The French-Asian Connection

Hello again! Long time, yes?

I've been suffering from a bitter ennui, not unlike those suffered by young male antagonists/foils who have not-very-attractive-but-devastatingly-smart-governesses who are remarkably similar to the intended readers of such novels. Confused yet? So am I! Victorian novels a la Bronte and Austen are the Dickens! And Dickens is the Dickens too!

To the heart of this post: so I meet this moi qua* girl at a random event and we eventually agree to exchange emails because she's interested in applying to pharmacy school. Before anyone gets their hopes up (mines included) that this is going to be some sordid, embarrassing tale in which I perform an auto-foot-in-mouth procedure, I must say that I only go for the girls who have the keen sense to not go for me. That is, I want what I can't have, and don't want what I could have. However arrogant that may sound, it is the truth, and it probably applies to a whole lot of folks.

Anyway, as a test suitability or a test of curiosity (or a lapse in judgment), this girl sends me an email in Vietnamese. I take my time reading the Viet without the diacritical marks, which I suppose is how Viet people email each other since it would suck to stop every other letter to insert a symbol. And as I near the end, I see some intelligible words! English, alas! Who other than an English-speaking person would ever call English intelligible?**

[paraphrased] "Please let me know if you can't read it. I'll send it again in English."

Oh how you underestimate the virile, semi-intelligent man. I would have learned Swahili by how if there were fine Swahili chicks to ogle outside my door.

--

end what g thinks is humor, and start what g thinks is educational and insightful

--

So in Vietnamese, it is vitally important that one address another person with the proper title. It is a sign of respect and gives context to the situation. Using the equivalents for 'you' and 'I' is highly disrespectful, and if there's a familial relationship, it denotes ignorance since you didn't know how he/she is related.

Not very important for our American tourists, but probably important for someone who wants to marry into this crazy culture.

To be safe, most MQ who are learning to use the concept of 'you' and 'I' simply use the English 'you' and 'I' instead of the Vietnamese equivalents. For example, ten cua you la nguoi doc chu, ten cua mi la g.***

But to be safe (and cute), some girls use the term title em, and address the guys as anh. Which can mean simply that she is younger, but also implies that you may have a chance to be more than that (because she could have used some other title instead)!

Do I overthink things? Most deftly and definitely. But the punch-line of this super long and boring setup is nigh, the reason for the 'French-Asian' part of the title.

Instead of using anh throughout the email, she shortens it to a simple A. near the end. It reminds me of the single French M. as the abbreviation for monsieur. So in addition to the French baguettes, those colonists also gave the Viet people the idea for abbreviating titles. Or perhaps it's the modern American influence: Anh makes 141 characters, A. makes 140!

I know, the punch-line, set-up, and everything in between were terrible!

--

*MQ, moi qua, Viet for 'just came over'

**Say 'car' and then say 'cat.' Why is the 'ca' in both words not sound the same? There you go.

***Your name is readers, my name is g.

De-Gentrification of Golf

to weekend hackers,

Don't play golf on weekends, silly people! You can get a noon tee-time during the week for $20 tax included with a cart. That is if you can off work/school during the week to enjoy this new trend in sport/leisurely activity.


(playing here sometime this week)

If you had told me 10 years ago that I'd actually sorta/kinda like golf when I got older, I would've made a pity-filled half-smile/frown I reserved for people I thought were mentally/physically challenged (there were 3 slashes in that last sentence, which is/are a bit much).

But here I am today, hacking away at a stationary white ball like millions of people across the world, doing my figurative part to pay back for years of oppression by the chang** men. And now that I can actually hit the thing with some consistency, it is actually pretty fun. It is honestly a really stupid game made by rich people in developed countries who have no worry about food, clothing or shelter, but when you have no frustration in your life, you have to make some or else you die or cheat on your wife. So wives, be thankful that your husbands' mistress is the fairway wood and not another kind of wood.

But besides thinking every once in awhile that the white golf ball is the head of some colonist a hundred years ago who came and raped Vietnam, it's a plus to see the irritated faces of the my chang when my friends and I invade their little side of paradise. Fourteenth Amendment! You lost the Civil War and the Vietnam War--them's the spoils of victory/defeat.

If it's convenient, we'll replace the divot and perhaps a ball-mark if it's nicely in our path. But we're here to play a cheap, fun round of golf, not pay homage to hundreds of years of upper-class snobbery. We're here to de-gentrify golf, just as rich folks are tearing down projects to build $3 million houses next to run-down shacks on MacGregor near Univ of Houston. Because more than a few people in the 15% tax bracket knew that Rory McIlroy choked horribly at that Master's.

But I guess in a way, the de-gentrification of golf and the gentrification of urban slums are moves toward a more homogeneously heterogeneous middle, a death by entropy. It is not combative or controversial, it is simply natural and eventual.

That is until the robots take over, either those that we create now or those that come back from the future to make us their slaves. And I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. But we'll assimilate robot parts and be like cyborgs or something, so it will be cool until the aliens come, and then they'll eventually mate with us after all that probing is done so we'll be one species. Punctuated equilibrium to dynamic equilibrium, rinse & repeat ad infinitum.

Yes, I just moved from golf to a broad generalization and trivialization of gentrification to a shout-out to Terminator/Watson, IBM's new supercomputer, and then stuff about aliens and equilibrium.
--

*I don't know the number, just throwing this out there
**white

$20 Lines

Dear tabloid readers,

I've been following the P-- Principle to the very letter. In the past 6 weeks, I've only had 5 days off from work, and I spent those driving back to Dallas to return my apartment keys (I also won a few bills playing Hold'em in Oklahoma, but that's another story). During this time, I've made a crapload of money and lost a crapload of sleep. 'You gotta get it while the gettin's good,' as the saying goes. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I won't have the opportunity to work extra hours in the future because they hired another night guy. In a way, it's kind of like a buffet line: all that money lying there looks good, but you know it's going to be the death of you if you get too much (or you'll just get filthy filthy rich!).

So writing has been put on hold for now. I plan to post more during my next week off, but you can't ever trust me to follow through. My excuse is that I was raised that way: my parents never kept their promises. That's okay; I'll wipe away my tears with Benjamins.
--

During the week before I started my new job, I read a fantastic line in Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men that I've kept with me whenever I've felt depressed or tired. To be vulgar, it was orgasmic except there wasn't a mess to clean up afterward. And you didn't feel guilty or dirty. Okay, maybe a little dirty like joking with coworkers about the hot girl who just got a prescription for Valtrex 1gm TID ('suuurrreee it's for chicken pox!').

