Cheer New World

     Recently, I went out of town. While a bulk of the week was spent at a conference, during the weekend I spent some time with my family, including my step-brother and step-sister-in-law (henceforward all “steps” will be dropped). My sister-in-law coaches a co-ed, internationally successful cheerleading team, and this weekend also happened to be the same weekend as the World Cheerleading finals.

     This event. Wow. My parents and I got to the venue early to be sure to get seats, and O.M.G. My cheer knowledge and research has been limited to the original Bring It On movie. Not even the sequels, sadly, but only the original. I can say that this portrayal is super accurate. As my mother and I waited for my step-dad to ask directions to the right cheertorium, we were swept up in a tide of fabulocity that cannot be ignored or avoided.

Leaning into my mom’s ear, I said, “Mom, don’t ever worry about going to a gay bar, this is all you would ever need.”

Important Elements of a Gay Bar: Cheer Edition:

1.       Built, hot, homosexuals. These were errrrywhere. You couldn’t turn your head without seeing a guy who looks like he walked out of GQ or…Hot Man Monthly (Is that a thing?). Surprisingly, a lot of these guys are straight, but they also are shameless and wander around shirtless, so you might as well be at a shower party.

2.       Drag. Whilst drag is not about men dressing as women, there are a lot of teenage and early-twenties females wearing enough make-up to supply Iran for a good decade. The Simpsons has an excellent illustration:

3.       Drag II: The Cheer Moms. Cheer moms are all did. Up. While most of my sporting experience has been limited to rowing in college and small-town basketball and track, the moms of cheer are a different beast. While my mother would wear a sweatshirt, glasses, and mom jeans to a track meet, these moms looked like they were going to dinner with P.Diddy (Diddy? P? Swag? …I’m so behind the times.) and then the club. Don’t get me wrong, these women are beautiful, but when juxtaposed to the 60% of cheer mom and dads who look they were up at 6 a.m. to see their kids cheer and ARE wearing mom and dad-jeans and sweatshirts, they might as well be wearing 3-foot high hair and fake breasts.

4.       Club music. In five minutes in the main cheer-stage, they played “Call Me, Maybe,” Adam Lambert, and Gloria Estefan.

5.       Twerqing. Everyone twerqing. All. The. Time. Boys, girls, my five-year-old niece. Twerq. Twerq. Twerq.

   Cheer world is basically the best thing ever. I have a group of really close gay and straight friends that have a Facebook group and the whole time I was watching the cheer menagerie saunter by, I wished they were there. We would have had so much fun.

     I also didn’t really know what to expect from the actual cheertations. We knew that my sister-in-law’s group was up at 9:11, so I assumed the show would be made up of about 10 minutes of cheering.

     No. Each group has 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This is super-duper intense. Imagine someone throwing glitter in your face, knocking you down to the ground, and then twerqing over your sprawled body. It’s kind of like that. People are jumping, spinning, being hurled in the air, twerqing (always, always, the twerq), diving, rolling, tumbling, freewheeling, etc. It’s a delightful 2:30 assault of all senses. Even the audio is erratic and switches between roughly 200 songs in 2:30. (Chicago peeps: imagine the DJ from Scarlet. Just like that, the song changes every time you blink.)

     We only saw about five groups before we were shuffled back to meet my sister-in-law’s team. Truth be told, I could have stayed and watched a few more hours. It’s really pretty cool, and I feel like I watch the same group do the same routine fifteen times and see something new with each performance.

     My sister’s team was good, but I would give the World MVP to GetIt Gurl, who came on with the second group. Imagine your very best overweight girlfriend. Then imagine her doing five flips and six cartwheels across the stage, killing her landing, then shaking her exposed gut in a brief display of triumph.

You would give her the MVP, too.

     Usually when I experience events like this I think to myself, “Man, Tedd, wouldn’t this be awesome? You could be a cheerleader!” But that was absolutely untrue in this particular instance. There are certain personalities that make great cheerleaders. They are talkative and supportive and bubbly. These are the people you are drawn to at parties and who are friends with everyone. I am not them.

      As part of my conference I actually took this personality test which stated that my two main personality types are Rebellion and Mystique. Unless the cheerleading competition involved a subdued, veiled Arabian fan dancing portion, I think I would be very ill suited for the rah-rah-shish-kum-bah of the cheer life.

     This was made even clearer at the cheer party after. The kids were aged 15-22, and they were all bubbly and bouncing around the team’s house they had rented for the event. Most of them participated in a reenactment of the entire cheerformance in the backyard for all the parents. At this point in the day, I could barely stay awake to lift the beer to my lips, and these kids were all running around with their barely-clothed, perfect bodies and still hurling each other into the air.

“Hey, Coach, who’s that creepy blonde guy drinking Miller Lite alone in the backyard?”

“That’s my brother-in-law… Don’t make direct eye contact.”

     Actually, I wasn’t that creepy. Much more awkward than creepy. I occupied an age group between the late teens of the cheerleaders and the mid-thirties of my brother, sister, and co, so I just sort of sat there and listened to people talk and drank a few Miller Lites.*

*See… Not a cheerleader type.

