OKAY this one has been suppressed pretty deep for some time now but it came back to me on Friday when I was riding my bike. We’re digging into the tweenage misery motherlode here. This is a story from SIXTH GRADE.
When I was in sixth grade, I was the smallest boy in my class. I had a huge crush on a tomboyish blonde girl who we’ll call Lauren F for the sake of anonymity.
They split girls and boys up for gym class usually. A lot of the boy activities were barbarian paincrafts like dodgeboll. I remember the wrestling unit in gym lasted a lot longer than the other units. If I recall correctly, the girls were doing something pretty abstract—like “team building.” It looked like a lot of trust falls and sitting in circles.
Lauren F was pretty vocal about it not being fair that girls could not do something fun (RIDICULOUS because I have sat in a circle and it is AWESOME). She was a pretty sassy 12-year old and wouldn’t let it go. Someone somehow planted the meme in the class that Lauren F should wrestle me. I suspect this was the evil machinations of my friend Will. The gym teacher (also my neighbor) conceded.
Ridiculously, I consented. There was a lot of pressure and I misinterpreted the situation as harmless flirtation. “Cherchez la femme.” My memory blacks out here. The next thing I remember is our bodies meeting on the sour gym mats, locked in a greco-roman tableau. (Looking back, I can’t believe how completely messed up this is).
I realized I had no idea where to put my hands on a female girl that would not end up making her pregnant (sex ed wasn’t for another few months). My survival instincts kicked in and I felt the distinct desire to throw up and then maybe cry. Instead, I called it a compromise and just kind of tried to sit there (not a great wrestling move). She flipped me over and pinned me in a matter of seconds.
Now I can think up any number of awesome excuses on how I could possibly lose a wrestling match in front of my whole class to a girl that I had a crush on—these range from the chivalrous to the sexist to the ridiculous. Maybe my arms just hurt from doing chin ups that morning—whatever! For some reason, the one I chose was:
Awesome job, sixth grade Brad.
I’ve long held the belief that any non-Google search engine is not really worth anyone’s time. That said, I do nurse nostalgia for the days when weirdo sites like AskJeeves and Dogpile would compete for my searches. Remember when AltaVista was the largest search database and EVERYONE knew it? Ohhh nostalgia…
I decided to give this new hotshot hoity-toity Microsoft search engine bing.com a chance and see how it compares. Obviously I gauge this by searching for my own name and HOLY CRAP SUCCESSFUL.
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It’s so…refreshing to not have that Fullerton CA real estate mogul besmirching my good name at the top of every search. Seriously, Google puts me on page 7 or something. I took this experiment to the next level:
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HOW MANY TIMES IN YOUR LIFE HAVE YOU SEARCHED FOR THIS CONDITION IN A SEARCH ENGINE. If you’re like me the answer is probably AN UNFATHOMABLE AMOUNT. I am now the face of miserable teenagers (using Microsoft’s stupid new search engine) everywhere. Yeeeessssssssssssss
Furthermore, I’m sharing search engine real estate with THOR LASER. Look thorlaser.com, I don’t know what your deal is but I’m jealous of your domain name really bad and I’m pretty sure our web sites are internet soul mates. WILL YOU WEB-SITE-MARRY ME?
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30 MINUTES LATER…(and 8 city blocks)…
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(DELETED SCENE: Cassie shows up and I accost her for not bringing rope. It should be noted that Cassie never actually claimed to have any rope.)
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On Friday I took the day off work and had some “me time.” Here is what I did:
Got a haircut!
Had a sushi lunch at a crowded restaurant.
Bought some collectable figurines!
Tried to get my cell phone fixed.
THREW A TEMPER TANTRUM AT THE CELL PHONE PLACE**
**But not really though.
Cassie woke me up a few nights ago because she heard some weird noises and wanted me to investigate. Pretty classic husband/wife move.