I was going to write about 5 more paragraphs about pretty much nothing, but I'm tired and I'm working tonight. So here is the premature 'grand finale'*.

"Lois looked edible, and you know it was tender all the way through, a kind of mystic combination of filet mignon and a Georgia peach aching for the tongue and ready to bleed gold."

When I read it, I thought, 'That was so much more satisfying than a lap dance, and I didn't even have to pay $20 for it!'

And that's why I read classics instead of the NY Times Bestseller stuff.
--

One of the techs figured out my age (early 20s) from when I got my annual flu shot (Go get your flu shot!) and said, 'Wow, you are really mature for your age.'

I laughed and responded, 'Nah, I just keep my professional side real professional. I'm as Jersey Shore-ish as they come.' I proceeded to joke about how people think I'm good at math. It's likely something about the squinty eyes that make us see numbers better.

--
*euphemism for ejaculation

Lockboxed Raincoats

Dear email inboxes,

I'm back after a 19 day absence from the land of lollipops, video games, and frequent naptimes! At heart (or at a tangled mass of grey* matter in my noggin), I am a hopeless addict with many vices. Fortunately, I also have the attention span of a 9 year old without ADHD meds, so my addictions don't last long because I forget about them. Two negatives do make a positive! Cue Wyclef Jean.

In my last post some 19 days ago, I promised something funny. And unlike the politicos you see on the tele, I do deliver on my promises, if somewhat vastly late. With much ado:

(If you don't know what raincoats are, please ask your little brother or any adolescent male for that matter)

(overshare alert)

So my friend, who overshares quite frequently (which I am never guilty of!**), told me a few weeks ago about her raincoat buying experience. Apparently in downtown Houston, prophylactics belong in Gore's lockbox along with the nicotine supplements, razor blades, OTC antacids (the fancy PPI ones), and diabetes kits. Being that it was nighttime literally and in the economic proverbial sense (I'm still out of work, btw), the establishment only had a person working the front register with a throng of people in line trying to get things not usually meant to assist in getting one's 'swerve on.'

My friend fully intended to get those raincoats that night because it was going to rain very soon, and she didn't want to get caught unawares. So after waiting several minutes in line she stepped up to the counter to semi-discreetly mention that she needed the raincoats which were lockboxed. The clerk, swamped with customers, paged the manager who promptly showed up more than several minutes later 'after finishing a solitaire game' as managers are apt to do when no one is making sure they're working.

In the manner of one intending to protect someone's privacy while inevitably revealing an embarrassing fact, the clerk informed the manager of 'assistance in aisle 8' with a sheepish grin/frown.

So after more than a half hour affair, my friend finally left with her 12 or 24-pack of raincoats in assorted pigments and/or flavors.

'Ha, I have no shame!'
--

I, on the other hand, have lots of unhealthy Catholic guilt in buying prophylactics. I remember the traumatizing experience buying the damn things for the first time. I casually entered the OTC section of the store, pretending to look at some antacids (I did need Pepcid for my Asian flush) while truly surveying the dizzying array of colorful water balloons (some 'ribbed for pleasure') with my peripheral vision. After making sure everyone had vacated the area, I quickly turned my sights on my mark, walked confidently but a bit hurriedly to the area, and picked the moderately sized pack (12) of the brand name I knew (the one with the Greek helmet, though the story behind the name doesn't exactly inspire confidence: after the horse gets into the fortress, all the seamen evacuate to pillage the town).

With the merchandise in possession, I extended my fingers to obscure the face of the product. I walked to the front of the store, wondering if I had aroused the attention of the shrink cop with my furtive movements. Of the 5 open lines, I went to the shortest one with the guy who would be least likely to make any comment; the 2 with the pretty girls were absolutely out of the question--I felt that would have been like shooting Bambi's mother for some reason.

When it was my turn, I placed the product slightly more than halfway up the conveyor belt, so that it wouldn't take too long to reach the checker. I heard the total and handed a $20, with only a brief glance at the dude's face which was thankfully expressionless. Taking my change, I wrapped my purchase tightly in an upsettingly translucent plastic bag. I walked out feeling the same guilt as if I had stolen the thing(s).

I made a promise then and there ('Never again!') which I soon recanted after I made use of the merchandise ('But this is way too much fun!').

Nowadays, I do feel a slight bit of shame but there are stores with a self-checkout line. And I make sure those lines are open and sparsely populated before I make my purchase.
--

A random memory: Some girls in high school had asked a male teacher about the sinfulness of prophylactics (the school was like 90% Catholic because it was 90% Hispanic). He responded, 'If you're going to do wrong, do it right.' Then he smiled in a way that male teachers weren't supposed to smile at underage girls. He was an English teacher, and we had just read Bless Me Ultima, which was the first time I had ever seen the F-bomb in a legit novel.

And a random thought: I wonder if Mama has ever found my stash. I know she knows what they are, because I unfortunately stumbled upon her cache while searching for the TV remote. I think she follows the U.S. military's stance: don't ask, don't tell. And we all know the results of that program are simply fabulous.
--

*one of my friends (a dude) and I have agreed that the proper and English way of spelling 'grey' is with an 'e'. 'Gray' is drab and boring and has a thudding sound when you say it. 'Grey' on the other hand, has a delightful ring and reminds me of the hue of certain pants women wear which makes me swoon.
**What is a blog without oversharing?

Expired Milk: Where's My Money?

Dear yogurt lovers,

Let me preface this post with a description of a very common annoyance that has been happening to me this year. As a strapping single bachelor with no one to care for except me-myself-and-I, I have been remarkably good at not taking care of my sole ward. Sure, I handle the major things like keeping a roof over my head, wearing a seat belt and protection, etc, but diet, exercise, and sleep have been woefully neglected, like the red-headed step-child.

So I buy a gallon of non-organic (I like it hormone-laced!) fat-free milk about once every two weeks, resolving to have my daily 2 glasses of leche like the really smart people on TV suggest. But eventually, at the end of those two weeks, I’ve had about 2 glasses total and only because I felt like having something to go with my Lucky Charms. And at the end of those two weeks, I’ve felt really bad about eating Lucky Charms, so I get the 100%-daily-vitamins-and-minerals cereal which has about the consistency and taste of soggy cardboard. But where I epic-fail* is that the milk is two days past the ‘BEST BY’ date. Have you noticed that it’s not an expiration date, but a ‘BEST BY’ date?

Anyway, I pop the plastic cap and brush off the dried white flakes from around the rim of the bottle. A quick sniff reveals a faintly acidic odor not unlike the smell of plain yogurt. The milk flows freely when I shake the plastic jug, and there’s not much sediment; I think those are good signs. The cardboard cereal is already in the bowl looking very unappetizing, and it would be a chore to finagle the damn thing back into the box.

