misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

On this fine Monday morning, I'd like to add some items to my infinite list of pet peeves:

* While we're on the subject, what's up with the phrase "pet peeve"? What kind of phrase is that? Pet, I can deal with. But peeve? If I heard someone use the word "peeve" in the course of conversation, i'd ridicule them. Please don't let me ever hear you say something like this: "I got really peeved this morning when I found out muggles had chewed up my dildo." (I figure this is a particularly excellent example of a pet peeve because an instance in which a pet really pissed you off). Do "pet peeves" have to involve pets? Can I only tell you something about the annoying thing my goldfish does? And as far as the use of "peeve" as a noun, can you even separate it from "pet"? Could you just say you had a "peeve"? "You know a really big peeve of mine? When I can't find a potato small enough to make minature french fries out of." Upon further reflection, I guess you could say "peeve" without "pet", but then you'd probably gay. Which I have no problem with at all, but just wanted to point it out. You'd be gay.

* So, I'm standing in front of the elevator in my building today, waiting for it to show up. I am just standing there, waiting. I want to stress this point. I am there, waiting for the elevator. In any event, as I'm standing there, some chick comes up and hits the elevator button several times, apparantly to confirm that I had already done that. Now, excuse me, lady, but what the fuck do you think I was waiting there for? Do you really think I was standing in front of an elevator and had never actually pressed the elevator button? Do you think I, as a thirty-year old man, never learned that in order for an elevator to appear, you have to press a button? Or did you perhaps think I was just standing there, waiting for something other than the elevator? Maybe I was waiting for a three-legged magical unicorn. And it just so happened that this magical unicorn, named Mabel, told me in a mystical vision to wait for her at the elevator i was now standing in front of. As a another (though less annoying) aspect of her behavior, why did you press the elevator button twice? Is that some sort of secret code that makes the elevator appear twice as fast as it would have before? Is the elevator programmed to respond extra-fast to the double push? Like the elevator is thinking to itself, "well, the button was pushed twice in rapid succession, I should probably come down really fast now, cause before I was just fucking around and wasting a lot of time."

* You know that wax paper thing you put on public toilet seats to protect you from disease? Protectos or something like that? Do you really think that protects you from disease? Our paranoid fear of germs have lead to this. I mean, i'm all for avoiding hepatitis and herpes and all that, but what is the wax paper going to do? As if herpes, a very resilient organism, would be thwarted by a sliver of wax paper. If herpes wanted to crawl up on your ass cheek from a public toilet seat, it would find a way to get there, with or without your protecto. If protectos had some sort of disinfectant sprayed on it, or was an inch thicker, I might buy into its protective powers. But as it is, you might as well have your bare ass cheeks on the toilet seat.

* Anyhoo. Don't use that phrase. It isn't cool.

* You know one of my really big pet peeves? My goldfish! He can be super-duper annoying sometimes. Talk about a pet peeve.

Faithful readers will remember my Cinco de Mayo blockbuster blog regarding a girl at my work, her boyfriend, and some unfaithfulness in the piss-stained bathroom of New York's Village Tavern. Logically, her boyfriend rewarded her bathroom make-out session with a trip to the Bahamas and an engagement ring (as a side note, have women made men do more dumb shit in the history of world than money? which would you vote for? is man's love of women stronger than his love of money? it seems to me when you have a woman you have no money, while when you have money you have plenty of women. the catch here, of course, is that those women take that money, in which case you are left with no women and no money. either way, man is fucked. that said, it seems man's love for women eclipses his love for money, as evidenced by the tale I am telling at present. a man gets cheated on, sees it with his own eyes, and responds by taking her to a tropical island and buying her a ring. the power of the vagina continues to impress me every day) .. In any event, upon her return from the Bahamas sometime in July, she wandered the beige halls of the agency, showing her ring to anyone she could chase down. Stories of her love for her fiancee, the ring, and their new apartment filled the office on a daily basis. New testimonies of their unmatched love for each other were posted to her cube weekly. Heavily-scented flowers, highlighted love letters, stories of romantic weekend getaways, plans for the wedding, plans for the honeymoon, plans for the happy life together. Apparantly, our young protaganist managed to find her love once again, and had grown more mature from her experience socking cock in a bar bathroom. They were gonna make this thing work. She loved him, and he loved her. And they were getting married. All was once again right with the world.