So I wandered out into the night in search of any prowler or ghost that may be lying in wait. I’ve done this about a million times before and also I was pretty sure it was just the cat. All the same—the stillness of the house, the darkness of the room, the extreme poorness of my vision all contributed to me feeling like a tiny man in ridiculous underpants.
This is by no means the first “realize how cosmically insignificant you are” moment I’ve ever had but rather the most recent in a series of 10 billion or so. Anyways I went back to sleep and upon waking, did what any insecure American would do: bought a weapon on the internet. I chose baseball bat! 1) so I could also use it to knock a few dingers in the park and 2) due to some deep-seated romanticism surrounding baseball bats from reading Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. They just seem to be Platonic-world-of-forms perfect real world objects. ANYWAYS. It’s not like holding a baseball bat in these pasty noodly appendages is going to increase my cosmic power footprint at all; it’s no cosmic cube. I’m thinking of it more like a midnight spirit totem for rerouting insecure-energies into CRIMINAL/GHOST WHACKING POWERZ.
I also bought a self defense pen. It is a super hard, reinforced permanent marker that can be used as a bludgeon. NO MORE FEAR OF BRIGANDS WHILE DRAWING CARTOONS IN THE LIBRARY ON MY LUNCH BREAK. Dramatization:
Fin.
I’ve been struggling with new content lately. Frankly, I’ve been uninspired. Today, it occurred to me that my sights are set too high; insipid uninspiring nonsense is the backbone of a good healthy internet. With this new attitude I hopefully will have a lot more updates and probably a lot of pointless dreck. (Unlike most posts I guess. Anyways.) Today here’s some recent meditations on the squirrels in my yard.
More and more, I find myself gazing absently at the birds in my backyard. I’ve installed a modest bird feeder and draw no small satisfaction watching the western scrub jays feed and frolick. However, a pair of squirrels in the nearby black walnut tree have made a habit of invading and despoiling the feeder, packing their bellies with seed and nutmeats and leaving desolation in their fluffy-tailed wakes. In retaliation, I purchased a plastic umbrella-shaped squirrel deterrent.
After watching their earnest and futile attempts at a meal, my heart began to soften. Surely these creatures, though despicable in their puerile tenacity, hunger the same as anyone else.
And thus I decided to feed the squirrels. $9 later and I was the owner of a simple bolting-apparatus to attach a brick of condensed corn meal to the black walnut tree. Cassie could not understand my sympathy towards these vermin and even I concede it may be a form of Stockholm Syndrome that inspired this action.
YEAH CASSIE, IT’S LIKE AYN RAND OR SOMETHING. (Also, sorry I drew you so stupid looking).
The squirrels completely love this goofy yellow block dangling from the tree. They do not nibble from it so much as make love with their mouths.
And yet with each day, their flock grows larger. Today I counted six squirrels. I worry: am I giving squirrel youths an inaccurate expectation of life? Am I dulling their wits and ruining their futures with these handouts? And they’re burning through a log in like four days now! Come on guys slow it down a little. These things are not exactly cheap.
Is there anything more boring than hearing someone recite a dream they had? No there is not. Regardless, I have done just this in cartoon form. This is a super scary nightmare I had last night:
I’m watching Star Wars for about the millionth time on a gigantic television.
For some reason James Gandolfini plays a major role in the film. He has an enormous pompadour hairdo. I find this all extremely unsettling. Also, C3PO has a girlfriend.
At some point, James Gandolfini’s character sneaks off and strangles C3PO’s girlfriend to death. This takes FOREVER.
No one knows who killed Lady C3PO. The dream turns into a lengthy “CSI” style forensic investigation scene. There is a sense of dread permeating through all of this. Eventually, the crew agrees that they must go to a “crime lab” in Japan.
Oh also I just remembered that 12 year old Natalie Portman (as she appeared in the Professional) begins narrating the story, “I can’t believe we’re actually going to Japan!” The continuity errors alone startle me awake.
