Liver Massacre

When you get yourself into a serious binge drinking cycle there is little that's going to motivate you to stop. The cool liquid asphyxiates any emotional qualms you may have had and the subtle yet noticeable anxiety you carry from day to day dissipates like the sugar at the base of the shot glass. You are encouraged by close friends to continue the collegiate consumption of distilled product only to feel looser, stronger, but less in control.

You know that the countless hours of non-measurable drinking is starting to take a toll on your internal organs, reminding you through ill tempered stunts that you should slow it down. The third trip to the bathroom in under 2 hours and a mild dry heave that strokes the basin of your esophagus is only the tip of the iceberg. You know this is bad, but its feels better than not knowing the good. The real change of events occurs when you are able to bury the hints of your miscalculated tolerance and just move forward amicably to a full bodied blackout.

This is how its starts. Where it ends is a decisions left up to the innate principles remaining within you subconscious cerebral cortex. When does it click? When do you pull the chord, or do you hit the earth at peak velocity over and over again until something gives and you fall through to the core? As images become blurred and your knees wobble, battling the stairs from the bottom floor of the bar upwards like an overweight diabetes patient striving for caloric intake. Women close to Glenn Close's age begin to look like Meghan Fox, and overzealous hand shakes and hugs with the same sex dance upon the level of homosexuality. Passersby look at you as if your face constantly appears as it does in a fun house mirror, you sneer back at them forcing the awkward moment to the next level. Brushing off the sweat from your brow and checking your underarms for annoying and drastically unnecessary pit stains, you go to the bathroom to breathe and wash you liquid palms. It has been 30 minutes since your last drink, partially due the long line, but more blame belongs to your lack of desire to use the last 40 dollars in your checking account. The nerves are sliding back in, and the anxiety levels are pushing at your pores. You drink.

The night ends in a violent undressing to a bed face plant with a lack of nutrition leaving you mouth void of any hydration. The morning comes quicker than necessary and with the inability to avoid the pain in between your temples and the lack of anti-depressants pouring into your body. You reach for a Xanax you bought from an effervescent waitress at cheesecake factory, and attempt to crush it against the dresser. Giving up as the morsels of prescription drug finds its way in the mahogany finish, you swipe the crumbled into your hand and land them on your pallet. Entering the sun dripped kitchen with a vague memory of how you had entered this broken establishment, you pour yourself a glass of water. Elegantly you sip the the city flow and pour out the rest into the sink and grab your only solace - the last three sips out of the handle of vodka you purchased to last the week. Your mind settles and a faint smile emerges.

The Grouper Experience

In a society hindered by the grueling 24 hour day, measured by people who can manage to only sleep 4-5 hours a night in order to fit in more time to "lead the nation," dating is not always "in the cards." Some turn to online dating, or other forms of structured dating that extends beyond genuine social interaction simply because they lack the type A, mildly sociopathic and extroverted sense. Randomly approaching an appealing face at the local watering hole is not a plausible option without filling out your underarms with Lake Erie size puddles and stuttering over every word in constant fear that your voice is as nasally and Gilbert Godfreid. For these introverted beings, low on the sociability scale I constructed during my tenure at Roger Williams, orthodox dating is also not found in a 52 card pile of paper.

The options are increasing, as local and nationwide companies see the growing demand and supply unique niche's and stabs at this constant dilemma. Widely accepted commercially is Match.com offering compatibility for the middle aged man or woman, eHarmony, which allegedly finds you the perfect match based on series of questions and algorithm's. Then you have OkCupid, a place where you can find someone at 8am EST on a Thursday and fuck them roughly 8 hours later, possibly sooner if you can fit it in on your lunch break. Plentyoffish is another FREE site where youngsters are lining up to ignore substantive profiles only stare at photos and fire of a quick message, including but not limited to, innocuous banter and verbal foreplay. A new player in the game, if they could stop their goddamn app from crashing is Tinder - An app that links to your Facebook and gps location and finds matches that you say "yes" or "no" to simply based on their profile photo and mutual friends. Then the app allows you to fire up a hopefully witty conversation with them to see if you are a "fit."