     Two things of major importance happened at the cheer party. The first was that I met the team’s Big Red. Yes, just as Bring It On spoke, it is so. All teams have a Big Red. During the course of the party, however, I wasn’t able to ascertain whether this girl was nicknamed Big Red because her hair was a beautiful, dark red; or, whether she had been sedated, forcibly had her hair dyed, and then been branded with the title of “Big Red” in order to keep the scriptures of Bring It On. Because it is cheer world, both possibilities are very likely.

     The second important thing is that there were two or three gay boys on the cheer squad. One of them was this adorable high school kid who is super attractive and has an A+ body. I was in the yard for thirty seconds before he had his shirt off and was standing within a foot of me talking to someone close to me; as far as I could tell there was no reason for him to be in my vicinity. Inside my head I was absolutely dying with laughter. He sensed another gay and had to come over and be like, “Yup. I’m hot. Check it out.” I was wondering whether I should remove my shirt and we could cluck around in a circle and show our plumage to each other.

     Later that night my sister-in-law said to me, “Felix, right? You wish he was in his twenties.” And I had to say, “No,” because in some third-world countries I could have been his father.

     But what was awesome about Felix is the fact that he was sixteen and out. That in his world he can take off his shirt parade around his back yard and talk to another gay guy. He can talk to his friends about his boyfriend, about hot guys, and his Would You Rather Game could consist of Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds. At a later point in the night when he put on his skintight swim trunks, his proud poppa laughed and said, “Classic Felix. He’s working at a pool this summer; it’s the perfect job for him.” And in Felix’s world, this is all normal and great.

On my drive home I couldn’t help but be sad myself thinking about the decade I spent in the closet. In my world even if you had the looks of Felix, you would have had to have been dating a girl, you couldn’t kiss your boyfriend before practice, and wearing tight swimtrunks would have raised eyebrows up to heaven.

     But times they are a-changing, and Felix has a magnificent running start into the rest of his life. In truth, he and GetIt Gurl are far out in front of me. They are twerqing and clucking far into the horizon. I suppose the cheer road isn’t for all of us, though. We veiled fan dancers have to make our own, more circuitous way.  In a lot of ways this is much appreciated; I like DJs to finish their entire songs, and I can’t do a cartwheel to save my life. But I have to say I’m epically grateful to be a part of the LGBT(PZTLYSX?...I’m so behind the times…) community that is seeing the changes wrought by generations of gay men and women who were at the front lines of battle for rights and recognition. We should all be grateful to them for all their work. When Felix saunters around in his short-shorts, it is aesthetically pleasing, but its beauty runs much deeper than that. Because of what others did, he can be who he is. And that, I suppose, is one thing I would be happy to cheer about.

The Bizniss

Dental Care! …. Lisa Needs Braces!

I'm not one of those people who hate dentists. I actually, nerdy as it is, enjoy knowing that my teeth are the cleanest they can get. I may also get some joy out of people telling me how nice my teeth are.

“You're teeth are beautiful!”

“Teehee, right?”

My last dentist, though, was the worst. I normally wouldn't name a company, but this place was so awful that I feel it is an obligation to warn anyone living in Chicago to never, ever, ever get back together with Wrigleyville Dental. They will take all your money and break your teeth.

The first time I went in they told me that my whole mouth was on the verge of being sucked into a black hole of a cavity that would tear a hole in the space-time continuum and cause a zombie apocalypse. Needless to say I freaked out, and three meetings later and 1200 dollars lighter, I had a crown.

I didn't really think anything of this until I went back in for a cleaning. I mean... Cleanings aren't supposed to be that much, especially if you have insurance. So I went in and the lady proceeded to take roughly 3700 X-rays.

“Okay, move this here” ~X-ray~ “And here” ~X-ray~ “And here” ~X-ray~ “And here and here and here and here” ~Sound of Tedd getting cancer~

After soaking up enough radiation to turn into the Incredible Hulk, the dentist came in. He looked at the new wall mural of X-rays and deduced that I need two fillings and, for good measure, they should tear out an old filling... Because?... So, I think to myself, “Well, fillings with insurance are like...what?...$75 bucks?”

I get up to the front and the receptionist is smiling. “Let's get you scheduled for your fillings.” She smiled brightly and pulled out an invoice. “These are the estimates!”

My eyebrows almost busted through the roof. 1200 dollars... For three fillings. “And with insurance... The lady said, you'll save about $500.”

I could barely see straight. “$700?!” I asked. The lady nodded. At this point I still believed that she had some parts of her that were still human, so I said, “Well, let's schedule the two I need and then do the refill later.”

It's hard to believe, but it was like all of a sudden the lights dimmed and the walls started bleeding. The sweet lady in front of me transformed into a vampire-like creature. “ALL OF THESE ARE NECESSARY! YOU SHOULD SCHEDULE THEM AAAAALLLLLL!!!”

Suddenly the lights flickered back on and the tiny Asian woman was back to her normal form.

Needless to say I never went back there. The vampire still calls though... Wanting her toothy tribute.

Today, though, I went to a new dentist.

The head doctor could easily be a bond villain. She's got a thick accent and could probably bench press a mid-sized sedan. After the hygienist had taken 16 X-Rays – I counted...it was literally 16 – she came in and sat down.

