Certain Amount of Curious Joy

Sometimes I feel like I am incapable of introspection - which is why it is such a joy for me to read about myself. Here is a link to a blog written by a homeless (voluntarily) guy who stayed at my place back when I was between jobs and looking to just relax. His prose is a bit stilted and he has a gift for understatement - which is even more apparent if you read his post where he is molested by a gay trucker - but it is well worth your time.

Here is a key passage that pretty much describes what all of my non partying friends from college have experienced.

Matthew picked me up and took me to the Leopard Lounge, which is next door to the Twisted Taco. Both places were your typical meat markets. Matthew seemed to fit right in. I took a certain amount of curious joy from watching him carry on with the young lady's [sic] he had just met. Game is what he called it. He encouraged me to get mine on as well. This sort of bar wasn't my thing.

Well la-di-da, Mr. Man. He goes on to mention that he did get some female attention, especially after I pointed out that he quit his job and left his fiance in Nebraska in order to travel the world. However, I was shocked that he didn't point out that we met a girl who when we asked what she did for a living she said, "I am a child molester. Just kidding... I am a High School teacher."

See, read that again... now send it to all of your friends in education (oh, and trucking). Now, THAT'S how you write a blog baby!

You Broke My Heart, TRAITOR!!!!

Coulda been you, Benedict Asshole.

And I thought we were friends. I thought we understood each other. Sure, we don't share everything, but I assumed that such a level of friendship would come in time. Hell, I thought I would get to give you a gentle ribbing when you told the pizza guy to meet you on the side of the building. I always thought you were a little too huggy huggy when you were drunk... and anyone who orders a Chardonnay at an IU college bar has GOT to smoke some pole (you should have saved that for Crawfordsville). And hey, we're both young, swingin' guys - who says we need to settle down for a single gender. Now that I am nice and thin, why should the girls have all the fun? Let's just say I was a little curious when I followed you and that ripped, sexy, pizza man around the corner...



But no, you weren't smoking pole, you were sucking down a sub! A Submarine sandwich! And not even a toasted one, but "OVEN ROASTED??" How could you!!! The only thing those fags at Domino's ever came up with was an annoyingly iconic 'Noid! Their pizza tastes like shit - you think they can make a fucking sandwich?




It's bad enough that Quizno's has some worn out whore begging for more meat (nothing can fill that canyon!) - but now Domino's has you hiding in alleys swallowing their hero like some old San Francisco queen's bitch!

No, I DON'T want a bite. I'm not hungry anyway... but I will have a nice five. Five Dollar. Five Dollar Foot Long later. Enjoy your meal, cocksucker.

Being Incognegro - Except on Halloween

This fall has been a busy one with work travel and family stuff going on. With the exception of my birthday week, I haven't really gone out all that much. I remember going to an Oktoberfest outdoor concert against my better judgment (it was the night before a fencing tournament), having one beer, and seeing a sea of people who I didn't know and didn't like.

It's not that they were bad people (although you can never be too sure), its just that I haven't felt that magic kinship between like strangers in a while. Maybe its the fact that I don't feel the need to get crazy wasted anymore, or more likely my tolerance is sky high. It's not that I don't enjoy hanging out with friends and hitting on random girls in Hotlanta... But if I can't guarantee that such activities won't be more enjoyable than watching one of the great FX Original Series on the TiVo - then I'm staying home.

Nevertheless, Halloween is upon us... It is my favorite holiday, and I plan to be out and about that Friday night. Plus my boy X is coming to town, and that is guaranteed to make things crazy...

Digesting the Teacher Sex Phenomenon

Six years in a federal "pound-you-in-the-ass" penitenary. That's what you get if you are a female and you smuggle a 13 year old boy to Mexico for sex. Kelsey Peterson was just sentenced last week, and good riddens.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Ms. Peterson describes her illicit affair and the resulting relationship. The article is well worth a read, but just in case I linked the page with the juiciest bits.

One thing that I never picked up on growing up is exactly how horny teachers are. With extremely few exceptions most of my teachers, even through college, were old and unattractive. There was the rare cute twentysomething here or there, but for better or worse I was more focused on leaving their care with an A for effort, not A for adultery. Even in college, most of my TAs were men or ugly, and my university graduated few teaching majors.