While I am no stranger to the online dating scene due to time constraints or modern curiosity, none of these options listed above have been all too lucrative and vaguely touch upon interesting. Beyond of course the intriguing willingness for young girls to sleep with you on the first date. Then came a new form of online dating that I think appeals to both sides of the problematic spectrum; the time challenged and the socially sweaty. You can find this gem at joingrouper.com. The name is GROUPER. This, in my opinion, falls into the category of online dating but is not as pressured, and in all honesty, not as creepy as Michael Myers. Imagine Michael Myers rolling up to your dinner table at Sorrelina for a nice sit down Italian meal followed by a Texas chainsaw massacre at his 2 family home in Malden, MA?

To explain grouper - It is a site where you link your facebook profile and sign up. You then receive a confirmation email asking you to choose two "wingmen" or "wingwoman." Once you have a full group of 3 they will take your info and match you up with another group of 3 of the opposite sex (I am not sure if there are same sex set-ups yet). Upon them finding a match they secure a date, time and location. In addition they give you a reservation name and the deal is done. I followed through with this process with two other males, who I believe would be good in holding a conversation. For this first trial I decided it was best not to include someone who may fart suddenly when asked about his hometown or possibly spill his drink due to his Michael J Fox hands.

Walking into the bar we were all stricken with innate fear that we were going to be dropped into a Kuwait like war zone surrounded by chicks that look like the dinosaurs depicted in Fear and Loathing in Lost Vegas when J. Depp was tripping on acid. To our great surprise this was not the case. They were actually three friends, of the preferred Jewish decent, all of which I would have taken home and definitely with one or two cocktails which I had already consumed prior to entering the establishment. Pro Tip 412; Always pregame the date, but not to blackout status. The "date" was completely carefree, with three well articulate men leading the conversation, and the girls not being to shy to carry it forward. We had a failed attempt to play two truths and a lie, and after we realized we all forgot each others names and had to start over, things were truly rolling.

This social experiment as I like to call it was well crafted and avoids many of the fears that most have upon going on a date:

1. They will be raped (happens to guys too)
2. The person will look like Shrek (still possible, but there are three options, only one Shrek)
3. They will be too nervous to hold the conversation
4. There will be nothing to talk about
5. Getting stood up

All of these issues are generally avoidable unless you have a group of raping mutants who cant speak English, sweat profusely, and are not timely. All in all, I truly recommend the experience for any fucking stock/ insurance broker complaining about late hours and the lack of time to pick up their dry cleaning. I concurrently recommend it to Adam Smithens, the poorly dressed man in his fathers Men's Warehouse blazer with a mild lisp, bad social manners, and inability to do magic besides turning his baby blue shirt navy.

Group me yo.

The Birthing Egotist

I was recently presented with a question, or rather a theory to be analyzed. The topic: Childbirth, and whether its fundamentally selfish. Each day we make millions of decisions, albeit, many of them much more important than others. The underlying fact is we make almost microscopic decisions and life altering decision daily. How many of them are selfish? For some, I predict its the majority, for others possible not a single microscopic decision was psychological egotistical. 

Psychological egoism is the concept that all humans are motivated or driven by self-interest, or at least delusions of grandeur for ones self, even if those acts appear altruistic in ones mind. While, I believe this concept is very accurate for many decision I myself make, I do not believe that every benevolent act is done for self-improvement. 

Late last night I got a call that my Uncle Fran, brother of my close Grandfather had passed away from liver failure. He had a long battle with this illness. I can count on one hand how many times I had seen Uncle Fran. Our relationship was cut short by the differences he shared with his brother, essentially ostracizing one side of the family from the other. The point is, we were not close, I didn't cry, and I felt nervous for the call to my grandfather. I simply did not know what to say to him. How would I show sympathy for a man who I was kept from most of my life due to his alleged shortcomings? 