“Hello, my darling. How are you?”

“Good.”

“Good, great, good.”

She then proceeded to recklessly and mercilessly clean my teeth. 10 minutes. That was the length of the cleaning. Then she picked up my X-rays and said, “Let's keep an eye on this one, my pet. Be careful brushing. Take your time.”

She then wheeled out of the room and disappeared.

The total cost of this visit was $0. Somewhere, five miles south in Wrigley, I heard the bray of a vampire mourning the loss of a regular cleaning that they would have gotten $200 for.

Bizniss

My new job has me working graduate admissions at a business school. I mean, you hear a lot of jokes about how corporate people discuss things, but you really can't even imagine it until you see it in action.

One afternoon my boss and I went to a meeting. My boss asked one of the people in the meeting, “So, did you figure out the online chat stuff?”

Her response: “Well, I'm meeting with Dr. Jones this week, and Wednesday Julie and I are meeting to discuss the content for the slides. Then we'll connect with Jack to see about whether we should include the additional content about registration. Sometime next week we'll sit down with Dr. Johnson to figure out his participation, then we can set up a meeting for Tuesday to discuss the full proposal.”

In my head I couldn't help but count the number of “reach outs,” “meetings,” and “discussions” this whole process was taking. Couldn't it be covered in an email? I mean, I know it's not cool, but can you pick up a telephone? Or Facetime on an iPad? Is that cooler? I mean, I don't know, I don't use my work iPad for anything other than reading free books on. I hear it does other stuff.

The online chat for new students was slowly, and through about 47 meetings, finally set up. We finally set up a practice meeting to run through the slides. My coworker in admissions and I kept messaging each other, because, inevitably, what was supposed to be a practice chat evolved into... what else? A meeting.

We totes got businessed – I typed in the messenger.

At two points I guffawed sitting at home on my computer. One was when, for the third time, the discussion of who would click the slides to move along the presentation came up.

“I mean, I just really thing we should discuss who should move the slides.”

Five minutes later: “Can we get back to talking about who is going to click the slides.”

Then finally, someone who hadn't said anything during the whole web conference, put on the mic and is like, “I'm sorry, I think we should discuss the slides and who will move them.”

Giant laugh 1.

The second was when one of the people at the business school put on the webcam to test it out. In theory, it seems like a good idea to have the face-to-face interaction. It makes Tedd laugh so hard he starts crying, though, when you see that the person in question is awkwardly sitting in their bedroom talking about a business program. What would people think?

“We are a reputable program, oh, and that is my wife sleeping to the left of your screen.”

Oh, work! You're just... Just...

I'm Bad at Therapy

This next story is short, but it made feel really terrible about myself.

I started seeing a counselor about two months ago. <= Girl's got some issues.

Anyway, the other day, we got to the end of a session and my counselor looked at the clock. “Oh wow,” he said, “that actually went fast this time.”

I couldn't help but think that if I were really neurotic, this would have destroyed some or all of self-confidence. The subtext is obviously, “Gawd, your sessions are so drawn out. Why can't you be crazier and more interesting?”

Whatever. We can set up a meeting to discuss it later, then reach out to discuss it with Tiffany and Jerry on Tuesday. As long as we know who's moving the slides everything else will work out.

Derivatives of Douche Used Frequently in This Post

Gym Misanthrope

I’m not one of those people who likes other human beings. Nowhere is this exacerbated worse than the gym.  Usually, I go about 6 in the morning to avoid the big rushes, but this time of day tends to also bring out the weirdos, who do odd enough things, that make them want to go to the gym when no one else is there, i.e. misanthropic people who don’t like other people who go to the gym early to avoid other weird people in the gym.

In the morning the cast of characters include:

Pirouette Lesbian:

There is really no need to clarify that she is a lesbian because EVERYONE that goes to my gym is gay. Everyone. Even the mice that roam the halls at night like mice of their same gender.

PL is one of those variety of gym creatures who somehow manages to be everywhere at once. This includes her “lunge” activities that involve the following gym items.

1. Dumbbells – uses 1 set, but does not take a step back from the rack, so, by default, she makes it impossible to use 30% of all dumbbells.
2. 2 flat benches; because what good is stepping up on one when you can step up on one, spin, and jump over to the other?
3. The necessary other flat bench, not in use, but totally invaluable in its ability to set the 8 x 4 inch towel on that she will not need until she gets done jumping between two flat benches six inches away from the entire dumbbell rack.

When this woman goes up to the dumbbell rack there is a collective sigh because everyone KNOWS that, essentially, 1/3 of the entire gym will come to a screeching halt.

To be fair, however, there might have been a complaint, because, in my own observation, the most egregious pirouetting has been abandoned. This may have been because of the complaint, or, because jumping between flat benches whilst spinning and twirling dumbbells probably caused her painful, prolonged back injuries.

Sunglassed GUY!!!:

Why talk like a normal human being when you can shout while wearing Oakleys? This is the question that a man at my gym asked himself one morning and evidently found the answer to be, “I should stop talking like a normal human being! It’s so dull!”

