not from the cold obviously.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Ping Pong
So here's how I feel about ping pong: It's awesome.
I started playing ping pong as a youth in my friend's basement, where his father and he would take turns kicking my ass. At the time I thought his dad was a jerk because he didn't play down to me at all. I later realized that he was a jerk for cheating on his wife with, get this, his secretary or grad student or some other conveniently available cliche. What a jerk.
However, his beating the tar out of me totally motivated me not to play like a child anymore. You may be aware from your own experience that most kids suck at most things. That's where the common phrase, "hey kid, gimme your lunch money" comes from. Kids suck at fighting for their lunch money.
My friend's jerkwad dad taught me that you should be able to smash the ball from below the level of the table and that you could put side-spin on the ball to mess with opponents.
For years this valuable knowledge lay irresponsibly unused. Then, one magical day, my friend Dirk and I got frustrated with work and decided to play ping pong in the gym at work instead. I assume we were frustrated by someone asking us to do an interesting task and then insisting we do it all fucked up. The odds are on my side if I remember correctly why we were usually pissed off.
We started playing ping pong regularly thereafter and a bunch of our friends joined in for three simple reasons:
Well, Dirk and I were joined by Eug (who hits the ball harder than a human should), Courtney and Mark (two dudes from Jamaica who, no joke, played on their high school ping pong teams and are goddamn amazing and in Mark's case, sneaky and "teefin'"), Meredith and Cara (both of whom managed to maintain their graceful femininity despite playing what's widely regarded as the world's most testosteronatastic sport), Dennis (who thank God doesn't know that he's totally susceptible to any shot to his backhand with a little sidespin on it - Hi Dennis!), and a roster of other folk who came and went according to their interest and terms of employment.
At one point we had to know who was best, so we held the first ever Consumer Reports table-tennis league (I shit you not). The Jamaicans insist it's "table tennis", not "ping pong", but I maintain that in a very real sense you're hitting a tiny plastic ball over an adorably diminutive net so there's not much way to salvage that passtime by changing its name. Plus, who won the league play? Who? Me, the best "diminutive paddlewang" player at CR that year, that's who. I figure if you win you get to name it.
Anyway, the point of this dreadful ramble is that on Monday I'm going to a bar and playing ping pong. Sadly, I haven't yet decided if I'll be taking my own paddle. You read that right. I have my own paddle. In fact, I'll have to decide which of my paddle I'll take, if I take one. Playing with "hard bats" sucks.
I think we can all agree that the point of this post is that I'm pretty sweet.
Anyway, let me know in the comments if taking my own paddle is just sensible because it'll improve the quality of the play, or tremendously sad because ... well, you know.
I started playing ping pong as a youth in my friend's basement, where his father and he would take turns kicking my ass. At the time I thought his dad was a jerk because he didn't play down to me at all. I later realized that he was a jerk for cheating on his wife with, get this, his secretary or grad student or some other conveniently available cliche. What a jerk.
However, his beating the tar out of me totally motivated me not to play like a child anymore. You may be aware from your own experience that most kids suck at most things. That's where the common phrase, "hey kid, gimme your lunch money" comes from. Kids suck at fighting for their lunch money.
My friend's jerkwad dad taught me that you should be able to smash the ball from below the level of the table and that you could put side-spin on the ball to mess with opponents.
For years this valuable knowledge lay irresponsibly unused. Then, one magical day, my friend Dirk and I got frustrated with work and decided to play ping pong in the gym at work instead. I assume we were frustrated by someone asking us to do an interesting task and then insisting we do it all fucked up. The odds are on my side if I remember correctly why we were usually pissed off.
We started playing ping pong regularly thereafter and a bunch of our friends joined in for three simple reasons:
- It's awesome
- It's super manly
- Fuck you, it totally is.
Well, Dirk and I were joined by Eug (who hits the ball harder than a human should), Courtney and Mark (two dudes from Jamaica who, no joke, played on their high school ping pong teams and are goddamn amazing and in Mark's case, sneaky and "teefin'"), Meredith and Cara (both of whom managed to maintain their graceful femininity despite playing what's widely regarded as the world's most testosteronatastic sport), Dennis (who thank God doesn't know that he's totally susceptible to any shot to his backhand with a little sidespin on it - Hi Dennis!), and a roster of other folk who came and went according to their interest and terms of employment.
At one point we had to know who was best, so we held the first ever Consumer Reports table-tennis league (I shit you not). The Jamaicans insist it's "table tennis", not "ping pong", but I maintain that in a very real sense you're hitting a tiny plastic ball over an adorably diminutive net so there's not much way to salvage that passtime by changing its name. Plus, who won the league play? Who? Me, the best "diminutive paddlewang" player at CR that year, that's who. I figure if you win you get to name it.
Anyway, the point of this dreadful ramble is that on Monday I'm going to a bar and playing ping pong. Sadly, I haven't yet decided if I'll be taking my own paddle. You read that right. I have my own paddle. In fact, I'll have to decide which of my paddle I'll take, if I take one. Playing with "hard bats" sucks.
I think we can all agree that the point of this post is that I'm pretty sweet.