Oh well. I tip the container of fermented milk, watching it slosh gently over the wheat flakes. Thirty seconds pass, and I take another whiff wondering if letting the milk rest would improve its bouquet as if it were some fine wine. But like Olde English**, it’s best to hold your nose and gulp it while it’s still chilled.

I didn’t know what was more revolting, the milk or the cereal. But like a kid being forced to eat his vegetables, I willed my way through, spoonful by spoonful. After what seemed like torture comparable to water-boarding, I make it through the ordeal somewhat intact. And I felt good about doing well for myself and for not wasting milk.

But the warm fuzzy feeling subtly morphed itself into ominous gurglings and severe abdominal cramps. It felt like the time I had the ‘bottled water’ in Mexico. But the pain subsided, and being a stupid male, I sloshed another glassful of that drank down my throat instead of into the sink. But it wasn’t all that bad. The natural acidity of age added character to what would otherwise be a boring beverage.

So this post is like my expired milk. It doesn’t quite fit into the time frame, but it’s still good, and if you drink it with an open mind, it is quite palatable and surprisingly tasty! But don’t sue me if you get an enteric infection.

DISCLAIMER: g neither recommends nor condones eating or drinking of expired foods and/or medicines.
--

Chuc mung nam moi! I’m too lazy to put all the Vietnamese diacritical and accent marks on the greeting. And if I did, it may not display correctly on your computer screens anyway. Basically it means, ‘Happy New Year’ in Vietnamese. February 14 this year happens to be the lunar new year as well, so the Asian folks in red garb are pulling double duty with VDay (red is a lucky color). There will be plenty of new years to come, so I’ll defer the description of the festivities as next year’s will likely be similar to this year’s. In Vietnamese, the word for new year is ‘Tet’.

Suffice it to say that there is plenty of booze, gambling, and luck-mongering. And for most kids, plenty of red envelopes, known in Vietnamese as li xi, filled with crisp, nice-smelling bank notes. There are a lot of traditions around it, but the only important one is that old(er) people give money to younger folks as long as the recipient is unmarried.

According to the repository of all knowledge***, both good and poorly-sourced,

‘In Vietnam, lì xì are typically given to those who are younger as long as they are bachelors’

Damn straight! I’m a bachelor and will remain so for the foreseeable future. So where’s my money!?

Now my extended family isn’t rolling in dough like some Asian folks are, but I’ve managed to scrounge up at least $100 in past Tets. Just for comparison, some of my friends rake in $500. I’m not that greedy; I just want a little something--It’s incredibly satisfying to not spend your own money.

So what was the count this year? A bill? $75 or $50? Nope, not any of the above.

It was a measly $35, and $20 was from Mama since she was in a giving mood this year. I can’t even get a shirt at Express for that amount!

I blame the recession! Young Asians everywhere should lobby to siphon CEO bonuses to compensate for the slimming of red envelopes around the nation. It is all very unjust! I am outraged and appalled that Obama would let me suffer a loss of ~$65. My new job and the fact that I don’t really need the money have nothing to do with it. The United Auto Workers didn’t stop fighting for higher wages when GM was going under, and I won’t either!

I’m just being facetious as always. My indignant resentment is all in good fun. I had a great time hanging out with the family, and that is far better than any amount of money.
--

*epic-fail – the (bastardized) verb form of ‘epic failure’
**what do you know about that malt liquor?
***Wikipedia

Sanofi Aventis’s RockBand Title

Dear Guitar Hero/Rockband recovering addicts,

The other day while dispensing a prescription for an insulin analogue (an insulin that has been modified to alter its pharmacology), I had a quick musing about the brand name on the box. This particular insulin-analogue has been around for a few years now; I’ve dispensed it as an intern when I was in school. But I think the development of this particular delivery device is a (relatively) new thing.

Just a quick background: Insulin in the olden days would just come in vials and would need to be drawn up in a syringe separately. Most insulin still comes this way, and most customers will have a prescription for both the insulin and the syringes (I like to tap the sign that reads 'NO SYRINGE SALES WITHOUT PRESCRIPTION'). But a few drug companies had the smart idea of making pre-filled syringes and packaging those in boxes. Voila. The insulin pen (so-called because it looks like a pen) was born.

Diabetics would just need to attach a needle to the device and inject themselves. And since the pen could control the amount of insulin injected, there wouldn’t be need to draw up each individual dose. I’m not insulin-dependent, but I’d bet it would suck to have to draw up each dose of insulin and stick yourself several times a day, so at least these pen devices make it mildly less inconvenient. And I think you could tote around a pen without having to refrigerate it. I wish I had an pharmacist-intern to look up the answer, because that's what they're for (besides fetching coffee).

And the boxes the pre-filled pens come in are fairly large, so I like being able to stick the label on it without having to fold it around the box. If you’ve labeled a Novolin insulin box, you know how irritating it can be to have a flap of prescription label hanging around the edge of a box (or is it just my being anal?).

Getting back to the product, I’ve dispensed this particular pen device quite a few times, but for some reason I was thinking about old-school rock and the now ubiquitous RockBand/GuitarHero/Clone games.

I waxed silently in my head, ‘Lantus Solostar. That sounds a lot like a title for one of those video games!’

Then I said it aloud, causing the (pharmacy) tech to give me a funny look that implied, ‘WTF are you talking about?’ Sometimes you should keep your random thoughts to yourself. But then again, silences can be awkward.

DacBiet

Dear sobriquet detractors,

I like my name. In Vietnamese, it means ‘bright mind’, which is a bit of a presumptuous name to call a kid, especially when you’re not sure if he will turn out to be all that smart. But since it’s a nice name with a nice ring to it (in Vietnamese at least), Viet people will insist on calling their kids ‘Minh Tri.’ And since it can seem that more than half of Viet people have the last name ‘Nguyen’, more than several will have my exact same first, middle, and last names. Actually, a quick search of Facebook for ‘Tri Nguyen’ will yield 3,300+ hits (before the vilified FB update).

It makes a fella feel real special. What also makes a guy feel special is when he gets a text message likely intended for someone else.

Me: uh…this is tri. wrong number?

Friend: hahahha, sorry tri!! i have another tri on my phone. i had made dinner plans and i had to cancel

Great. Even amongst friends, I’m not the only ‘Tri’ they know. But I do think that my unique Americanized pronunciation (like the letter ‘g’) sets me apart from the other Tri’s. And I do sign my posts with a lowercase ‘g’ to further my identity building. But sadly, for legal documents and other stuff like Facebook, you have to use your real name.