I made the call. I apologized for his loss, and I began to feel sad. I could hear the pain in his voice, I could hear that he was scared. The people around him were slowly passing away. His sister is in a nursing home with terrible dementia, and while she has her wits about her, she simply does not recognize her friends and family. His wife of 35 years is on hospice care, and breathing through a tube. And now, his brother has left him after years of hardly speaking. He is facing the harsh reality and inevitable realization that our time here is finite - there is an end. I can hear the worry, and almost monotone words, flowing from his lips and transmitting to my ears. His ennui pattern shines light on his defensiveness and lack of desire to let his emotion show. At this point, I change the conversation and ask about something innocuous, just to break the depression and avoid the possibility of extending anymore useless platitudes. 

I remembered at that moment a passage from a book called Tuesday's With Morrie. Throughout the book, the maim dying character, discusses life, and his lack of fear for dying. He believes he has lived a complete life, gave back to humanity, and helped 3 beautiful children grow. I will paraphrase:

 In South Africa, there is a tribe who see the world as a fixed quantity of energy between all living creatures. Every birth must therefore be endangered by a lack of death, and thus every death brings forth a NEW life keeping life complete. "what we take, we must replenish, It's only fair."

With the view on life and death, I feel there is a childbirth that is truly altruistic, and wholly meaningful. In order to keep the balance of life, to keep the world whole and spinning, there must be death, and there must be birth. We owe it to the world to continue to procreate, and in the same hand assist a love one in dying the best way we can. One could argue that this is an entitled decision, but I would respectfully disagree. I would say the choice for having a child is predicated upon the desire to keep the world spinning as it should. 

With that in mind, I believe that many people bare children for the wrong reason. They do it because it was an accident and feel some religious reason to keep it alive. They do it because its the societal norm, and they desire to fit in with people their same age, to share the experience. They do it to prove something, that they can raise a child into wealth and success. Comparatively, having a child for the wrong reason, is like a suicide. Maybe in the South African tribe, that is how a suicide is justified. I will have to look into it. 

I do not believe this post truly answered my friends question, but as always, I hope it has induced some thought while scrolling left to right. 

Fictional Facts

A much more published author than I once said:

 Fear is a good thing. Fear is what drives us to take risks and extend ourselves beyond our normal limits, and any writer who feels he is standing on safe ground is unlikely to produce anything of value.

As I repeatedly read this quote I started to relate it to a recent conversation I had, interestingly enough through text message, where the majority of my writing and banter chooses to exist as of late. The  mildly argumentative yet fervent dialogue led to attraction from both parties (I believe)  predicated upon intellect.

I have always been a fan of fiction, rooted in the concept that the above quote touches on. Fiction, is a narrative that deals in part with event(s) that have not happened. However, many fictional narratives are embedded with truths and innate characteristics of the author - garnishment which I find most intriguing. Fiction, to me, allows the author, if he is willing to be open, to bleed between the lines. It allows them to transgress from their fears and project their inhibitions. It allows the imaginary to emanate, tie-dyed with true events, intertwining fiction and reality, subconscious with the conscious.

My astute and enlightened counterpart, dripping in collegiate investment and scholastic aptitude, did not share my affliction with fiction (ignore the ryhme). While fiction was intriguing to him/her, it served of less important to them.

"The world involves subjectivity and objectivity. I think objectivity is a more imperative persepctive which benefits all instead of just and individual."

While I agree there are many benefits to objectivity, for one in testing, it is not the cure all, and science is not perfect and history finds itself concealing lies. Why does something have to touch all, when we are all so vastly different in our own beautiful way. They then went on to say that they had less interest in "quintessential redundant narratives of mans struggle with life, but that doesn't negate the fact that it may still be interesting." To this I argue, "you are reading the wrong fictional literature." The Art of Racing in the Rain,  is told through a narrative of a dog, witnessing mans struggle, and is far from quintessential in my mind. This man prevails through adversity, and the dogs (obviously imaginary) interpretation was enlightening to ingest. Is this book going to help me solve a math problem, or design a building that is both efficient and green? Will it alter all of humanity? No, but it does change my perspective on a life that is often taken all too seriously.

Granted I am fickle and obdurate in my stance as many people argue history is. So, while I argue this dashing competitors opinion, I do value it.