So of course, I was a bit suprised Tuesday night when I stumbled upon her making out with someone other than her much-loved fiance a second time. Tuesday night, for those not lucky enough to attend, was my much maligned company Christmas party. It was a thoroughly dull affair, which I attempted to make more interesting with the help of three Dewar's 12-year on the rocks (amazing what a few scotches can do to transform an office party into the must-attend even of the year). The party was wrapping up, and plans were made to enjoy a nightcap at the oft-frequented neighboorhood bar, Perdition. Before leaving for our new destination, however, I decided to relieve the bladder one last time. As I entered the corridor to the men's bathroom, I saw two lovebirds engaged in a passionate kiss-session. Only after a good stare did I realize it was the same girl as before. With the same guy, as before. Only now, she had an engagement on the line. They didn't notice me, or didn't care, so I went to piss, came out (they were still tongue wrestling) and decided to do what any good man would do: tell the entire agency what was happening. I ran from person to person. I couldn't get the words out fast enough. "Men's bathroom .. you must ... go ... now .. " Person upon person returned, mouth agape, laughing in the way only a few drinks can make one laugh, stunned at the sight. It was poetic. As i've seen so many times, the woman who brags about her love the most is the one to lose it the quickest. The more they talk about the depth of their love, the more shallow it truly is. Her letters, flowers, and ring are a mask for her lie to the world. She doesn't love him. Or, more likely, she has no idea what love really is.

Eventually, our heroine was whisked away by calmer heads, put into a cab, and taken home. The next day at work, she appeared as if nothing had happened. Laughing, socializing, engaging, as if she had no idea, or was ignoring, that she was the object of scorn and disgust eight hours earlier.

I have a strong desire to play the role of anonymous notifier. Her husband-to-be should be aware that his wife-to-be has a trouble keeping her lips off of men's parts after a few glasses of Chardonnay. That could bode poorly for their future. And why should this girl be allowed to destroy this man's life, as will surely happen sooner or later. Besides, if he is notified, judging by his previous reaction, he will probably take her back to the Caribbean, and speed up the marriage to expedite the future adultery he'll have to endure. Maybe he thinks a marriage certificate and wedding reception will change her desire to kiss men other then him. My money says it doesn't. One perspective says a person shouldn't mess with their life or their relationship. Let them figure it out on their own. The other perspective says, she did this, everyone saw it, and he needs to know exactly what he's getting himself into. And she certainly isn't going to tell him herself. If not me, then who?

Suffice to say, I won't be sending any emails or revealing any secrets. As an Alabamian would say, if you poke around where the gators live, you just might have to swim in the swamp. And who wants that? No, let this man find out on his own what all of us, including you now, know. His marriage is in trouble before it ever started.

Love is grand. But if I were him, I'd stick with money.

While I consider myself a fairly enlightened, educated, intensely handsome, flexible man, I simply don't know if I am ready for "Brokeback Mountain". This troubles me, because I love films, and I haven't seen a movie this well-reviewed all year. It is winning everything it can win. But I just don't think i can do it. I don't think the problem is that I'm a homophobe (whatever homophobia I once had was eradicated through working three years at a transvestite club staffed by very smooth-skinned filipino men who called me "honey", not to mention five years living in an apartment building in San Francisco where gay love fights were the norm .. as a sidenote, is there anything better than gay men fights? It is kinda like caddy high school girls fighting over a prom date, but more creative, and more frequent squeeling). I think my primary problem with "Brokeback Mountain" is it's filled with elements that I have never been a big fan of at the movies: romance, cowboys, sheep, and gay anal penetration. Now, I like gay guys as much as the next man, I just don't want to see them cuddling, holding hands, french kissing, laying together in a sleeping bag, giving each other blow jobs, or inserting their penis into holes of any sort. Cooking? Sure, no problem. Writing letters? Bring it. Putting their index finger into their friend's asshole? Not so much. I don't think i want to see them falling in love either, no matter what their love says about stigmas, desire, and the sadness of duty in a puritanical America. Those themes are admirable. But a strapping Heath Ledger gently rubbing Jake Gyllenhal's forearm while gazing into his saucepan eyes and subtly licking his lips as if one lick could wipe away years of hidden sexual desire? I'm just not there yet. Hence, "Brokeback Mountain" just doesn't make the cut. In the same way you won't see me at a movie about a professional venetian blind installer, you won't see me at Brokeback Mountain. Unless Taj comes, of course. And he touches me with his caramel-scented fingers while looking at me with his saucepan eyes. Then. But only then.

