Sunday, February 15, 2004

jack taylor It seemed like I made about 1 new friend a year from kindergarten through my senior year of highschool.  And I rarely held on to the friend I made the year before.  The friend from last year would kind of drift back into this pool of acquaintances that I said "hi" to, but not much else. It was a strange process, making this new friend once a year.  During the first days of school there would just be some kid that I would crack a joke with or make some stupid remark to.  This would lead to a comraderie of making stupid remarks and cracking jokes.  The next thing  you know I would think, hey, this dude is my friend. Anyway, Jack (Lewis) Taylor was the one new friend I made my junior year of high school.  I forget how we met exactly, but we fell into a common social sub-group that might be labeled as: intelligent dorks who thought they were better than everyone else. One of the first instances that I began to realize that Jack was my friend was when he dropped by my house after school one day just for the hell of it. Since I shunned almost all school clubs and activities and didn't have a girlfriend, I was up in my  room beating off.  All of a sudden there was a knock at the door. "Who is it?" I said quickly buttoning up. "It's Jack...from school," Jack said. I quickly composed myself and then tried to feign that I had been napping.  I rubbed my eyes and yawned as I opened the door. "What we're you doing?  Masturbating in the corner? Jack said. "No, I was taking a nap," I said. (The one friend per year thing stopped after highschool.  I think I may have made one or two new friends in the last sixteen years since highschool.) 11:04:46 PM    comment []

warhol update Andy Warhol's most famous quote is that, "in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." That's a pretty good idea, but I'd like to update that concept as it applies to blogs. Mark Michaels says, "in the future we will all be famous to about fifteen people for as long we feel like blogging."  5:54:13 PM    comment []

work This is me and my ex, back when we were still newlyweds, circa 1993.  I married her after three blissfull weeks of lovemaking, and drinking, and feeling like everything was absolutely perfect. But a few days after we tied the knot I learned something important about her that might have been revealed in a longer courtship.  She didn't have a job, and she didn't really want to get one. I confronted her about this and asked her what she was planning to do for work. "You don't expect to just do nothing all the time?" I asked her. "I do things," she said.  "I make people smile.  That's important." I agreed it was important, but it was still not enough.  We agreed on a compromise, however.  Since  the bathroom needed remodeling and retiling, etc, it would be her job to work on the remodel job every day until the project was finished (she said she had lots of experience doing this type of work with her dad).  Then she would get a regular paying job.  I figured, this would ease her into the responsibilities of some sort of 9 to 5. After that discussion, I would come home every day and assess how much work she had done on the bathroom.  Usually, I could only find maybe one or two additional tiles that had been put down.  Other days I couldn't find any evidence of work at all. "Just what exactly did you do all day?" I demanded to know. "You want to know everything I did?" my wife said. "Yes, what did you do?" "Well, I got up," she began.  "Then I had a cup of coffee and some cereal.  After that my friend Jeanne called and we talked for a while...." I glared at my wife the whole time trying to make her feel ashamed and remorseful for being so obviously lazy.  But she wasn't ashamed or remorseful at all.  And after five minutes she had named everything that she did that day.  In fact she was so devoid of negative feelings about herself and her lack of constructive activities that I began to doubt my own convictions on the situation.  I wanted somebody to turn to as a reasonable third party, but there was noone. Anyway, this situation dragged on for weeks until we finally had a big fight and I told she had to get a job or else.  Within a few days she got a part-time job for a professional photographer with a studio up the street.  (Where the photo above was taken).  Her job was to organize the photographers' appointments and books, etc.  It was only twenty hours a week but at least it was something. A few weeks after that my wife got pregnant and quit work. 4:37:24 PM    comment []

an imaginary irish man says its okay Every now and then I'll seriously consider giving up drinking.  I mean, its bad for your brain, its bad for your liver, the hangovers suck, etc.  Plus it's expensive. I'll go a few days without drinking and feel pretty good about myself.  I feel like maybe I'm a little healthier, but I feel kind of bored too.  I'll start to ask myself what's the harm in having a couple of beers. Then I'll imagine someone, usually a big happy Irish guy, hoisting his mug and toasting all his friends.  The imaginary Irish man gulps his beer, or ale or whatever, and all of his friends laugh and sing and dance. See, drinking is just fine, I'll think.  4:14:28 PM    comment []

atkins diet The Atkins diet has some pretty serious propaganda on its side.  I mean, I'm not on the Atkins or any other diet for that matter.  But when I went to eat a bread stick from Pappa John's, I felt like I was smoking crack. 3:40:11 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Mark Michaels. Last update: 3/1/2004; 8:15:53 AM.