But I am special! (and not in a special needs way, not that there's anything wrong with that). I demand that I be the only person with my name! I’ll eliminate the rest of the poseurs one day, but in the meantime to set myself apart, I have donned a moniker which describes my uniqueness: DacBiet.

It means ‘special’ in Vietnamese. Most commonly, you might have seen it as one of the options for your pho, as in pho dac biet. Though dac biet is used like ordering the ‘special of the day’, it also has the meaning of ‘unique’.

And if you’ve managed to put up with my writing and rambling thus far, you will undoubtedly agree with my claim to being different than the rest, that I’m one of a kind. If not, you will.

Already people have taken notice of the identifying ‘middle name’ on Facebook. When new friends send requests of amity, they won’t be bewildered by the numerous impostors. They will simply have to search for ‘dacbiet’ (without a space), and they will find moi.

Notably, I had thought about using the title dai ca, meaning big boss or captain, but some guy had already snatched it up. In his about me description, 'Tri Dai Ca Nguyen' referred to himself as a ‘...pretty hard n*gga to be with' and states that 'If i'm goin forward, and you can't keep up, you gon be left behind.'

How brash! And it's a bit offputting that a non-my den* person would refer to himself by the N-word. Some people are just so full of themselves. Thankfully I’m not like that**.

--
*African-American or black
**On second thought, I probably need gastric bypass surgery because I'm so full of myself.

SPIDER: Would you like some fresh breh-ade?

Dear Fairfield visitors,

Where is the town of Fairfield anyway? It is near the halfway point between Dallas and Houston at milemarker 197, and is notable for the fact that yours truly stops there on his trips to and from Dallas. Otherwise, it is wholly insignificant. The fields aren't that fair, though the girls sure are adorable with their East Texas accents.

One of my friends didn't have the chance to read this post before I shut down my old blog. He had mentioned that he stopped at the McD's in Fairfield frequently. So yet another re-release is inspired by him.

--

Sep 11, 2009

me: 'What? Breh-ade?'

'Yes, breh-ade.'

me: 'Oh, bread! Sure, I'd love some.'

About 25 miles out from Dallas, I spotted a sign for Sam's Gift Shop & Restaurant, breakfast, lunch, burgers, buffet, dinner, exit 197, Fairfield. Only 70 miles away. An eternity. Then 65 miles away. Stomach wrenches on itself. Fifty miles. Maybe I should stop by McD's...

Billboards, milemarker 243+0.5 miles, 'Stop the Porn, be Reborn, JOHN 3:3'.

Milemarker 243, 'DW's Adult Video Store, Fleshlights, Extenze Rise here!' Hilarious.

46 miles left... 'Forty-six legs of chicken on the plate, 46 legs of chicken, if g were to grab a leg, wolf it down, there'd be 45 legs of chicken left on the plate.' Delirium sets in.

Milemarker 200... Just a couple more miles. Then, the cruddy sign for Sam's appears on the horizon, like the White Castle sign for Harold & Kumar. Exit, skid around a few turns, park, enter.

The best country fried steak I have ever had. Brisket that falls off the fork and into my coronary arteries. Beans so soaked in butter that it's questionable whether the main ingredient is butter or beans. Fried chicken surprisingly subpar, but that's okay. Waitress gives me funny look. She probably thinks, 'Why is this China-man in East Texas?'

Then she asks, 'Would you like some fresh breh-ade?'

East Texas, where bread is a two-syllable word, and the food takes off 5 years off your life. Fair trade.

--

Deluxe, super-stupendous, superfluously supplicated commentary on the Surreptitiously Post-modern Imbued, Duplicitously Engaging, Rehashed re-release (if you were wondering, a 'rehashed re-release' is possibly redundant):

I'm sure my friend won't have any problems keeping his eyes to himself. And since his wife will be probably with him on their trips back to North Texas, it would behoove him to do so.

About the date, I didn't feel like writing anything about 9/11 on September 11th. I figured there would be plenty more people with better writing skills doing in memoriam pieces. And so I did what I do best: write a bit of comedy.

Night at Ra, Pt. 1

Dear stand-up eaters,

A few weeks back, I did the Happy Hour + Rockets game with my older brother and his friends. Usually, they go to Kona at the Galleria, but this time, they decided on Ra. It's nice to try new things, but you should probably avoid popular places on a Friday night.

Ra Sushi was packed like the Superdome after Katrina. It probably violated the maximum occupancy limit, but as it was an Asian place, the establishment ignores safety in quest for deeper profits.

After I scaled the stairs to get to the main dining floor, I found a mass of humanity trying to get a bite of Ra fish. There was a superfluous amount of attractive women who were attempting to upgrade to better boyfriends (by flaunting their assets), but were currently accompanied by the douche-bag starter model, the kind that emulate the Jersey Jagger Bomb faux-celebs.

I’m still refining my pick-up line. So far, I have ‘Hi, my name is g. I’m a doctor, and I make six figures. Do you want to get on this?’ (patent pending). It’s a work in progress. It currently has a zero success rate, but like the search for weapons of mass destruction, I swear that line will hit paydirt one day.

Being Asian, I don’t have the trouble of differentiating between groups of the yellow-skinned folk, and I spot my brother and his friends fairly quickly, as they were standing a little past the hostess’s station. Okay, so I guess instead of being like the rest of the suckers standing in the lobby, we’re going to have some Kirin beer while we wait at this area where there is an overhang that acted like a makeshift table.

I didn’t care as long as there’s a place to rest my drink. The server comes by with massive bottles of Kirin and delicate porcelain curved flutes of warm sake. Like good alcoholics, we pound some sake bombs and toast the Rockets good fortune against the Heat. Then another dude comes by with some plates of sushi. At this point, I became mildly confused, because as far as I know, sushi isn’t served dim sum-style where they wheel around carts, asking you what you want.

The confusion cleared up when one of the guys said that it was our order. There weren’t even chopsticks or napkins at the little overhang area, not to mention the lack of any kind of chairs or chair-like objects. Though we do look a little F-O-B, we’re decent enough to use utensils. Some of the guys shrugged, and grabbed the food-art with their thumbs and index fingers. I shrug too, and grabbed a pork dumpling.

The silverware and woodware and napkins came by later, but as we were well on our way to being so far gone, we ignored them for the most part. The alcohol coursed through bodies which weren’t well equipped to handle such poison (aldehyde dehydrogenase mutation which leads to poor metabolism and subsequent ‘Asian Flush’), and the already uninhibited became even more dis-inhibited.

