Because He's MY Butler!

Ahoy-hoy.

Haven't written for a while. Been busy ruminating on the various mini-tragedies of my tiny life. I love that word "ruminating" it sounds so gothic and epic, although whenever it pertains to me, it tends to just be sad and nerdy. Alack alas. Anywhoski, there's a bunch of new stuff I want to post and discuss and all that. But first, mustn't be rude. Inland, Dreaming asked me a bunch o' questions, and I'd be remiss if I didn't answer them. So here we go.

What kind of person would make you want to live past 33?

The type of person that accepts that I want to die at age 33? Just kidding -- kinda. I'm trying to repress the instinct to just give Snappy Answers and glib remarks. Um, as for the type of person, I assume you mean a romantic partner. Because if a Costumed Superhero enlisted me in his neverending crusade against crime, I'd sign up even if the tour of duty was longer than eleven years. Ditto a real Messiah (or at the very least a cool one that does party tricks and has hot groupies). So what's the ideal girl that would keep me teeming with joie de vivre? She would be smart; and not just book smarts but also pop culture savvy. There's nothing worse than constantly bombing when making references, especially if you're spending a lot of time with this unresponsive audience. I want to make a quick "Calvin & Hobbes" or Velvet Underground joke and not worry about getting a swirly from my girlfriend. But I don't want/need her to be a total PopCult Dork like myself; as a vehement self-loather, I'm not looking to date me. There's a great excitement to exposing secret loves to people you know; letting them hear that new song that you can't wait to blast on your stereo, or watching as they get engrossed in the film you love so dearly.

What else? Honest but not blunt. Respectable but not prudish or square-ish. Nonjudgmental but also not afraid to offer her opinion. Someone that needs to hear and say "I love you" to me before we get off the phone. A girl not afraid to give a private lapdance, but not a total freakadeak that intimidates me in the bedroom. She needs to be able to take a joke and make good ones, too. We don't have to be Lucy & Desi, but still there should be something in our repartee. Someone I can sit in a room with, both of us reading or doing our own thing, and not feel the need to talk to her or for her to talk to me. Just be comfortable. A woman I can wake up to, look at her face, and feel reassured about my day, instead of the cold recollection of all that's going wrong that usually greets me in the morning. Beautiful eyes that seduce me every time she looks at me "that way". Plus Agent X: that unnamed variable, that cliched spark that just makes smiling easier, has to be there. Money and a hoverbike never hurt, either.

What nervous habits do you hate in other people? What does your hatred say about them and you?

I don't know if it counts as nervous habit, but I hate when people take forever to say something. Be it they are longwinded or are easily distracted, I need you to Get to the Damned Point Already. So much of my life is spent meandering, just wandering around and not really having any grounded goal or direction. But you put me in front of these people, and all of sudden it's like I'm a Man About Town who has got things to do and people to see (usually I don't have either). I become impatient and just need their words to spring forth from their mouths less like molasses from a jar and more like beer at a High School Kegger. It says I'm partially impatient with people; that I like to think that I'm succinct -- which, given the length of most of my posts, it's quite obvious I'm not.

Other nervous habits that I can't stand is whenever people repeat certain phrases at the end of sentences over and over. For example: "Y'know?" or its petulant cousin, "Y'know what I mean?" If you add any illegal substances to energetic talkers, you tend to have to endure this experience a lot. I guess it means I don't like repetition? But that's not really what it's about. I just don't like fillers. You don't have to stall for time, and it's not an essay with a minimum word count -- you can say whatever you want. It's more like my version of Chinese Water Torture, only coked-up and wearing a lot of cover up, and never blinking.

You spot your perfect lover across and room and walk over. What does PL say?

"Wow, you look hot in that Venture Bros. shirt."
(No sarcasm. And yes, it's gotten to the point where I reference my own sad blog. Woe unto this land.)

OR

"Um, just another Cosmo for me. What do you want, Cheryl?"
(Cuz I'm the waiter in this scenario. C'est la my vie.)

It really depends on the room. What's going on? Is it a bar? Is music playing? Is she alone? Am I? So many unanswered questions. Mainly I would just want an invite to talk to her, and also a sign that she smokes cigarettes. Maybe a joke. A quip that's clever, but not hurtful. I'm sensitive.

