Seems I'm (almost) human after all

Over recent months, my wife Patty has bitched incessantly pointed out that her quirks and foibles too often inspire me as I craft blog entries, write stories for my books (existing and in-progress) or update the Facebook fan page for my book. She asks, "Why don't you turn the focus back on yourself?" In response, I roll my eyes and cluck, in part because I have very few noteworthy quirks, and in part because I like to cluck when the opportunity presents itself.

Of course, you and I both know she’s being irrational (yet another of her delightful quirks). However, in the interests of self-preservation equity, I list below a handful of my own unique qualities; I hesitate to call them “quirks” because they’re so darned adorable, as you will see.

• I absolutely will not enter a bathroom with anything in my mouth, with perhaps the exception of cigarettes (which, because of a medical condition—uncontrolled addiction—I require at all times), and my tongue, teeth and uvula, and only because I haven’t figured out a safe, temporary way to remove them for the duration of bathroom visits.
 
• I have a Chicken Little complex. If it’s especially sunny outside, only dusk convinces me the day won’t end with the world as a giant, glowing fireball, upon which the only things that will survive are me, thousands of cockroaches, a heavy winter coat and a boxed set of the Twilight books. Everything that happens over the course of my daily comings-and-goings bears ominous overtones, most of which seem certain to lead me to (a) poverty, (b) incarceration, (c) erectile dysfunction, (d) a slow, painful death, (e) all of the above, or (f) all of the above…on a giant fireball.
 
• If I’m upset with someone, I will not make eye contact with them. I will address all comments during any dispute to either the television or my cocktail glass. If someone asks me to look at them while we’re talking, I simply blur out my vision and pretend I’m focusing on them, even though I'm basically blind. To seem less rude, I conduct most arguments from adjoining rooms, from which I can yell my side of the argument and pretend not to hear any retorts.
 
• I rarely use the appropriate utensils when preparing and/or serving food. My preferred tool for almost everything is the wooden spoon, which means that any soup I prepare takes 45 minutes to move from pot to bowl and contains no more than 10% liquid (which is, incidentally, how I prefer my soup).
 
• I cannot follow a recipe without adding at least three ingredients not listed. This fierce sense of individualism has, on more than one occasion, been catastrophic in the culinary sense. So, although I believe both onions and garlic are delicious elements in almost everything, they have proven to change the overall flavor of, say, apple crisp.
 
• I am incapable of going to the store and returning only with what I went out for. If I was sent out to replenish our milk supply and went to a store that sold only (a) milk and (b) Brussels sprouts, I would buy both, even though I abhor Brussels sprouts.

I hope my wife is happy. I am human. I have quirks. As mentioned, they’re adorable quirks, but they’re quirks just the same.

Yep...I'm a Facebook Whore

I never expected this. What happened to me? How did I become such a shameless, addicted, sucking-on-the-teat-of-social-media Facebook slut? Over the past few years, I’ve transformed—from a hidden-identity lurker seething at pictures of my kids in state of partial undress with smoke pouring from their mouths, or gasping at their boundless fondness for the word “fuck” in routine correspondence—to a person who spends most of my waking hours either (a) on Facebook, or (b) wondering what’s happened on Facebook since the last time I logged in.

I have two Facebook pages. One is my personal page; to put it gently, it’s boring as shit. My second page, which I use to promote my book, is an endless obsession. Every time the number of “fans” (or “likes”) drops by even a single number, I freak out. “What did I say/do/not do? Who left? How can I get them back? Do I smell bad/odd/like death? How can they smell me? Why am I such a stupid, stupid, stupid person? If I updated my Facebook in the middle of a forest, would a tree fall on me?”

I look at the ratings of my “post quality”, and wonder what I have to do to make people more engaged in the content (the more they respond and share your stuff, the better your rating.) Oh, and at least once a week, I find a way to use the words “vagina”, “penis” or some derivative, because, at heart, I’m an oversexed thirteen-year-old boy who still giggles at farts. Just this past week, I enjoyed a spike in fans based on my discussion of how killer whales can be masturbated (hint: it involves a water-filled cow vagina and a steady hand).

Still, in spite of my addiction, I do have limits. I have no interest in how many sad llamas, treasured golden mystery eggs or sacks of high-quality cow shit my grammar-school classmate will share, nor do I care how many other pals my pals have dispatched to secure their vaunted ranks in the mob hierarchy. I’m too competitive. If I started playing those games, I would play for keeps. So, in the interests of not losing real-world friends because I stole their imaginary “party duck” or rare collectibles, I refrain.

I will NEVER use “LOL” or “ROFL” or “ROFLMAO” in any discussion. I may find something hilarious, but not enough to make me tip over and writhe on the carpet. Sorry. Besides, how compelling is this sort of chat session?

Them: Hi Brian.

Me: Hi.

Them: What are you doing?

Me: Oh, nothing.

Them: Hahaha. Me too, LOL. Nice day, LOL.

Me: Yes. Nice. Great day to do nothing!

Them: ROFLMAO!

Me: Yeah.

Them: Okay, LOL, talk to you later, LOL.

Me: Bye.