We finally reached an area of placid agreement - historical fiction, the mediary between non-fiction and fiction. This style of writing allows for a presentation of known objective facts in an imaginary setting, theme, or style. With this literary concept my foe in this argument can move forward amicably and know that they are receiving a larger sum analytical data, and I can rest assure that the author may have faced one or two of their fears whilst writing.

Recurring consistencies are something I am sure that we all find welcoming, but without a surprise or two, what are we trying to prove? That life can be predicted from this day out? That all history repeats itself? That we are all inherently the same and our differences do not benefit one another? I like too think not. We are all part of humanity and in humanity lies many facts that should be used to unite us, not tear us apart. However, what makes us interesting, what makes us love, what makes us passionate, is what is not consistent. I hope this does not change. Otherwise, replace my organs with machines, stamp me with a corporation seal, and choose my wife. Having the ability to live peacefully amongst our vast differences rather than having them drive us into conflict is essential to a productive humanity.

Train Setbacks

When people take your dinner suggestions it usually means they take you pretty seriously. I mean, who is going to go to a place to consume food recommended by someone who’s daily opinions are not valued? More importantly, if that person takes your suggestion, say in a new city, it means they truly value your opinion and trust your judgement.

This is what I was thinking about sitting in the overheated lobby of New York's Penn Station. I was dodging nostalgia as the station attendant announced publicly that the 173 regional to Washington, DC and Richmond, VA was now boarding. 6 months ago I would have been heading in that direction, out of this "person swamp" that the populous refers to as a city. Now, I am heading where it is somehow colder than it is outside and the only two upsides are less people and lower buildings for the wind to work up courage to slap you in the face.

I was traveling to NYC for business, or should I say social gatherings outside of my place of work. The two day cluster fuck consisted of 5 hours of exhibit hall hand shaking and business card exchanges, followed by 18 hours of frivolous spending and glutinous food/alcohol consumption. The night before I had 4 fucking dinners, 4 dinners. The last one was the larger of the quad dinner experience and I merely winked at the overpriced food and forced saki down my throat like a strep culture stick. Thinking about eating today, after just going on lunch numero duo, makes me want to take my clothes off and force vomit like Nicole Ritchie. Not sure why  I am taking the clothes off to complete this task, but I am predicting that the act produces body heat. Given the temperature of this homeless persons dream space that I am waiting in, naked seems to be the best and only  option for forced vomiting. Personally I am excited about the possibility, there are 7 things I ate last night that I am not totally certain what they were, or if they were even edible.

Looking across the row of waiting chairs it looks like heat waves are forming. The hot air has collected dust particles from the hundreds of thousands of forever unclean passengers and it is just resting in the air. The dust seems to form a permanent cloud that if I squint and reach out, I can break it up and clear a area of relatively purified air. 

A young man, a bit homely but not vagrant, came up with a prepaid credit card and ten dollars in his hand. He claimed that he neede $2.75 to board the LIRR and the prepaid card would not work since he has to enter a zip code for it that didn’t exist. 3 possibilities:

1.     He was being truthful

2.     He wasn’t buying a ticket at all

3.     Stolen, empty, prepaid card

I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I have a feeling the situation was a combination of 2 and 3.  I will certainly be giving this a trial run tonight by entering a fictional card and seeing if it requires a zip code. If it does, ill stop my investigation and just say he used the money properly, or at least did some decent research on his lie. Life is a lie, how we live it is directly correlated with our ability to obscure the truth. Write that down.

So far the 20 dollar bill that I just took out of the ATM in case I needed it has gone to; lying LIRR rider, the coat check lady at the convention center, and the cab driver who was names Infal Combrero. Haitian?  The cab driving race breakdown has really seen some changes in the past year. I think half of Haiti is here driving the cabs. If they all left the city at once New York would be fucked, or the subways would be packed like China. Seems like I am really putting this Jackson bill to good use so far. I may buy a Mr. Goodbar on the way home and a can of Yoo-Hoo.