I would like to propse a ban to all speakerphones in an office setting. Let me be crystal clear on this point: There is never a fucking reason to use a speakerphone under any conditions. They are loud, and annoy everyone within a four mile radius. On my recent walk to the office cooler to get a refreshing cup of Poland Spring water, I passed three bitches sitting in their cubes shouting into their speaker phone with clients. Apparantly, they were unwilling to burn the four calories required to hold a phone to their ear. Or perhaps they want the entire office to hear them work their magic with the client on the other end. How impressive that these woman are doing business! Listen to them talk! How literate and business-like! Excellent use of words such as "proactive" and "addendum" and "counterintuitive"! Let me nominate you for business woman of the year! Anyone who has been on the other end of a speakerphone knows you can't hear shit. It sounds like the person is talking to you from the bottom of a tinbox filled with ping-pong balls with duct tape over their mouths. I can make out every seventh word, if I'm lucky. Even the idea behind speakerphones suck. It frees up your hands so you can attend to other important business matters while conversing with the client. So now they can use another big business word: "mulitask". Courtesy of speakerphones, you can write emails, mark your personal calendar with your next salon appointment, and sharpen your pencils, all while discussing important business with the person on the other line. Do us a fucking favor and pick up your phone and keep your conversations to yourself. If you really wanna use speakerphone, get an office somewhere in the basement where nobody needs to listen to your annoying conversation but the rats and roaches, and other earless creatures. Thanks in advance.

I've offically had enough of the puritan bullshit our country spews on a daily basis. The hypocrisy and lack of common sense is overwhelming me. If I wasn't the laziest bastard since Brad Pitt in "True Romance", I might want to do something about it, instead of writing in a blog that has a readership of two people. (as a side note, is it me or does everyone have a fucking blog these days .. I was reading an article on Yahoo! and they actually quoted the author of a blog as if they were some sort of expert. How can you quote the author of a blog? They are wannabe journalists and writers like yours truly who have neither the skill or knowledge to make it as a writer in the real world .. but thanks to the "world wide web" their voice can be heard .. well here's a newsflash, the first thing I ever learned when I first started writing ... just cause you can be heard doesn't mean anyone wants to hear you ... people keeps blogs on politics, social issues, religion, blah blah blah .. just make some fart jokes, you bastards .. if I want political insight, i'll read "The Economist" .. on that note, in the honor of hypocrisy, I shall exercise it myself and write a political blog)

Let me take you through a quick tour of the hypocrisy that has recently overwhelmed me:

- We remove a cruel and inhumane dictator from Iraq for, among other things, torturing and killing citizens. So what do we do when we get over there? We torture and kill their citizens. Sweet. Are we actually having a debate in our government about whether or not we can torture people? Do we actually have to talk about this? Didn't we solve that question about, uh, three hundred years ago in the Constitution? Why don't we just send Joe Pesci over to Iraq to beat some info out of those Iraqi thugs .. It seemed to work pretty well in "Casino". Maybe Sharon Stone can go too. Let me give my lovely government some advice: torture doesn't work. My brother used to sit on me, fart on my face, and threaten to spit in my mouth if I didn't give him the information he wanted. You know what I did? Made shit up. Told him truths, lies, exaggerations ... anything to get him off of me. I told him unicorns lived in my penis, that I was the anti-christ, and anything else he wanted to hear. In other words? Torture provides unreliable information. I knew this at age 8. Rumsfield doesn't know it at age 80.