Living in ATL, however, there are plenty of cute teachers - many of whom are attractive, and often drunk and horny. Since this is the big city there is plenty of options for companionship; the educators of Laurens County, SC aren't so lucky. Even so, women who prey on teenagers, or worse allow themselves to be seduced by them tend to follow some kind of pattern.



Since this is my first effort at profiling since the Spy Tech gear came out in the late 1980s (which was awesome), I will make this simple. If you know the life situation of an adult woman, and see the warning signs, you know to lock up your son (or daughter)... or at least make sure he has protection.

Life situations:

• Lonely and Neglected: She could either be single with few friends, or married with a busy husband. Without friends her own age to keep her grounded or provide advice, hooking up with a teenager could make since. Hell, her father may have a huge age gap with her mother. Plus, there is nothing like giving complements to a woman who is starved for them.


• Ugly duckling: I believe every womans attractiveness over time can be charted on a bell curve. Some peak in high school, others in college, and still others may not peak until their late 30s. Katey Seagal looks more bangable in Sons of Anarchy (2008) than she ever did in early episodes of Married... With Children (1989). So what happens when a girl is ugly or nerdy in high school and is ignored by the cool kids, but when she gets older the popular kids in her neighborhood start checking her out and telling her how hot and "cool" she is? I once met a woman who hoped her kid's friends would call her a MILF when she got older. Never underestimate a woman's capacity for low self-esteem.


• Under 30: This paints a broad stroke, but women this age can still relate to most high school students on many levels. If they had a thing for jocks at that age, there is a chance they still might. Plus the adventurism from college may not have run its course.
• Just plain bored: I think this describes Debra LeFave the best. Good husband, solid life, no excitement. Hooking up with a good looking teenager and ducking the cops really gets the blood pumping.

Now that we understand the situation, let's see the warning signs.

• Few age appropriate friends: If all your contacts are significantly older or significantly younger, age really is just a number. Especially if you here a woman pointing out how manly and mature a 13 year old kid is.
• Immature attitude: No regard for sacrifice or pleasure deferred equals a recipe for disaster from a woman in one of the above life situations. Also this is apparent in women who cannot properly develop adult relationships outside the family.
• Excessive socializing with minors: If you party or drink with kids a lot, bad things can happen.
• Resistence to reason: If you find someone in an above life situation, notice the warning signs, you give the "Come to Jesus" speech and they still relent - well, my suggestion is to back up and watch the fireworks.

So now you know how to identify a woman who will bang a kid before she gets caught. Hey, blackmail may be illegal, but it is effective at negotiating win-win solutions. (wink!) Happy hunting!

A Patton Oswald Birthday

Patton Oswald, of "KFC Famous Bowls" fame, once joked that it is stupid to celebrate insignificant birthdays - especially ones over 21 that don't end in a 0 or a 5.

Fair enough, although there's no need to repeat my 27th birthday when I downed a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black because I have bad taste in women. This year, my 29th, I worked a full day (with bonus sinus headaches), had drinks at Happy Hour with a couple good friends, and met up with a different group of friends for dinner. We ate at Vortex, which is not only awesome for biker and hot goth chick decor (the place looks like it was decorated by the Suicide Girls), but for fantastic food AND the fact they pay for your meal on your birthday. Sweet.

A couple girls joined my old fraternity brothers and I, and as it happens conversation turned from politics and physics to the fact that always think about sex during vocal drinking games. The way I see it, it was just a long day.

One of the things I like about myself (and I have in common with my friends) is that if we aren't enjoying an experience, we are out. Doesn't matter where, or with whom, or how inebriated we happen to be - we are just gone. When great conversation turns dull, or when the hottie we wanted just left, sometimes it's time to just get the hell out - no matter what the guests left behind think.

It's rarely an impulse decision, but based on a through understanding of the best and worst case scenario. And when the worst case is bad and very likely, and the best case is not much better - then it is time to go.