One of the guys said to a group of fun black girls, ‘You know I like that dark meat, right? I’ll get you a bucket of fried chicken, but only on a Tuesday. 99-cent special at Popeyes. Nah mean*?’

As it turns out, you can say a lot of things if you can say it confidently and playfully. Rather than getting slapped, the guy got a bunch of laughs (along with him, not at him). One of the memorable things one of those girls said was, ‘Nuh uh, you couldn’t handle all this woman.’ Very true. I doubted if anyone could handle all of her.

After a couple more sake bombs, I began feeling like I was in Vietnam, even though I’ve never been there.

me: ‘Damn. We eatin’ like we in Vietnam, all standin’ and squatin’ and sh*t.’

guy: ‘How you know what we ate like when we in Vietnam?’

me: ‘I saw some pictures on some travel ads. Looked like people be eatin’ and tryin’ to take a dump at the same time.’
--

After several more rounds of rice wine, we left of our own free will and on our own sets of legs; I was a bit surprised we hadn’t been kicked out. And we got to the game perfectly fine**, though I soon passed out on the seat as the Heat proceeded to pound on the Rockets.

--
*you know what I mean?
**there was a DD, natch

Tri, Try Harder

You must excuse me for yet another post about yet another woman, but this 2-part set was already typed up, and I’d hate for it to go to waste.
--

Dear follow-up readers,

...continued...

The pretty blonde did not have a ring, just as that gentleman had said. I need to improve my ring-spotting skills.

She came by the next night, and I remembered her name and her prescription not only because she was pretty, but because she was a troublemaker. People with any kind of insurance or attitude or other problems get that label, which means that I spent, or will have to spend extra effort on their prescriptions. Like in public schools, only the problem-children get any attention. Note to pharmacy goers, if you pitch a fuss, the pharmacy will take extra care of your prescriptions just because we want to limit the face-to-face time as much as possible.

Hers was a weird issue which I had figured out overnight using some knowledge and intuition. She was not impressed that I remembered her name; she is probably used to people going out of their way to know her name and fawning at her every desire.

I explained what had happened to her prescription the previous night, and she nodded reassuringly, confirming what I thought had happened.

Blonde 8.5: ‘Yea, I had left because I saw how busy you were. I wanted to give you a break.’

At some point in the will-call to register to signature capture, she glanced at my name tag.

Blonde 9.5: ‘That’s an interesting name. How do you pronounce that?’

I said my name, wishing that she would do the same. My wish was soon granted, but not in the way I had hoped.

Blonde 9.0: ‘Tri, try harder.’ A subtle grin appeared on her rose-colored lips.

‘Wow. I haven’t heard that since high school. You’re bringing back horrible memories.’

Blonde 9.3: ‘Oh, I’m sorry. High school sucked for everybody. But look where you’re at now.’

She continued her coy smile, as pretty girls are wont to do when they’re teasing you. She wasn’t really sorry.

Me: ‘Well actually, it wasn’t all that bad.’

At this point, I should have just reflected her smile and stopped talking. When I get nervous or flustered, I start talking random gibberish to fill the silences, and the stuff that comes out oftentimes isn’t favorable. So to try to impress this girl, I rambled on and on about AP tests and how I became a book hermit to get out of school a little quicker.

It was like a scene out of a chick flick where the nerd thinks that explaining the difference between speed and velocity* would somehow make him devastatingly irresistible to women.

I guess I had made some stupid comparison to jocks, and so to humor me, she said something like, ‘where are they [jocks] now?’ Thinking on that question, they are still probably scoring, but to a lesser extent (the player-hater side of me hopes so). Jocks are like American light beer: they're best when they’re fresh. I hope I’m like premium wine: better with age.

So after I had sufficiently stuffed both my feet in my mouth with talk of my nerd-dom, I ended with my customary, ‘Have a great night!’ The awkwardness was painful to endure on my end, though I’m sure she’s used to it because she has caused many a man to find himself speechless.

One thing I’ve learned in my interaction with people is to never read too much into things. You’re not that important for people to prepare themselves to talk to you. Most people just say the first thing that pops into their mind, and you should just take it at face value.

Was Blonde 9.7 (her score increased from 8.5 to 9.7 for teasing and humoring me) interested in me? No idea, but my bet would be on ‘no’. Face value: she asked how to pronounce my name and made a cutesy jest out of it.

As I grow less socially awkward, I hope I can parlay these very minor indicators of interest into some digits without violating HIPAA.

--
*speed is distance per time and is scalar, whereas velocity is displacement per time and is a vector; velocity takes into account the initial and final position of an object. Example: if you made a complete revolution around the earth in an hour, your velocity would be 0 m/s, because your initial and final position would be the same. In contrast, your speed would be a value larger than the number of Charlie Sheen's horizontal tango partners, which is a lot.

The Wise Man

Dear joke-tellers,

So a priest, a blonde, an old guy, and a rabbi walk into a pharmacy. The priest says to the pharmacist, ‘I know you dispense Plan B, but everyone can be forgiven.’

Then the priest sees the blonde and again addresses the pharmacist, ‘You can be forgiven for your next couple thoughts as well.’

‘What?’ The pharmacist was confused, but then sees the blonde and grins involuntarily. ‘Oh, thanks.’

The rabbi said some things too, but since I’m not Jewish, I’ll have to refrain from saying something possibly non-PC.

The priest and rabbi leave, thus ending a bad joke.
--

There were some issues with the blonde’s prescription, as is likely to happen in a pharmacy which obeys Murphy’s Law to perfection. It was a Friday, but instead of people getting their groove on with their paychecks and paid companions, they wanted to keep the pharmacist (moi) company, though their presence was like that of bad in-laws who think you stole their son/daughter.

As there was a line of customers and several waiters (and not the kind that could have served me the adult beverage--single malt scotch--I so desperately needed), I used one of my patented delay tactics, ‘There were some issues with the prescription (such as I haven’t had 2 seconds of peace since I’ve been here to fill it), but I’ll get to yours next if you give me but 5 minutes.’ I hoped she didn’t have a watch.

So she left, but more people in the store started queuing up like it was the evacuation out of Houston when Hurricane Rita graced the third coast. One of the customers asked another guy, ‘What’s the fuss all about?’ The other dude responded, ‘I don’t know, but since there are a lot of people here, it must be important.’ And they both proceeded to honk their horns and wondered why it took so damn long (11 hours+) to get out of Houston and why it takes someone more than a minute to lick and stick* a prescription.