This man shows up in the afternoons with his personal trainer and grunts and groans loud enough for all to hear. This is annoying enough in and of itself, but tack on his need to bellow things like, “HOW WAS YOUR WEEKEND?” and “I LOVE WATCHING THE NEWS.” And he basically becomes one of the most obnoxious people on the planet. The icing on the douche-cake, so to speak, is his pair of Oakleys that NEVER COME OFF. I have seen this man on the train, on his commute, and he is still wearing his Oakley sunglasses that he wears in the gym. He wears these in the dark, in the day, in the gym, on the train. He likes these sunglasses, Sam I Am. He likes them likes them – and should shut the f$&k up when he’s in the gym.

Gropy Asian:

The Gropy Asian is repulsive. I have seen him in the gym a few times. He is a general gym type, not specific to my gym. While I’m honored to have the eccentric PL and OAKLEY GUY, Gropy Asian is a dime a dozen dbag available at most (gay and straight) gyms on the planet.

He has dragon tattoos up and down his chest, all clearly visible, because over his obscene muscles he wears a scrap of cloth loosely able to be called a tank top. He lifts lots of weight and is one of those roll-your-eyes-Tom-Cruise-objectively-hot-kind-of-guys.

One day he was taking up two machines in the gym. Normally I wouldn’t just jump on one when I see this happening, but he felt the need to lift at one machine, lift at the other, then walk to the closest mirror and grope his muscles and flex for himself. I was waiting for him to get off his machine and saw this display and decided that I didn’t have time for this.

I walked over to one of his machines, changed the weight, and started to go to town. I got the bar about halfway down, when he comes stomping over.

“Hey,” he said, trying not to sound gay. “I’m using that.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, I’m going to work in one. K thanks.”

And proceeded to finish. I knew I could take him in a fight in there – he’d be too busy checking himself out to throw a clean punch.

How to Fail in Business Without Really Trying

I’m still kind of new to my job, which means there are large chunks of time when I do things that I don’t really know what I’m doing. The most recent event was at a meeting last week. It was for marketing staff and the web designers, but my boss thought it would be good to sit in so I can find out more about the marketing in my specific school.

We were all introduced and sat down. In a weird turn of events, I was positioned at the end of the table with the marketing team, separated from my boss and the other people I knew in my department.

Throughout the meeting the marketing staff made occasional comments like, “Yeah, we should ask Ed to fix it.” “That tab should say, call Ed!” And generally comments that my boss said, like, “Ed is going to take a look at this later.” Led to heads being turned in my direction and nods.

During all of this commentary, I kept a blank stare on my face and reacted to nothing. No smile, no shrugs, no nods, no nothing. At one point when the one marketing guy said, “That tab should say, call Ed!” I felt uncomfortable when people turned to me and immediately turned my head to look at the projected video screen.

At the end of the meeting one of the marketing guys shook my hand and said, “Your last name is Bott?” “No,” I said. “It’s Hawks.” “Yeah,” he said, “ebott is your sign on name. It’s funny because there use to be another ebott.”

This led to my most confused expression of the day and this, wonderfully snappy business comeback: “Uhhhhhhhh…”

“See ya, Ed!”

It was at that moment that I realized that during the entire meeting, the marketing staff had thought I was Ed Bott the technical writer for our department. Now they still think that I am Ed Bott, and also a terrible douchebag. Thinking back to the meeting, I couldn’t help but think of all the jokes they made about Ed that turned into me staring at them blankly. This juxtaposed to when my boss told some jokes and I laughed heartily, probably made me look like the biggest suck-up, bitch-douche in the whole department.

When Ed comes into the office next week, I kind of feel obligated to tell him that

1. Everyone thinks he is terrible person.
2. Everyone also thinks he is too dumb to know his own name.

You’re welcome, Ed Bott – please don’t return the favor.

There is a god (and he is made of glitter and rides a unicorn)

Facebook is great for many reasons; the most important being updates like Ke$ha is playing at the Illinois State Fair. Yes, single blog reader and Mr. Fluffer, she is coming to the middle of Illinois, to the State Fair, where all other headliners are country singers. Why? There is no reason. There is none other than that this event was specifically planned for my friends and I to attend.

For a long time I have been planning to take a bunch of my friends to my hometown. It’s just kind of fun because I can show them my high school, which is legit in the middle of a cornfield, show them the Lincoln home, and take them to White Oaks Mall. For some reason this idea/dream has always been linked to me renting a 15-passenger van and driving down. It’s like a church field trip only… Well, we’re renting a van.

The last time I saw Ke$ha live – well, let me tell you everything I remember:

Anyway, it seemed like a great time to get together a bunch of friends, go to Springfield and rent a 15-passenger van.

Essentially, this in real life.

  

If I’ve never cornered you at a party and told you why I think Ke$ha is great, then you’re very lucky. The explanation shall remain unblogged until such a time when I can find you at a party and fill you in – or you can just follow the van to Springfield.

Toilet Retribution

Potty Justice

I made a lot of fun of the people that used my bathroom at work. A lot. And it didn’t let up after I blogged about it, which I thought would inevitably lead to a bathroom devoid of awkwardness and urination in the dark.

But it didn’t.

And after that blog post there were more puddles, and more nocturna-urination. Case in point, the time I was singing One Direction (“Kiss You”) to myself as I entered the bathroom. Imagine my surprise when I flipped on the lights and was met with the steely gaze of the 60-year old man from down the hall.