I was out with a new group of Arabic and Hispanic folks the other night, and I was invited out by a girl who I never met face to face (it's a long story). It was a bit awkward, given I only knew two people (who didn't know anyone else), but I can handle awkward. Anyway, one of the girls there was this Columbian knockout - who looked like the final product back from when God took itemized orders from horny guys when he was making women. Great skin, hot face, sultry accent, huge tits, everything you want. Aside from the minor stretch marks indicating that she spent a hell of a lot of time in the gym to look the way she did - she was pretty much hotter than any girl I could reasonably expect to pick up at Twisted Taco or anywhere else0 in Midtown Atlanta. So after my friends left, I stuck around.

The conversation got a little insane... the Colombian turned out to be married to the guy next to her (although she wore no wedding ring, or had a visible shadow on her ring finger), and also turned out to be a stripper. Suddenly her admission that she had a thing for black guys, and the constant touching of my hands and my knees lost all material signficance. Another woman at the table was a tall white girl with huge tits and turned out to be a former stripper. She spoke with an air of a life fully lived, but with plenty of bruises inside and out from when life decided to kick her ass for a while. She steered the conversation at the table towards ideas that she picked up during her prize fight with life, with the expectation that those ideas count as wisdom. The biggest (and funniest) thing to come out was the magic formula to take home a girl from a bar (it involves a specific number of shots and lies), as well as why you should avoid complementing a girl on her period.

After the cigarette smoke that hung in the humid Atlanta air started giving me a headache, it was time to go. Especially since the Columbian started in on the speeches she gives to her marks in strip clubs about how she will never fuck them, yet they still pay her thousands just to talk. She even emphasized that she was treating me like the mark, only I didn't have to pay. Since I don't make a habit of seducing married women, especially when their husbands are sitting next to them; I didn't feel the need to break her down.

Some people feel the need to take on all comers when they are slighted. When it happens to me, I always do a quick reality check. A) Best/worse case scenario; B) Is it worth it. When a jackass tried to steal my parking spot on my first date with a hot girl, dammit I made it clear I will get out of the car and kick some ass. I got the space, and got the girl. I tend to never back down in bars, because too many guys are wanting to prove themselves, and too many drunk girls take stock in that kinda shit. At a table with no single women or guys I know, I am not gonna take down some girl if the best case scenario is having her sneak around her husband's back. It just isn't worth it.

I hope this made some sense.

Life Doesn't Just Happen

I have trouble dealing with people who go through life like they are driving a car without their hands on the wheel. Sure, you can speed up, slow down, and if the wheels are perfectly aligned - you are gonna mostly go in a straight line. But as soon as you hit a bump, until you grab the wheel you are careening towards disaster. The worst is when people think that since the bump wasn't their fault (it wasn't), that they are no longer responsible for what happens next (though they are).

The most vivid illustration of this is a story from High School. I was a junior taking lots of honors courses, and one day I come down with the chicken pox. Yes, I had the chicken pox in High School. One nasty little fact I learned about that disease is that the boils and symptoms are worse the older you get - so having it as 16 was pure hell. Boils and crusty pusey bumps literally covered me from head to toe. The itching sensation was so strong, in response my body developed a baseline of discomfort and ignored only the worse bouts of painful itching as just heat. My mom even resorted to clipping my nails and covering my hands with socks so I wouldn't scratch off the scabs and leave permanent scars. Up to that day, my skin was flawless.

After about a week, my Dad would come home with file folders filled with homework, including an assignment to write a one-act play. I protested, complaining of everything I mentioned above and more, and argued that I shouldn't have to bother until I got better. Dad simply pointed out that if I waited, it would take forever to catch up. It would be awful now, but I would be a lot happier if I returned to school healthy without having a ton of work waiting for me. And he was right.

The auto insurance commercials are right, "life comes at you fast." This summer I had two major customer presentations to develop in Powerpoint and present - even though my laptop with all my work was stolen the week before. While I thankfully have a Blackberry and a generously large email file quota to save me, simply cancelling the meetings was out of the question. Even though things may go to hell in handbasket, lines like "Get it done" or "just do it" aren't just sloganeering, it is a mindset that works through bad luck.

I am not a fan of people who refuse to be solution oriented - or who simply give up at the first roadblock they come across. It's one thing to avoid the wrong path, it's quite another to want something and give up just because it didn't come easy.