- Our country recently vehemently objected to the violent and barbaric execution of an Australian in Singapore, then two days later executed Stanely "Tookie" Williams in California. Apparantly, Singapore is backwards because they still hang people, which is "cruel and unusual". But death by injection? No problem. (as a second side note, due to my pledge not to turn this into a political blog, I am avoiding the topic, but is there a less effective and archaic system than the death penalty? Kill people to teach people that killing people is wrong? Avenge one dead person by making another dead person? Try to prevent crime by committing a crime? As a side note to a side note, how is the death penalty legal but not suicide? I can't kill myself, but someone else can kill me. if i wanted to commit suicide, the best thing i could do is kill someone else so i got the death penalty .. then it'd be legal. Not sure I see the logic in the whole thing. Probably because there is none.)

- It takes a Puritan country like ours to preach about freedom of speech, religion, and democracy all the while banning the word "shit" or "fuck" from TV, freaking out anytime a tit is shown, and trying to pass an amendment banning gay marriages (as another side note, why the hell do these Council for Family Values and American Family Society care whether or not gays get married? whose family values are they ruining, other than their own? they get married, get a house somewhere, and nobody knows or cares ever again .. as a side note to this side note, there are entirely too many councils, societys, and clubs in America. It is like senior year of high school when everyone was trying to bump up their application for college and started joining all sorts of random clubs .. the interact club, the key club, the zebra club .. there is a fucking council and society for everything now, which is half the reason there is so much absurdity going on .. bored middle-aged house wives pissed off at how boring and meaningless their life is create some council called the "Concerned Americans Against Loud Alarm Clocks" and convince people there is an alarm clock epidemic .. i don't even think half of these councils even know what they are fighting for, they are just fighting for a cause, any cause, just so they can have one. reach into a hat and pick your own .. with any luck, we can turn back the hands of time and go back to when all americans went to church, ate dinner together, and never swore .. which also happened to be the time women couldn't vote, men beat their kids, and slavery was "in" ... after just reading this blog, I am going to start a new club, Committee for New Yorkers against Boring Blogs)

Alright, that is the end of my yearly political blog. Let's face it, you don't come here for politics. You come here for ... hmmm, what do you come here for? Actually, you don't come here at all, based on my recent readership. So to hell with it.

My memory has gone to shit. It might have something to do with the 487 consecutive days of alcohol consumption I am currently in the midst of, or perhaps it is because my brain is too lazy to expend the energy needed to file memories away. Regardless, i've noticed this problem for the past eight or nine months. I've always had trouble with numbers (what year it is, how old I am, anything indicating a birthday), so I don't worry about that. But recently, I've had problems with names (nothing too major .. I can't seem to remember the names of my sisters or the name of that one city in lower California I lived in for seven years ... minor shit ..). I need to rewire the synapses that alcohol has apparantly decimated. In this attempt, I will use my blog to recall random memories that pop into my head, thus downloading the memories to a computer so I can make room for new ones. Here is today's useless memory, which popped into my head without provocation sometime last night:

Junior year of high school I played in a recreational basketball leage during the fall (fall is used for time reference only. In San Diego, seasons are nothing more than memories from another state. Fall in San Diego does not imply fallen oak leaves scattered upon the earth, bare branches scraping the cold sky, or the warm-wood smell of fireplaces. Fall in San Diego means 76 degrees and partly cloudy, just as summer, spring and winter do. The only thing you are smelling in San Diego during the fall is churros.) The league I had joined was called PYBA, the Penasquitos Youth Basketball League, Penasquitos being the name of the town where the league was based (the true name was Rancho Penasquitos. In San Diego, for my East Coast readers, just about every town is a Rancho. Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Santa Fe, Rancho Sucko, etc. I don't think Penasquitos means anything in Spanish, it is simply a name .. Imagine Rancho Workmonkey .. similar effect.) Rancho Penasquitos, as with all of northeastern San Diego, was a dry, rocky canyon the color of melted copper, filled with plump coyotes, spiderwebs of sagebrush, and an endless sea of red-tile roofs, surging across the canyons like the tired teeth of an old Mexican woman. To some, I guess it could be beautiful. But you're talking to a guy who finds more beauty in a Sierra Nevada beer than he does a Sierra Nevada mountain, so I'm not a good reference.