“Hello.”

“GUUWWHHHHAAAAAHHHAAA!....Kissyou….”

Then of course there were additional oddities, like the guy on his cell phone, talking loudly, who literally said, “Hold on a minute,” as…I assume… He put his phone under his ear and started tearing off toilet paper to wipe. Wipe. Like run your hands between your nook with a thin piece of paper to collect follicles of feces, wipe. Then, only to pick up his phone and resume a conversation.

Yes.

But then one day, my last week of work at my old job, I walked into the bathroom. The lights were on, someone was going #2, and the all was right with the toilet-world.

Well… I don’t think this is just a me thing, but it might be, in which case I’m still going to speak as if it happens to all men.

Sometimes, once trowel is dropped and the sequence is initiated, you don’t…really…know 100% the direction that things will happen. It happens for me like 1/60.5 times (no…I…like…I don’t have a urinary diary) and in this case the stream, if you will, can take on a mind of its own. Well, on this day, my stream had just gotten off a three-day bender and decided to shoot laterally.

So I was at the urinal, me and the little guy facing forward, and when lift-off happened, the stream shot sideways. Completely 90 degrees, hit the wall of the stall, and started dribbling down it. Remember there is someone in the stall, and that liquid makes a noise when it hits a fiberglass wall and starts dripping.

This led to panic and a “GUUWWHHHHAAAAAHHHAAA” a blind groping, a wet hand, and I’m sure ended up with a blog entry from the guy who was minding his business under the stall.

“Gawd, it happened again in my bathroom at work. Guy with Weak Prostate tried to shoot me through the stall door!”

Let’s hope as few people as read my blog read his.

Korea, Still Awkward 5000 Miles Away

I had an acquaintance who knew someone who had a friend who is going to Korea for a study abroad thing. The friend of the guy wanted to know if I would talk to him briefly about what to expect, since I did go there and know…things?

Well, I agreed and met with the guy and the mutual friend. We talked for like twenty minutes and it was really fun to talk about Korea again. It always shocks me when people ask if the Korean police are rough. Seriously? Most of them are 18. At one point we saw two male police officers, probably 120 lbs a piece, walking hand in hand down the street. In Korea that’s not gay – that’s just bros being bros. And yes, they’re in charge of keeping the peace. Luckily in Korea the worst that can happen is an old man yells at you and runs away.

After the conversation the guy going to Korea left because he had an appointment, and the other girl stayed.

The guy was young and white, which, in Korea, means that you will be “hott.” I’d forgotten to mention that the bar scene can be kind of weird and girls can be aggressive at Western Bars, so I quickly asked his the friend if the guy had a girlfriend.

This wasn’t meant to be awkward, This was meant to be a segue into kind of an awkward conversation about how some Korean girls kind of go nutso over foreign guys.

“Does Alex have a girlfriend?”

“Ummm…” The look on the girl’s face immediately made me think… “FUUUUAAAARRRRKKK”

She goes on: “I don’t know…you know…I should…but….I just…you know I want to ask, but I don’t think I should ask, but do you? Do you think so? I mean you…you know….do you think? I shouldn’t ask. I don’t know. His friends were asking me about it too…”

I was obviously the only homosexual this girl had talked to in a while, as the panic was immediate. And I would be no help. Despite my own orientation being firmly Homo-North, I have absolutely no gaydar. And this guy acted like a gender-confirming male – no pink, no lisp, no fabulocity.

Then I started to panic thinking she was thinking that I thought he was hot or something. So then I start getting awkward.

“No, like, I mean he’s a good-looking guy, but not like THAT good-looking, you know. But I just…uhhh… I meant that the bars… Uh can be aggressive and just… tell him … to… not…be…surprised.”

This was followed by a huge awkward silence for both of us.

Yikes: still go it.

iShame

For my new job I got an iPad. There is no reason for me to have an iPad. Last year at the Chicago Autoshow, I saw all the floor models with iPads. They, their good looks, and their Associate’s degrees in Marketing stood around and touched the screen to bring up each car’s stats. You know what also could do this? A person’s memory.

“How many horsepower?”

“Well let me use the iPad to bring up a list of stats. Isn’t this so 2012?!”

That being said, were I to be lined up with these people in order of necessity of having an iPad, I would be last.

But I’m going to use it. For… I don’t know what you use one for other than reading books. I recently joined a book club in Chicago and discovered that some of the books we read are free if you download them, so I have been doing that to avoid paying any money.

The first time I downloaded a book and put it on the iPad, I decided that I was going to read on the train. I got out my bag and slipped my hand into my bag and I suddenly realized.

“Oh, gawd. I’m that guy. I’m the guy on the train with the iPad.”

I had a mini existential crisis as I wondered whether I should pull it out. Would others judge me as I judge people with an iPad? For some reason, I view Kindles as completely different. They cost 70 bucks and let you read books. An iPad… What do you even use it for? It’s a giant iPhone that does what an iPhone does… But bigger! There’s nothing douchier than a guy walking on the train, headphones in, watching Transformers 2 on an iPad. (That actually happened. He had to be the Emperor of All Douches.)