On the plus side, Facebook does help make the world a more intimate, accessible place. In the past few weeks, I’ve reconnected with a handful of childhood friends. Every time I find one, I feel like I've discovered a cure for cancer or a way to boil a perfect hard-boiled egg. Of course, one soon realizes that over the course of say, thirty years, some of us have changed, and the catching up may be more work than fun.

Me: Hi!

Them: Wow, long time.

Me: Yeah. So what’s new?

Them: LOL…you mean over the past three decades, ROTFL?

[Brian is offline.]

A special day

Hi everyone:

Just wanted to depart from the norm and share some exciting news with you. My first book, LOST IN THE HIVE, will be launched in grand fashion tomorrow night at Old Towne Books & Tea in Oswego, IL. Like all first-time authors, I'm plagued with insecurities about the whole thing. For example, what if it's like one of those birthdays where you invite all your friends and nobody comes? What if people read the book and hate it? What if they read it and hate me?

I put my heart and soul (as much as I have left after all those deals with you-know-who) into this book, so I hope you'll consider picking it up and giving it a go.

Thanks to all for your ongoing support; I couldn't (and can't) do it without you.

Love,
Brian

P.S. If you will in fact consider giving it a go, please order a copy from http://www.publishingworks.com/.

Introducing Nutly McMoron...A Fable with Pee

When I was a high-school student (and dinosaurs still roamed the earth), I remember studying Robert Frost’s poem The Mending Wall, which taught us that “good fences make good neighbors”.

This past Thursday night, I also learned that when a clown of a neighbor threatens to call the police, said clown becomes even more agitated when you beat him to the punch. Allow me to explain.

Three neighborhood kids (including my youngest son) and a sleepover guest were outside playing Ghost in the Graveyard. At some point during the game, one or more of the participants decided to make a slight adjustment to the rules. Under new game play, instead of hiding or seeking, they upped the ante and urinated on a neighbor’s bushes and lawn. The neighbor, who (a) wasn’t invited to play, and (b) as mentioned previously, is a clown (or, if you prefer, an idiot), decided he didn’t like kids peeing all over his property.

On the surface, I agree with this gentleman-slash-douchebag. I would prefer my lawn to be just that—a lawn—rather than a toilet. Having said this, if a young kid or two peed on my bushes, and I caught them in the act, I might do something drastic like—oh, I don’t know—open my door, and say something pithy like, “Hey kids. Stop peeing on my bushes.” If they persisted, I might even be inclined to pick up the phone and say to the kids’ parents, “Forget to pay your water bill? Need a plumber?” As for my own kid, I would make him water all the plants and flowerbeds for weeks to come, since he'd shown a related interest. In the scheme of things, though, I wouldn't act like the sky was falling.

Not Mr. Douchebag. To him, this was the greatest offense man has ever perpetrated against his fellow man. Before long, I received a knock on the door. Another neighbor’s kid said to me, “Hey, someone wants to speak to you.” Immediately, I started wondering if I owed anyone money or if, in a drunken stupor some other night, I had placed my first-ever order for an eight-ball. Not so. I walked down the driveway to investigate.

“Yeah, hi. My name is Nutly McMoron [not his real name]. I just caught your son and a couple of his LITTLE FRIENDS [condescending fuck] with their dicks out, pissing ALL OVER my bushes. I should call the police for damage to my property.” I wondered what he imagined was in the kids’ urine…sulfuric acid? Weed-B-Gone? I thought of a good answer.

“Oh.”

“And if you don’t deal with them right away, I’m calling the police.”

“Oh. Well, if my son did that, I will certainly deal with him.” (Most likely by saying, "Don't do that, dum-dum.")

“Okay. I appreciate that. Cause they had their dicks out.” Yeah, I caught that. I thought about telling him that most human males who pee, unless they’re freaks, find this to be the preferred approach. I didn't, but was glad he reminded me they had the technique down.

What I didn’t realize was that Mr. McMoron planned to linger in the neighborhood for several hours until he could claim his pound of flesh. My wife Patty and I wandered over to our friends’ house to strategize. En route, the idiot yelled out, “Don’t take their word for it. They’ll lie.” Wow, a kid might lie to stay out of trouble? Unheard of!

After talking to the kids, who denied involvement in the desecration of the precious bush, we started home. The idiot was waiting outside. We ignored him and went inside. Twenty minutes later, I walked outside to hear the neighbor still ranting to another neighbor about the travesty of which he was victim. Again, he was ranting on and on about calling the police.

So, being the good neighbors we are, we saved him some trouble. We called the cops. When they arrived, one officer spoke to the man, who raved and gestured and cast aspersions not only on the local children, but also on the community at large, the police and me.

As a gesture, I suggested to “my” officer that if it would make my idiot neighbor feel better, he could come to my house and urinate on any bushes of his choice; after all, his dog pees on them daily. I even proposed that he could pee on my leg, if it would make him go inside and shut his cakehole. The officer disagreed with my suggestion, but while my neighbor flipped his lid, I quietly talked the officer into attending my book launch in a couple of weeks.

Ultimately, the cops put a little fear of god into the lads, we instructed the kids to never go near this man’s property again, and things settled back into some semblance of normalcy.

I’m thinking about building a fence—nothing major, just something modest and about twelve feet tall, with a crocodile-infested moat around it. Good NEIGHBORS make good neighbors; a good fence keeps the idiots out.