Anyway, I'm getting away from the memory. I was on a team in the PYBA. I can't remember the name. I believe these teams were named after real NBA teams, and I remember wearing a grey shirt .. which gets me nowhere. In any event, this team was an insane mix of ten teenage boys from around that area. As it was a recreational league, anyone could join, and thus there were huge gaps in talent and size. It would have made our Founding Fathers proud. Of course, I was the star player, as if there were ever a doubt in my dear reader's mind. My 6' tall body, rippling with over 145 pounds of strength and agility, dominated the PYBA that season. But on with the memory. As i mentioned earlier, anyone was able to join that team. One teammate of mind was different. To this day, I'm not to sure what his "challenge" was. He wasn't quite retarded, but it was a bigger problem than ADD. It laid somewhere in the middle of that murky sea of mental abnormalities that has a litany of medical terms, but the old folks would probably describe him as "slow". Boo Radley. He was mentally slow, with a potential for mood disorders, to the extent he had to take medication daily to control his moods.

As was explained later, his parents were trying to get him involved in social activities so he could live a more normal life, and had chosen basketball as his first foray into regular male teenage activities. I remember his parents having to come talk to us on the first day of practice, explaining the situation, apologizing, but hoping we could be accepting. A tough place for the parents to be in, no doubt. We understood. We were all good kids, so didn't have a problem trying to include him as one of our own.

The basketball issue, was, however, a challenge. He fluctuated between being so medicated he had zero reflex skills, so that passes would virtually hit him in the head, or so under-medicated that he'd spasm and run around directionless, until we could direct him to the right place. At times, they got the medication just right, and he could actually play at a somewhat normal level. He could get some shots off, at least. He was about as accurate as Lee, when he played, at these moments, so we couldn't complain. In any event, as the season progressed, our coach would try to include him more in the games. It was a bit of a wild card, as he never really knew who he was sending out there, as the kid seemingly had a different personality each time out, based on his medication. But for the most part, he'd get out there, play a few minutes, and coach would pull him out. No damage done to us, and he seemed to be enjoying being part of the team. It was all working out.

But one game, towards the end of the season, I remember clearly as anything. It was a close game, and we were fighting for playoff position, so coach was hesitant to put him in. At some point towards the beginning of the 2nd half, coach decided to put him in for a few minutes. But something was different. You could see it in his eyes. They later explained he had changed medications and they were still messing with the doses, and he got too little that day. Coach took me out of the game so he could come in. As I passed him, I remember looking in his eyes. He had this fire, this rawness, this blankness I had never seen before. Anyway, he checks into the game. A few moments in, after my team scored on offense, everyone runs down to the other end of the court. But he just stayed where he was, seemingly disoriented. He just stood there. Frozen. Alone. I remember watching him from the sidelines. He was a fairly big guy, and had these big sports goggles he just stared out of. At this point everyone but him was down at the other end of the court, continuing the game, seeming not to notice he wasn't there. I was watching him though. He was more interesting than the game.

Suddenly, literally like a volt of electricty ran through him, he came alive. He was filled with this insane energy, or rage, or something, and quickly turned around to run down the court. But he wasn't running to join the game. He had his head down, and his upper body forward, as if he were a football linebacker. He charged down the court at full speed. I saw this unfolding with shock. He just kept building speed and building speed and building speed and then bam! right into the kid dribbling the ball. Just laid him out. Pure football hit. Then he just stood over him, looking down at him crazily. For seconds, nobody did anything. Everyone was shocked. They just looked around. Then, obviously, the other team got angry. Very angry. They didn't know the issue with the kid. So a shoving match broke out, a near brawl. Through it all, the kid just stood there. Confused, now. Then, as he grasped what he had done, he got angry with himself. Or frustrated. Like it wasn't him who did that. Like he was tired of being out of control of his own self. By this time, the parents had come down from the stands, and were leading him away, apologizing profusely to everyone. Everyone calmed down. But I remember feeling so bad for them, and the kid. He didn't do any of this intentionally. It was his lot in life, to get fucked over by mother nature and have a brain that was wired differently. I remember the look in his parents face that day. They knew it wasn't going to work. They wanted him to be normal, to be like the rest of us. But it just wasn't going to work. He wasn't like the rest of us, and never was going to be. They looked defeated. It didn't seem fair to me then, and still doesn't to this day.

The parents came a few days later during a practice to apologize. To explain what happened, to say he wouldn't be back, to thank us for our patience. Then they left.

I never saw him, or the parents, ever again.