I sat and wondered for a few minutes. Then I thought that maybe I should make sure everyone knew that I wasn’t an iPad guy.

“Oh, I’m reading on this iPad, but I’m not an iPad guy. I got this from work! Definitely not a guy who would buy an iPad, though. No way.” It would be tough to say that to all 100 people on my train car, but maybe I could get a hat or sweatshirt that has “I didn’t buy this iPad” on it.

I finally did get it out and started reading, only to think of how stupid it was that I was worried about being an iPad guy. I mean, I do keep the thing in my lap and hunch over so that the iPad is obscured, but I still read on it.

Then one day last week I had a meeting with someone. It was just three of us and she brought in an iPad mini.

The other person in the meeting was like, “Oh! An iPad mini – do you like it?”

The other woman said, “Oh, I didn’t but this. It was a gift. There’s no reason to have an iPad. I just use it for reading.”

To which the other woman responded: “Oh! I know – I would never buy an iPad. I have one for work, but it’s silly to buy one.”

I was dying inside. We’re all afraid of being iPad people. Don’t worry, though, I’m not going to let the iPad change me. I’m still going to believe in Jesus rather than Steve Jobs, and take notes with pen and paper instead of on my iPad. I won’t be like the guy I saw at Starbucks who took out his iPad, the power cord, a keyboard, a keyboard stand, an iPad stand and a mouse to use his iPad to type, when just bringing a laptop would have saved him 20 minutes.

No. I will not be that guy.

Blogged from my iPad

In Which I Become an Adult Part 4 of 1,456

     This past week something major happened. Yes, Fall Out Boy did announce they were reuniting, but I also got a new job. What makes this different than any other job I've gotten?

     It. Wasn't. Off. Craigslist.

     Ever since I moved to Chicago, I've gotten all gainful employment from the website where one can also buy a dishwasher, or post a missed connection for that girl you saw get a coffee four people in front of you in line at Starbucks.

     I should have known that this wasn't the best way to get a job as I have repeatedly gotten THE WURST jobs ever.

Example:

A. The recruiting job where I quit, was fired, and rehired in the same two-day span. This job also featured the day that the woman in sweatpants and a McDonald's hash brown in her hair tried to break into our office because she had been promised a job.

B. The job (blogged about previously) where I videotaped men in rabbit costumes riding on skateboards.

C. Banana Republic. In a word: SUCKED.

     The most recent job I had, however, I liked. There were weird things about it, like the gallons of urine that accrued on the floor of the bathroom because people refused to pee with the lights on. Or the two-hour meetings we would have and discuss...God knows what, but other than that it was good. Good coworkers, good boss, no customer service/human interaction.

But last month through a mutual friend I interviewed for a job as a grad admissions guy at a university in Chicago. It includes things like retirement benefits and a cubicle with a name plate.

     I realized what a sarcastic bitch I am when this week one of my coworkers at my present job said, “Tedd, we'll miss you.”

     My response: “I know. It was a tough decision. (beat) Really, that's not sarcastic. I'm sad.”

It's weird for me to be leaving a job and actually going to miss the day-to-day grind of the office. I'll miss things like answering the phone as my fake assistant, or calling my coworker and having conversations like:

“Hey, I have an important question.”

“Yeah.”

“What would you do for a Klondike bar?”

“Well, thats a really interesting question. I mean, I would do most things for a Klondike Bar.”

“I think you should also state whether this is is something you would do for love. I mean, I know you won't do that, for love – but seriously, who would?”

“Exactly. Sometimes people do crazy things for love and Klondike Bars. For instance they might wear really short shorts on a day when it's 40 degrees outside.”

“I thought that was just a bad fashion choice.”

“See, this is an important lesson. Before you judge someone for bizarre behavior, you perhaps should ask them if they are getting a Klondike Bar for it later.”

     I will also miss 15-minute discussions regarding the Real McCoy, City High, and other 90's groups on Fridays when we are all trying to avoid doing work. And yes, I did occasionally feel good about my job, like the time I helped a lady work toward her medical licensure because of a report. Or the time some [insert derogatory term for stupid man here] emailed me and said my report was wrong, to which I responded. “I'm right. Look at this website. Boom.” [Okay, maybe I'm paraphrasing.] Regardless, it was a good job and I will miss it.

      I'm not usually one to get retrospective about life, but I turned 28 this month, I got my Master's, and I'm going to have my name on a piece of brass(?) or whatever metal is used for nameplates. It's kind of weird to be moving on to a different phase of life where people might respect me, or at least stand at attention when I discuss my new job, that WAS NOT gotten off of Craigslist.

Sometimes I feel like that, and other times I dance in my apartment naked, but who wouldn't to this retro-style track?:

     Or sometimes I drink too much and smoke a cigarette and talk to homeless people outside of bars. There's a learning curve for life, I suppose. I'm getting better at adulthood, but I never want to perfect it. For now I'll make my venn diagram of things that I would do for love and things I would do for Klondike Bars. This could also be a good time to start writing a guide for your 20's for my nieces and nephews. We will, of course, start with life's most important lesson:

            Never judge anyone: you don't know what crazy acts people will do because it will      

            lead to the awarding of a Klondike Bar at some later point.