But the next gentleman in line, a bespectacled sage with adroit eyes, was quite understanding and made a comment which made me smile.

‘You know, I wouldn’t have minded if you had taken time to fill that blonde’s prescription.’

I laughed. ‘I think she’s married. I’m sure I saw a ring.’ It seems that all the women who frequent the pharmacy who are even just somewhat attractive are the ones who sport a shiny bauble on the left ring finger. And so I’ve just stopped trying to spot the circlet of death.

The elderly gentleman paid for his prescription and then let a coy grin slide to the left-most edge of his lips from the expertly hidden, sex-filled part of the brain that all males possess, no matter how old. ‘No, she didn’t have a ring. Trust me, son.’ He winked and was gone.

That little interchange got me through the rest of the night, but the blonde did not return, much to my chagrin and dismay.

But she did come back the next evening...

To be continued…

--
*in the olden days, prescription labels had to be licked to activate the adhesive, hence the phrase, ‘lick and stick’. In the modern era, ‘lick and stick’ has come to mean other things entirely unrelated to pharmacy practice.

Shopper at Walmart - m4w - 22

'Dear cute brunette in the black designer frames and wool sweater,

'Did we have something going on at the Walmart on [address deleted]? I had passed you while going to electronics the first time and you looked at my face, and then you did the thing that most guys normally do, that is look down and check the package.

‘Were you looking at my Droid which I had holstered, or was it something else? Like my watch, perhaps? Or something more central? Just letting you know that I caught you looking!

‘A few minutes later, I came back to frozen foods because I forgot to get something. And when that box of indeterminate-ness (I forget what it was because all I could think about was you) dropped from the shelf, it was entirely by accident, but my subconscious may have had something to do with it. I leaned over to pick it up, but as I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, I couldn’t tell if you were checking me out again. If you did sneak another peek, did you like what you see?

‘If perchance, you were thinking, “wtf is this douchebag doing in a white tee and hoodie with pulled-up sleeves with some brick hanging off his right hip,” then please ignore this message.

‘Otherwise, call me at (832) 555-2134*. It’s a Houston area code, but I’m all Dallas, baby.’
--

I’m almost tempted to post this on missed connections via craigslist. As you might know from wasting time reading the posts, they're not all entirely serious, like this one, where the poster writes

You live 3rd Floor at Seville Lofts, Uptown/Oaklawn. Saturday Jan 23 around 3:30-5pm, I saw you blowing someone then he [expletive deleted] you for about an hour. You were right in front of your window, patio door and on your couch the entire time. Thanks for the great show! Tell me something about what happened. I'd love to watch you two go at it again.

I googled Seville Lofts, and it's not that far away (I'm hoping the 'm4m'** in the title was a typo). Then I realized I have internet... and I searched for ways not to be a creepy (and possibly gay) stalker.

And about the white tee and hoodie, in my defense, the Redbox finally had Inglourious Basterds and Burn after Reading in stock, so I had to haul ass to get there before someone else got it. Inglourious Basterds was amazing. I absolutely love Quentin Tarantino, but not in a m4m kind of way. In contrast, I love Melanie Laurent in every kind of way possible. I must learn French!

--
*a real number, just not my number.
**man for man

The Finger Snap

Dear snappers of fingers,

I was never a waiter, and I pray that I’ll never have to be a waiter. That job can be more difficult than my Monday nights, and the compensation is far less. Plus, people snap their fingers at waiters to get their attention. The worst I get is the lean over the counter, the scan of the pharmacy (which instead of just looking left and right with their eyes, they insist on moving their whole head to make a grand show), and the snide, ‘So you’re the only one here, huh?’ or ‘So they left you all alone?’

Being a retail employee (a serf to the many wannabe kings, queens, princes, princesses and even the court jester), I have the utmost respect and courtesy to other retail employees when warranted. And so as long as it looks like they’re trying and not just sitting behind the counter playing with their iPhone or Droid or themselves, then I don’t mind waiting a bit. And I never snap my fingers at anyone because it is so incredibly rude, and my food probably would have an odd taste and smell.

Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
I do bite my thumb, sir.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?*

But I do snap my fingers though, but in private and as a means of celebration for little victories over the dismal-er part of life. It’s like when adolescents and people of the inner-city ilk (myself included) do the multi-part handshake (the handshake, the clasping of palms, the lean-in for the chest bump/hug, the release, and finally the finga snap) and finish with a finger snap that looks like the person is trying to light a match. I haven’t grown to think that this is childish just yet, though I do try to keep my finger snaps private as much as possible.

The lighting-of-a-match finger snap, that was formerly solely reserved as the finish of the coolest** way two guys can greet each other, has insidiously found its way into my everyday routine, like the Asian carp in the Great Lakes. The Asian carp is just happy where it is in its new environment, but people just don’t understand and are trying to suppress it. So the celebratory finger snap, like the Asian carp, will remain hidden until a time when it becomes an acceptable sign of victory, like the V-sign*** 2000 years ago.
--

*Romeo & Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 44-46.
**this is debatable. Some people are of the opinion that the multi-part handshake is just stupid. I happen to be of the opinion that the people of the former opinion are themselves stupid, and therefore have no grounds to call anyone else stupid.
***Supposedly, the V is the one in Caesar's 'Veni, vidi, vici', and he threw it up in victory and the trend caught on****. But over the centuries and millennia, the V has become utterly antiquated, but some presidents (our current one excluded) insisted on throwing it up in celebration (‘Mission Accomplished’!). Or maybe he was trying to throw up the ‘dubya’?

****I made this up.

Senior Rings

Dear Saved By the Bell fans,

Balfour’s business model depends primarily on school pride and the popularity that exists only amongst seniors during their last year in school. Fortunately for them, it works enough to pry a couple hundred from enough cash-strapped students to make it somewhat profitable. They did not get anything from me; all my cash went to one of the only two adornments a guy can wear without question: the wristwatch. The other adornment is the circlet of death typically worn on the finger next to the pinky on the left hand. Let us have a moment of silence for our fallen comrades. May their mates forgive them their foibles and not nag them too terribly much.

I had recently watched an episode of Saved by the Bell where Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) gets tricked into buying fake rings for the entire school. And it seemed like the entire school got a ring. Honestly? Was it just the times (a 90s era sitcom) or do most people at predominantly white schools buy rings?

As a male in the real world (i.e. out of school and working), I find that tailoring first impressions is a must to be successful in any venture. The clothes someone chooses and the expression someone wears on his face tells a lot about the character, even if I don’t know a shred of the ‘personality’. The exterior gives an impression of the interior. Always. A man who doesn’t take care of himself externally likely doesn’t take care of himself internally. And the converse is mostly true as well, except in the case of depressed narcissists, which is fairly common (a psychologically tortured person with a show-stopping exterior)*.

