Recently a friend of mine pointed out to me that she liked my shirt. Very stylish, she said. Very well-cut, very nice-fitting, she said. Great color, she said.
"How did you know this would work so well on you?" she asked.
"I bought it because it has a skull on it," I answered.
"Those are pretty hot these days," she continued. "Since when did you become so fashion-savvy?"
"I'm not," was my answer. "I bought it because it was $5. And because skulls are cool."
She just shook her head and laughed in dismay; I just smiled and took comfort knowing that my skull shirt looked awesome. Such is life for the style-ignorant bachelor.
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I don't like football all that much.
What I do love is hanging out in bars in the daytime, eating junk food, swearing at a television, yelling really loud, capitalizing on food and drink specials, celebrating with strangers, reliving the nostalgia of my youth, making fun of people from Chicago, making fun of people from other cities, chicken wings, chili, Bloody Marys, running into people I haven't seen forever in the most random places at the most random times, burgers, cheeseburgers, turkey burgers, chili burgers, pizza burgers, tater tots, the phrase "3 and 13 season," and the little guy winning in the end.
Okay, I guess football's not that bad.
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To the Red Sox fans out there: you can never complain about the Yankees buying their way to glory EVER AGAIN. Your team just spent more for the right just to make a guy a job offer than most teams spend on their entire pitching staff, and in fact more than five teams spent last year on their entire team.
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One of my favorite things to say these days is "I'm a writer," to which people inevitably ask "what do you write?" Good question. What do you say when your best fiction achievement is temporarily selling the rights to something and your best non-fiction achievement is editing a small-time magazine for the art school you go to?
"Stuff," is usually what I go with. Seems to work.
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Advice to people with attractive neighbors everywhere: don't go for it while they still live upstairs. Seriously. If they say yes, it's weird. If they say no, it's weird. Trust me on this.
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As much as I think men are stupid (myself included), I do have to address something kind of important. One of the projects I've taken on at school is a paper on the state of masculinity in America and let me tell you, the findings are just plain depressing:
Get a manicure.
NO! Don't get a manicure, that's weak. Get a truck!
NO! Those are environmentally unfriendly. Get a striped shirt!
NO! Those make you look like a complete tool. Get a tattoo!
NO! Those are low-class. Get your eyebrows waxed!
NO! That makes you high maintenance. Lift weights!
NO! Muscle mass doesn't match this fall's cuts and colors. Get a...
You get the idea. Act too soft and you're a metro, which is so last year. Act too tough and you're a retro and that is so last century. Whatever happened to "do what feels right to you and do it with pride because that's what being a man is all about?"
Apparently we have it all wrong. Whatever. I still like my skull shirt.