I Write a Fake Review of Zero Dark Thirty Because I Luh'd It and No One Else Does

     Kathryn Bigelow's brilliant film begins in absolute darkness. As the voices of first responders, 911 callers, and voicemails of those trapped in the Twin Towers echo over the black of the theater, it's not hard to feel the uncertainty, panic, and fear of this blank unknownness. For the film's two and one-half hour duration, the darkness doesn't dissipate, but swells as characters die, as interrogations commence, as terrorist leaders are captured and give the American operatives names, places, and lies that eventually guide them to Osama Bin Laden. Many consider the film, The Hurt Locker with a girl; the implication that Bigelow returns to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and treads the same ground and gives no new meaning to the desolation and ache of America's first war of the 2000's. But to say that this film is a retread, an imitation of her own previous work, is to say that Shakespeare's Henrys and Richards were artistic redundancies.

     Far from the front lines of battle and the bomb squads of The Hurt Locker, Maya is plunged into the amorality of interrogation and intelligence. As she watches men waterboarded and tortured, she stands strong, and at other times crumples under the weight of her duty. In her office she receives the news that her friends are dead, of the bombings in London; in a meeting after work, the foreign wars break into the sphere of her daily life. She earns scars of combat and sees her own blood shed.

In all of her actions Maya is certain of one thing: the tip that she received from one prisoner is the key to Bin Laden. As her superior officers doubt her diligent following of her interrogation's one thread, Maya only grows more certain. When a clue finally breaks and she is able to pursue it, she takes what is perhaps the film's only moral stand on following her lead. In a film that begins in darkness and sees its third act submerged in a Pakistani night, Maya's certainty over the importance of her intelligence, stands as a luminous truth in desert of moral desolation.

     The shortsightedness of some to see this as a pro-torture film, denies the brilliance of its own exploration of darkness. From the film's introduction, to the torture, to the murder of innocent wives at its conclusion, Zero Dark Thirty explores certain horrors of the human condition. Certainty, in morality, in belief, is what drives the engines of war, of terror. As we stand in our right – the belief that the terrorists must die, the horror of 9/11 must not repeated – we enter the same darkness of our enemy, an enemy that in its moral certainty, its conviction, saw the United States as an affront to their God, their way of life. The night of the film's conclusion stands as an illuminating allegory of right, wrong, murder, and certainty. As blood is spilled, we celebrate the capture of America's Public Enemy Number One. But as a wife falls over the body of her dead husband, do we stand in the moral right: is this woman's life any different than the 3,000 taken on 9/11?

     But Bigelow's film does not answer our questions. Posed in the darkness, these questions remain as free-floating and alive at the film's conclusion as at its beginning. Maya claims her light, her certainty, when she fights for her attack on Bin Laden's safe house, but as the film comes to a close and she stands in the light of an Afghani day, she lets tears fall down her face. She waits for the plane's bay doors to close, for the darkness to return. Zero Dark Thirty does not stake any moral ground, but it does illuminate truths about moral right, religious fervor, and the moral blackness that humanity confronts in all of its wars, whether in the Middle East or in the day-to-day grind of an intelligence office. Zero Dark Thirty is a time we all know, a time when we stand at the convergence of our beliefs and must weigh life against life and truth agains truth. Bigelow just had the courage to give this dark hour of our human experience a name.

The Flirt and The Tilapia

There was a fight over me this past weekend. True, one of the parties was a guy that might have been related to Christopher Walken, and the other was a sorority girl that had been drinking for the length of a workday (in the U.S., not France), but nonetheless – they both wanted a piece of the Tedd. I was left alone by my two friends who had both gone out for a smoke. I look up and all of a sudden I'm surrounded by these two peeps. At first I thought they had to be together because they were talking about me, to each other, as if I wasn't there.

Girl: “Isn't he cute.”

Guy: “Adorable.”

Girl: “I love blondes.”

Guy: “Honey, he's gay.”

I had to interject, “I'm very gay.”

Girl: “I know. I knew it.”

Guy: “I've always wanted to bone a blonde.” [One must love the subtlety of homosexual flirting.]

The whole thing wrapped up in twenty seconds when I told the guy I had a boyfriend. The girl, however, was still into me, so we went out on the dance floor. At 7 p.m. We looked real cool.

I don't get hit on a lot at bars. One person suggested that it was because I was, “too intimidating.” Further research suggests that it more likely due to the concentric rings of chin flab that started to accumulate around my jugular after I turned 25.

Most likely, however, is that it is the god of flirtation's merciful dealing with myself and anyone I happen to come into contact with. At first, I wouldn't engage, but would rather laugh obnoxiously and run away. This happened most pronouncedly when a man told me my hair was pretty. Flight is also the response to the times (read: one) that I was hit on by a guy who looked like he walked out of a magazine...that has...good looking men in it. At this point I had moved slightly beyond the possum laugh and play dead stage.

“Hey, you come out here often?”

“What? Often? What? Yeah, my friend...he's from LA...so we're here...like seeing things...and...he's from LA...so...”

The effect is probably incomplete without seeing the drool and nervous head tic that were happening as the conversation was occurring. Oddly enough the conversation didn't last long.