This is not in defense of people who are shallow. And I'm not saying that the 'inside' doesn't count. I am simply stating that people develop preconceived notions because of a generalized perception of truth, which may or may not be ultimately true. As one of my favorite authors** wrote, 'If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.' If you see what looks like a car but you've never actually seen the model before, would it be prejudicial to think that it has four wheels, a steering column, a gearbox and brakes?

(Finally getting to the point of this post) So in my opinion, a man who wears a class ring is stuck in the nostalgia of former days long lost. Or he is still a boy in the midst of getting some serious poo-tang as a high school/ college senior. (Maybe I should have gotten a class ring). A class ring is like a letterman jacket, an article that is only attractive to pre-pubescent girls and those under the tender age of legal consent. Whereas my Gucci has turned heads from 12 to 21 to 51 to 71.

Thankfully I haven’t seen a letterman jacket except at church, worn by obvious teens. And fortunately, the class ring is starting to phase out among the younger crowd, though it seems that Aggies and Longhorns still have a tendency to pimp the right ring finger.

[insert one of 10,000,000 Aggie jokes here]. Half my high school who went to college when to A&M, so I think I can say this. If they're insulted, they can always point out that my alma mater's website is www.uh.edu (double-u double-u double-u dot uh dot com.

I can’t say anything about women with class rings since I clueless about women fashion. All I know is that some Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos cost as much as my entire watch collection, and my watches never touch the pavement.

--
*reference: all the people who end up on TMZ.
**Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Punked! (TV Edition)

Dear big-ass TV owners,

Mama told me there was a surprise for me when I came home last week. One of my guesses was that she spent a bunch of time packing all my boxes for me to bring up to Dallas. That would have been awesome. Another guess was that she was going to have another kid. That would have sucked. But it was neither of those things. Vegas would have given odds of 1:150,000,000 for the former, and 1:100 for the latter. Thankfully it wasn’t the latter. It’s not that it wouldn’t be cool to have a younger brother or sister; it's just that I wouldn’t wish another human being to have to live under Dad’s roof.

Vegas would have given 1:1 odds for the actual surprise: a big-ass TV. When I opened the familiar faux-redwood door to the place I still considered home, I was greeted by a piano-black monstrosity floating delicately above those tacky metal and glass stands (tacky because they try too hard to be modern). The plastic film protecting the glass-like frame around the screen was still attached, and my antenna from the TV in my old room had miraculously migrated to the TV stand underneath the new member of our family. Traitor.

Mama hadn’t come home from work yet, and I couldn’t find the remote, which as it turns out, was a problem (as troublesome as the current Great Recession) as new TVs are so cool that they don’t have buttons (on/off, volume, channel) on the actual thing itself.

So after I ripped apart the house trying to find the key to nirvana, I trudged sulkingly up the stairs to my room with its infinitesimally nano-scopic 24” screen. But then I remembered that the antenna had Benedict Arnold’ed itself downstairs for wider pastures. Great. Then I remembered that I had just completed a 4.5 hour trek across a desperately boring part of Americana, and I remembered that sleep is good.

A couple hours later, I was greeted with Mama’s tinny voice, ‘Hello! You home!?!?’ Then she proceeded to rub my nose in the TV I had bought a few months prior on Black Friday.

‘Oh, what size you say your TV. Forty-six? Oh, this one bigger. It LED. You say your LCD? So this one better, right?’*

‘Yes, Mama. You win.’
--

*In the Vietnamese language, is/are are not necessary sometimes, and so when older Viet people learn English, they also neglect to use is/are.

Heidi's Boob-napping

Dear tabloid readers/watchers,

One of my shameful secrets is that I watch TMZ. Unlike STAR magazine and the other tabloids, they really don’t take themselves seriously. Sure, they make fun of idiot celebrities, but they also make fun of themselves. The Boss Man stands behind the cubicles spying over his minions and drinks out of the same thermos with what I hope are different straws each show (I think it would be slightly more unsanitary than Michael Jordan’s use of the same drawers every game). Their potshots, scripted or otherwise, are generally spot on and in decent enough taste.

There’s also a cute Latina with prominent grill (the kind where it looks like she has braces) and those black designer frames with thick end pieces. What makes her attractive is that she’s dorky so it makes you think you’d have a chance, even though a NYC hostess would probably have a better chance of getting away from Tiger’s sight.

So there was this story about how Heidi Montag (you know, that annoying chick who you want to tape her mouth shut and bend her over--she might be into that kind of thing*) got a boob job. She had promised the exclusive first photos of her ‘new kids’ to some trashy magazine, and so after her operation, she covered up her new purchase(s), Michael Jackson style. Some neighbor had seen Heidi with a bag over her head (which isn’t a bad look) and reported a kidnapping to the cops.

A few minutes later, the boys in blue and black (who beat minorities black and blue), showed up to protect the United States’ most valuable assets: its Hollywood celebrities.

Cali’s bloated tax dollars at work. That’s why I live in Texas. People would sooner pull one of the many 12-gauges from their garage and go a-huntin' if they see a crime happening. The slogan 'Don't mess with Texas' extends beyond littering our roadways.

It's a shame about Heidi, because I liked how she looked pre-plastic surgery. Too bad you can't fix personalities with a scalpel (maybe a lobotomy?).
--

*Hope she doesn’t sue me. Though I’ll probably make more money than she does over a lifetime, she definitely makes more than me this year. It’s a dismal world when celebutantes make more than doctors.

g-Style, the Weekly Blog-azine(TM)

Dear future g-Style subscribers,

It has come to my attention that people generally don’t take things in moderation. I cite all the alcoholics, foodaholics, sexaholics, and hydrocodone-aholics in the world. People also don’t like stuff that’s very lengthy, even if the Extenze commercials would purport otherwise (using their oh-so slutty actresses). 'He's been taking Extenze for a week, and I can really feel the difference.' Liars...

The epiphany came after one of my friends texted me saying my ‘blog is hilarious!’ but commented that I’m ‘letting [my] readers down’ by not having had posted this past week. It also came after another of my friends commented on about a dozen posts in a row. So at least 2 people have a tendency to read several posts at once to catch up.

I’m not sure if anyone actually checks in everyday to see if there’s another post up. If there is such a kindred soul, I do apologize for my lack of regularity (I should buy some yogurt or bifidus regularis). This is a problem that simply has to be addressed immediately. Some of my more demanding (rude) customers would put their left fist on their hip, lean over slightly, give a reproving sneer, wag their index finger threateningly and say, ‘So how are we going to fix this?’