Boarding the train now at the 6 East. I cannot believe that I am going to be on this moving tin can for 4.5 hours. So much for quick travel. Takes less time to drive than to take the train. You can get halfway across Asia in four in a half hours on a train. Here, you have to plan your whole day around traveling just 115 miles. Good lord, the only thing to do is  to move forward amicably, board this bitch, fall asleep a pray to a god that I don’t believe in that I will wake up 4.25 hours from now. 

River runs wild and I do not fear
Afraid of nothing as the wind it tears
Casting shadows on the days of old
A winter dream, caught in the cold

Spraying angels in the burly snow
My mind lays with you as the months they flow
another season spins, the leaves return
waiting for the summer sun, to feel the burn

But your not here, no your far away
Edges of my sweater, crack and fray
from the miles of dreams Ive been walking through
The winding road that never leads to you

I've dusted bibles and twisted prayers
Thought of fate and your wind-blown hair
The drink and smoke only clog my mind
Makes me fall deeper and far behind

I write letters on postcards form foreign seas
Tell my mother, I'm making a man of me
But I'm just a boy lost and torn
My heart battered, dark and worn

My facade strapped tight and my nails filed
Parted hair with a crooked smile
They all pat my back and say job well done
Nobody knows my battles never won

The Expected Stuggles of a Married Man - Part 1

Upon recently moving offices I have become privy to elicit exposure to the lives and personal intricacies of my colleagues. Te close quarters allow monitor browsing, food sniffing, fart avoidance, excessive use of obnoxiously loud Dr. Dre Beats earn phones, and of course the listening in on  personal conversations allowing me to tactfully pontificate upon what I have just heard with friends who are not in the office.

The most recent spark of interested came from N--- who was speaking with his wife on the phone. On the whole, it was incredibly uneventful and I can only assume he was talking about picking up his kids, or rather having to be picked up since the family owns one car and his wife is in possession of it. What I clung onto like a gator navigating a swamp and finding his pray hiding behind a darkened tree branch was this:

Life as a married man starts off completely fulfilling. You feel wholesome, you feel new, you are embarking on a journey. Its sort of like a trip to Florida for the weekend. You are on the plane after work, drinking whiskey, contemplating new relationships with strangers from 800 miles away. Not sure what you are going to do but you know you will drink, it will be fun, maybe weird like a finger in the ass or a chick wearing vampire teeth while your fuck. Then you do go, it is fun, your ass hurts, and your brain is numb, but its over. You have to get back on the plane an return home to your mildly monotonous job with a mediocre salary (after spending roughly 43% of your monthly income). You had the journey, now you realize you are back to reality. The journey just fucking blows, and you never have time just turn the music on, with your headphones on full blast because its rude when you are on a lifelong trip with someone else. You can no longer be selfish or even really drink. 

You are now on a journey of judgement. You cant shit where you eat or eat while you shit. You cant pick up a Chad Kultgen novel and say "this is intriguing literature" without being called a masogynistic asshole. You cant call up your buds on "movie night" for a change of pace, because its insensitive. Your journey is now not really a journey at all, its a sentence. This sentence is made up of 15 life long consecutive sentences. You're prison fucked. 

So as I talked to my friend about this concept of marriage we quickly fell into a bit of satirical banter. The focal point was Fantasy Football. Fantasy is something I enjoy now, and I really get into it. But Fantasy Football for the married man is like Poker Night, it is like water, or oxygen, it is needed not for enjoyment, but for survival. It acts simply as an escape from the reality path he is forced to meander down, only to find the road does not diverge. It simply curves and winds to its inevitable beginning, leaving him only to be able to say "this is my nightmare," for it is truly mine.

I told my friend that on the same night that I invite him to a poker night at my house, he should immediately delete my number and write down on a sticky note the date. This date represents the day we stop becoming friends and concurrently my social life has been taken out to the small, flower infested backyard (which I was forced to plant on a Saturday) and shoot it right in the fucking face.