I have finally found my stride, though. It is ineffectual in rituals of courtship, however, it is also resolutely awkward and me.

Doesn't matter who you are at the bar, if you approach me and I don't know you, you will most likely be the butt of a terrible joke or a string of insults.

At one party I was introduced to a handsome man.

“This is John. He's an engineer.”

“Oh, wow,” I said. “That's pretty awesome you drive trains.”

Handsome man expression of judgment into a: “I don't drive trains. Do they even call those people engineers anymore?”

“I don't know...,” I said. “My friends from LA...and like...”

The joke wasn't funny, but three-beers Tedd thinks its a hoot. In general, no one else does.

This was also the case when I met a German. I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to my job stuff – not that I'm super in love with my job, but my line of work deals with such random stuff that when I have the chance to talk about my vast knowledge of international education, you better bet I do.

At a pretty sloppy party this German came up to me. Even if my friend didn't know him, you would know this guy is German. 6'1”, Aryan, muscled like the gestapo. So he comes up to me and starts talking to my friends. At the moment when it was least awkward, I inserted:

“Oh man, you're German. You must have taken the abitur.”

The abitur is the German national examination given after Grade 13. For German students, it's really important. For any other human being... It doesn't matter.

“Yeah,” he said.

Which I thought would conclude the conversation, however, soon all were joining in talking about Germany and education in general. I had lost interest the minute my esoteric knowledge was used in conversation, so I just sort of sat back and listened for a bit. Eventually, the conversation got around to the previous party we had been at to watch the Pride parade. I clutched my figurative pearls and said, “Gay Jew...” referring to the man at the previous party who was most likely neither gay nor Jewish, but looked awesome with a shirt off.

The German looks at me and says, “You know, I don't know. I don't really find Jewish men attractive.”

“Well,” I said before I could stop myself, “is anyone really surprised coming from a German?”

If you take any lesson away from this blog post, let it be that Nazi jokes still aren't funny to Germans. Don't joke about it. It's not even that he got upset, but that the whole crowd was looking at each other like, “Too soon?”

These all culminated to the most recent encounter with a guy at a bar. Before the story it's important to know of another man: The Tilapia. So named for a play on his last name, and his general personality, which resembled a fish flopping awkwardly on a shore.

The Tilapia is one of those people that is almost certainly living with an eccentric ex-sitcom writer. At the beginning of the day they go over his role and how throughout the day he can be as obnoxious and charicaturish as possible. The Tilapia did such things as bring books by ancient philosophers to the bar. He would sit by himself until another group of people came in, at which time he would approach them with the book held – cover out – and he would start saying things in that Harvard-Ivy accent that can be seen here:

He and the ex-citcom writer would come up with such phrases as, “That's the Times for you!” Referring, of course, to the newspaper. If you know me, I don't talk about current events or newspapers. The world is depressing. Let's talk about Taylor Swift. But The Tilapia had graduated from Harvard and wanted all to know he was better than you. He was also a man who had the whiteprivilegatude to be able to travel to eight countries in four weeks. And tell us all about it. “And that's Eurasians for you!”

Well, I was at a bar recently with my friends. In my old age I like to go out on Thursdays. I like to go out on Thursdays at 6, drink my fill, and leave before anyone else gets there.

This particular night, my friends and I were the only ones in a bar drinking cheap beer before more fun people showed up. This super-fit guy walked in and sat at the bar. He was still sweaty from working out and had on a sleeveless shirt. Before I knew that he was good friends with the bartender, I was pretty sure he was just a giant douchebag. Aside from the sleeveless shirt, the most damning evidence of which was the giant 3^rd edition of Chemistry that he put on the bar. Like HUGE, textbook Chemistry object. The kind my friends kept in its plastic in college.

As soon as the book was set on the bar, I had massive flashbacks to the Tilapia.

“Oh, why yes I'm reading Aristophanes! That's the ancient Greeks for you!”

I was about three beers deep at this point (as stated before, Tedd's critical mass) so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to make a joke that no one would even remotely understand, the purpose of making only to be able to tell my other friends about later.

The guy orders a drink and I turn to him.

“Conversation piece?” I ask pointing to the 17-lb book on the bar.

It is also important to point out that I wasn't saying this in a flirty way. I was saying in in the 65-year-old-Parisian-prostitute-who-smokes-3-packs-a-day way. It was not inviting.

“Oh,” he says, “no, I'm a TA. I was reading up for my class tomorrow.”

This was a valid excuse, and once I found out he was best friends with the bartender, I was going to give him a pass. Douchebag status was lifted. Why you would bring a Chemistry book to the gym is beyond me. I can barely run on the treadmill without falling off, much less focus on...whatever the heck you study in Chemistry. We talked for a bit after this, but after the funny joke to myself, I was done with it.

It's a good thing that I'm off the market. My favorite bar currently is one on the north side of Chicago that has DILF night. Two of my friends like to go, so we hang out and just drink a couple beers. The great thing about DILF night is that no one is even remotely interested in talking to me. A skinny kid who looks 20 and can't grow facial hair isn't really in high demand.

Which is fine with me. If someone did strike up a conversation it would inevitably turn into a slew of insults, the culmination of which would be me talking about how I know this guy in LA.