What's the best thing anyone has ever said to you and why?

This is actually the question I wrestled with the most.

Do I go with something funny someone once said to me that has stuck with me through the years? Like the unintentional hilarity of my Junior High Science Teacher telling me all about his vasectomy? I decided against it. And you should all be thanking me.

Do I go with something that has always stayed with me and spin it like it's funny or profound? For example, when I was in 7th grade and about to buy some new Ski equipment, my friend informed me that "You need to try on boots. Because sometimes, boots don't fit." I've always looked at that line like a personal Zen Koan from my life, a "Gumpism" that I was lucky enough to witness. Or talk about the "innocent-to-her-but-actually-really-mean-and-inappropriate" words that my mother told me after I got dumped by an ex girlfriend. Or how I was called "Jewbag" at Catholic school, while I'm not actually Jewish.

But in the end, and this may be seen as a cop out by my invisible audience of cynics, the answer was pretty clear.

Any time anyone said that they loved me, and meant it, was the best.

We all throw around the nonromantic "I love you" a lot, sometimes out of forced etiquette and/or relations. It's such a jaded and dark world we live in where really, more often than not, people are just abandoned and left to vanish into their own obscurity and depression whilst life continues unabaded and uncaring. What connections we make are frayed and weak, often destroyed by simple geography or phone bills. Suddenly, that kid who was your best friend when you were growing up has become a complete stranger that you think about only on those rare, random occasions when all of your other anxieties have fled your brain. But every time that you hear those simple words, "I Love You" and know that the person means it, it's extraordinary.

And I don't mean you know it because it's said at the proper time or elicited during a recognized moment when love should be expressed. Lots of time people will just say "I Love You" to fill that awkward chasm that only a close relationship can create between two people. But when you hear those words, and you feel the concern, the caring, the sense that they support you and their lives are totally entwined with yours, for good or ill, it's just the best. It's corny. It's cliched, and it's expressed in a thousand bad pop songs and even in a couple of good ones, but Love is such a great thing. It's really the only reason to continue, the form of salvation readily available to an atheistic people numbed from the abuse that daily life heaps upon them. Those words act like glimpses into an impossible, but somehow very probable, future where everything is all right because you're not alone. Which I like.

Still, it was a very close race with the Boots line.

If you had a spirit guide, what would it be?

Probably a drunken homeless man with a Masters degree in English, constantly screaming "I'M YOUR FUTURE! I'M YOUR FUTURE!" And then starts to cry himself to sleep in my dreams while I'm trying to mack it with Kelly Kapowski.

Or maybe a suicidal Squirrel that prays for the sweet relief only Michellin can bring to its tiny cabeza.

All kidding aside, I used to be really into New Age-y stuff. One time, I had these Medicine Cards. Do any of y'all know what I'm talking about? So they had this thing where you figured out what your spirit guide animal was. I think mine was either a Bear or a Frog or something. Clearly it wasn't anything cool like the Snake, Eagle, or Coyote.But if I had to guess what my spirit guide would be, it would probably be Spiderman. Yeah, I'm that much of a nerd, and the irony is that I'm not even that big of a Spiderman fan. But here's a guy who always has to make difficult choices, and sometimes he screws up and makes a bad decision. Not only that, but he has to deal with an assload of annoying mundane bullshit -- all without using his superstrength to kill someone because they won't shut up about the missing toner in the copy machine. And above it all, he tolerates all of these hardships, all of the annoyances and tragedies that afflict his life, because he has ideals -- antiquated notions of Justice, and Duty, and Responsibility are what guide him through his life. And he does it all while saying funny little quips and wearing really sad tights, without even a suggestion of shame. Gotta respect that.

So either him or William S. Burroughs -- cuz it might as well be some batshit crazy dude giving me advice. Plus he lived enough lives for all of us in just one lifetime.


So there ya go. Hope this helps flesh me out. I'm an insecure, lonely, impatient, sentimental, romantic nerd that wishes he could do "whatever a spider can." Hope y'all are having a good day!