After poker night organizations are established in order to keep one ounce of dignity stored for the lack thereof a social life, you fire up a riskier move - Fantasy Football. Wives must hate Fantasy Football. FF take up an incredible amount of time in a males life; drafting, setting weekly rosters, pending trades, lost waivers, injured players, sports news reading in the morning, more trades, FUCKING GAME DAY. They HATE FF with a fire-like passion. Allowing FF to enter their husbands lives is like women being gifted with a 50 Shades of Gray TV show that is on 4 days a week. They become second best and everything they do is simply a backfill priority, receiving all the unwanted traffic, or shitty time that sneaks through.

In order to get FF off the ground, the coniving, yet loving husband must send out invites for a draft. Now that he is balls deep into this "partnership," they share everything. Things that he thought was his own, including his testicles, are not. His college email that he somehow uses still as a mode of conversation - not his. His cell phone is now simply a quicker avenue for her to get in touch when he is picking up the jumbo sized tampons. His pants, he didn't pick out, so therefore not his. He literally has no known possessions, besides his hotmail email account, which is usually not good for anything other than SPAM rape, and porn registrations. He sets up a time and date for the secret FF draft, thinking that if he could at least get the league started without his wife knowing she will not ruin him and make him drop out, therefore removing his balls and shipping them to Lithuania. Package addressed to: Chantel with a note saying "these will not be needed anymore."

He sends out the email that has all the info and he states clearly "Gentlemen, please DO NOT, under any circumstances, make the mistake of RSVPing to my Gmail account, my wife knows the password and she will bring this idea down like Haiti's political structure."
- Of course one asshole friends sends him an email to his Gmail thinking that he was kidding about his request.

Two weeks later, after the beginning of the 2012 FF season, disqualifying the group form involvement, he sends a follow up email. This time it is sent from Constant Contact, a service that requires you to pay a monthly fee at a high rate in order to send private emails and manage them from a third party location:

Dear Friends and Fucking asshole suckface, slut-bitch, titty slapping JAKE,

Due to a lack of ability to follow instructions there will be no Fantasy Football this season. My wife logged into my gmail two weeks ago claiming that she needed to print off our airline tickets to West Virginia, where her third cousin is getting married....next July. She was fortunate to stumble upon Jake, who thinks his humor is as funny as his community college degree's, email, and threw a temper tantrum that rivals Rainman when he is not allowed to count the things he wants. Needless to say I am currently sleeping on the futon I rolled into the unfinished basement. Yes, the futon from college. On top of that she has hidden all of my phone chargers so I was only able to fire up this iPod touch that the 8 year old neighbor left here last week while mowing the lawn - can't believe I had to pay the shitstick 10 bucks for that. However looking back it is a 10 dollar iPod that I can slowly access internet on. Sorry for any typos, I am using an online fucking email program on a first generation Ipod touch with a scratched screen. Fuck you Jake, sorry guys.

Me

Fast forward one year.

Hey Guys,

This is a mass message. I know this is a dating site and you think this is one of those gay dudes popping off a queer message to see your dick and send it to his aunt, but its me. I'm pretty fucking jealous you guys are all on here, chicks are smoking hot. I am also sarcastically glad we have to communicate this way. Things have really taken a turn to the dark side at home and I simply cannot move forward amicably. I have upgraded since the last time we talked (11 months and 2 weeks ago) to and iPad. I bought if off the same squirly bitch neighbor who noq extorts me by charging 15 bucks to mow my 10x15 sq foot lawn. I snapped the floor boards in the deck and hid this bad boy in a plastic zip lock bag so i can use it to message you guys. This is an invite to the Fantasy Football 2013 draft (location sent later). I hope you all can make it, I chose not to add Jake on here who I hope dies of herpes to the brain. If you guys need to reach me I whipped out a Cricket mobile account with prepaid minutes. I have 37 minutes which I estimate will be the exact amount needed to field all your RSVP's and questions. George - dont get long winded and talk about how much money you made fishing last year. After the RSVPs are confirmed I plan on burning this phone and dropping it in the Long Island sound so my wifey wont ostracize me from all my friends for another full calendar year. 

(The guy with no balls)

Happy wife, happy life. NO. Happy wife, dead husband.