*dramatic drum roll*

The Final Countdown with Will Arnett as GOB, my favorite character from Arrested Development.

I am adopting a magazine style with a weekly summary of last week’s blog entries so you can figure out what you want to read. All writings for a week will likely have been finished before Monday and will be released daily at 9AM. I am tentatively setting Monday as my summary day, where I get to pat myself on the back and laugh at all my jokes and cry all my crocodile tears. It will be where I try to kiss the reflection in the water; hopefully I won’t fall in and drown.

Seeing as I will have composed all my crap before the week has even started and will have started forward posting them, delayed-release style, the daily readers will be satisfied. And because of the week-end summary on Monday, my buffet-ers will be pleased.

And hopefully I’ll get more consistent, loyal readership. So get off Amazon.com, Buy.com, Overstock.com, Macys.com, [porn site deleted].com, or any other website that detracts from my ego. Grab my blog-azine off the cyber rack, look through the table of contents, gawk at pretty pictures of Marisa Miller in nightvision, and enjoy the musings of the ever so slightly insane.

-g
editor-in-chief, g Style Blog-azine(TM)

Who do you suggest I use as my new pretty-girl substitute? I think Marisa’s posse might be considering to threaten me with some litigation.

Backposts, natch.

Dear word-enthusiasts,

My new favorite bastard word is ‘natch.’ By bastard word, I mean something made up that had not existed in the New Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary at the turn of the last last century (1900). English, as I have mentioned to some friends before, is such a mutt language that there’s really no point in talking about purity or tradition. If words like ‘chillax’ and ‘fo shizzle’ can become so common as to be used by 30-somethings in everyday parlance (while ‘parlance,’ a delightfully delicious word is not oft used), then we might as well burn our hardbound dictionaries and resort to Googling ‘[insert word here] definition’ or ‘[insert word here] urbandictionary’ every time we don’t know a word. This is exactly what I do; I don’t remember the last time opening up a paper dictionary.

Confounded by the definition of ‘natch’? Have you still not googled ‘natch definition’?

If not, I’ll enable your laziness:

Tech: There’s a refill request in the queue, but the doctor approved it for tomorrow.

Me: So I’ll just have to run it through at midnight?

Tech: Yep

Me: What is it for? Hydrocodone?

Tech: Natch

I had only recently come across the bastard [word] a week earlier on Maura Kelly’s blog. She had made some interesting comment about something entirely unrelated to opiates and followed it up with ‘Natch.’

My next series of moves: Double mousepad tap ‘Natch’. Ctrl+C. Alt+T. Ctrl+V. ‘definition’. Enter. All in less than 2 seconds. In other words, select, copy, new tab, paste, type ‘definition’, and enter. Ah, the wonders of keyboard shortcuts and the Google Chrome search bar.

What’s it short for? Have you still not followed my keystrokes?

One more example before the big reveal:

So I haven’t posted since Monday of last last week due to my laziness (I guess I’m the pot in the pot & kettle metaphor) and the lack of internet at my parents’ place. And I had to drive home and back to Dallas within 2 days because I had to work the weekend after Christmas. So that’s another 9 hours I didn’t have. [insert more excuses here].

So as you can see from my very well thought out reasons which were entirely out of my control (laziness is a pre-existing medical condition which under the new healthcare reform bill, you will be unable to criticize me for), I was unable to post.

But I promise I had typed up the posts. The check really was in the mail. Scout’s honor! Not that I was ever a scout.

Blogspot has a really neat feature where you can back-post and forward-post, meaning you can predate and postdate blog entries. So I’m going to take advantage of that. Natch (naturally).

Lego Hair

Dear gel-lovers,

For the longest time, I had shiny hair that glistened as if it had been layered with shellac. In actuality, it was just simply plastered with level 12 extra-mega-super hold gel. One of my friends referred to it as 'lego hair', the look of the fake plastic helmet hair you attach to the yellow cylindrical heads of your Star Wars Lego figurines (I still have my Han Solo action figure).

When I graduated, I wanted to change my appearance, so I opted for the long hair which ended up being a bust because it was so high maintenance. So after I got a fade (which felt like 3 lbs of hair had been taken off my head), I went for the mousse instead of the gel. Even then, the lowest strength I could find at the Blue Box Retailer was a 7 Extra Hold.

Nowadays, I wet my hair, apply the mousse, and style as desired. After about half an hour when the mousse has dried, I run my hands through my hair a few times to minimize the comb marks and shellac-y look. Sometimes I forget, and I end up looking like a high-schooler for a few hours.

One of those nights happen to be while working. One of the smartass techs came over and tapped my hair.

'Just checking to see if it was real.'

Now, I make sure I check the mirror before I leave the apartment.

The Time-Has-No-Meaning Watch

The weekends are slow, like the calm before the zombies start gnawing on your leg a la Shawn of the Dead. It's as barren as the Dallas streets when the Cowboys are playing; more people were outside after Fat Man (an atomic bomb, not an actual Fat Man) dropped on Nagasaki. If tumbleweeds still existed in this part of Texas, I'd be ducking and diving to avoid them. Slow. S...L...O...W...

But I like my work like I enjoy some of my music: chopped and screwed, i.e. repetitive and slow. So weekend nights are oh so nice when my eyes are paid to remain open.

During weeknights, the job is hellish up until about 11PM, so I glance at my digital Casio ($20 at Walmart 4 years ago) every 5 minutes to see how much time I have left until I see some respite. I have contemplated trying to get a prescription that reads 'Xanax 2 mg #6 (six), i at 8PM on M,T,W every other wk PRN idiocy.'

Thursdays and Fridays treat me well, and Saturday and Sunday nights are paved with lollipops and generic Zoloft (which is coincidentally the preferred SSRI on my prescription coverage).

It was on a Saturday night when the Cowboys were playing the Eagles that I pimped my Movado, the one I nickname the Time-Has-No-Meaning watch. But the pharmacy greeted me with 4 waiters (people who want to wait on their prescriptions) and a couple of insurance problems. It was as if the world had sensed my assumption and arrogance and went out of it's way to punish me.

But at 9PM, even the world (or at least the 50 mile radius around Dallas-Ft Worth) took a break to watch the 'Boys skeet shoot some endangered birds from the air. And the only reason I knew the time is because 9PM is one of the few things I can look at the Movado and be certain of the time.

Elegant simplicity, for when time has no meaning except as a status symbol of how much money you make.

Is it 9:10, 10:10, or 11:10?