Anyway, let me know in the comments if taking my own paddle is just sensible because it'll improve the quality of the play, or tremendously sad because ... well, you know.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
The beginning of the year
Hey there suckers, it's been a while since I rapped at you, in any real sense of the idea.
So, one of my resolutions this year was to write at least 10 minutes a day. So far, I'm succeeding splendidly if you replace "write 10 minutes a day" with "think about writing 10 minutes a day for at least 2 minutes a day".
I suck.
So today, before I go get a drink/dinner with my writer friend @fstockman, I'm going to write for another 9 minutes or so.
Here's what's up in the life of me:
I got me a girlfriend. She's plain awesome. Because she values her privacy, I'll call her Alphonse Dubai and let you know that she's a plumber from a video game. None of which is true.
If you're one of those people who knows me and reads this blog (like 99.9% of you), do the decent thing and don't mention her in the comments. She's got a reputation to uphold and I guess part of that includes not letting on to the nameless faceless mass of the Internet that she knows me, or exists, or what have you. I admit I've sort of lost track of what constitutes privacy any more, but I know she's none of your business.
Anywangle, I spent time with her over the holidays and it's made me a complete girl. I'm usually obtusely independent, but thanks to spending a great deal of time with her, I've become addicted to those crush hormones my body makes when she's around. Stupid endogenous whadyamacallums! Now I have to think about her all the time. It might be okay if our date yesterday had worked out, but I got about half an hour of her before she had to dash back to the videogame to plumb. Oh Alphonse! Sigh.
My attitude towards relationships has long been that you're not ready for a relationship if you need to be in a relationship. So now I feel both needy and apostate. Christ I suck.
On the plus side, my 10 minutes are up.
So, one of my resolutions this year was to write at least 10 minutes a day. So far, I'm succeeding splendidly if you replace "write 10 minutes a day" with "think about writing 10 minutes a day for at least 2 minutes a day".
I suck.
So today, before I go get a drink/dinner with my writer friend @fstockman, I'm going to write for another 9 minutes or so.
Here's what's up in the life of me:
I got me a girlfriend. She's plain awesome. Because she values her privacy, I'll call her Alphonse Dubai and let you know that she's a plumber from a video game. None of which is true.
If you're one of those people who knows me and reads this blog (like 99.9% of you), do the decent thing and don't mention her in the comments. She's got a reputation to uphold and I guess part of that includes not letting on to the nameless faceless mass of the Internet that she knows me, or exists, or what have you. I admit I've sort of lost track of what constitutes privacy any more, but I know she's none of your business.
Anywangle, I spent time with her over the holidays and it's made me a complete girl. I'm usually obtusely independent, but thanks to spending a great deal of time with her, I've become addicted to those crush hormones my body makes when she's around. Stupid endogenous whadyamacallums! Now I have to think about her all the time. It might be okay if our date yesterday had worked out, but I got about half an hour of her before she had to dash back to the videogame to plumb. Oh Alphonse! Sigh.
My attitude towards relationships has long been that you're not ready for a relationship if you need to be in a relationship. So now I feel both needy and apostate. Christ I suck.
On the plus side, my 10 minutes are up.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Couldn't sleep . . .
Thought I'd write a quick post and turn in. Because, well, it's been ages since I wrote a damn thing.
So, I start off the new year with a good job, a simply wonderful girlfriend, and a house that looks like it was raped by a troupe (flock?) of methed out flying monkeys. Still, it's a great location, and you know what those folks in real estate say: "Don't live near flying monkeys, you jerk."
I'm getting to do more writing for my pal Helen over at MSNBC.com. Being nice to her was the best cold and calculating thing I've ever done, though I can't take too much credit for dastardly Machiavellian forward planning, since she's awesome and hilarious and fun and all that, and I've pretty much liked her since we worked together. She sends me Christmas cards with pictures of her pugs on them for Pugsake!!
Besides, if I were truly Machiavellian, would I be amping up my "writing career" just as writing is maturing into a dying art. The answer, my writerly friends, is "shut your hurtful faces. Shut 'em."
Okay, maybe that'll prime the blogging pump for the rest of this year. It certainly convinced me I need to get some sleep.
Also, am I the last guy to see auto-tune the news? Super funny.
So, I start off the new year with a good job, a simply wonderful girlfriend, and a house that looks like it was raped by a troupe (flock?) of methed out flying monkeys. Still, it's a great location, and you know what those folks in real estate say: "Don't live near flying monkeys, you jerk."
I'm getting to do more writing for my pal Helen over at MSNBC.com. Being nice to her was the best cold and calculating thing I've ever done, though I can't take too much credit for dastardly Machiavellian forward planning, since she's awesome and hilarious and fun and all that, and I've pretty much liked her since we worked together. She sends me Christmas cards with pictures of her pugs on them for Pugsake!!
Besides, if I were truly Machiavellian, would I be amping up my "writing career" just as writing is maturing into a dying art. The answer, my writerly friends, is "shut your hurtful faces. Shut 'em."
Okay, maybe that'll prime the blogging pump for the rest of this year. It certainly convinced me I need to get some sleep.
Also, am I the last guy to see auto-tune the news? Super funny.
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