The Drunker Games

My friends all suggested that I blog about this event because they wanted to record its stupidity for future generations.

One evening, about a year and a half ago, my friends and I went out for margaritas on a Tuesday night. The Hunger Games was everywhere and we were all trying to decide what to do for Memorial Day weekend.

After a few margaritas we had an idea, a marvelous, stupid, crazy idea.

What started out as a discussion for a bar crawl transformed into a no-holds-barred drinking melee, which we fondly refer to as The 1^st Annual 74^th Annual Drunker Games.

The first year the concept was that each team was given a route to get through. You must go to all the bars (7 total) and each team member must drink a pint of beer. At the end of the beers, you have to take a picture of your finished pint glasses and then go/sprint to the next bar. All teams after their third bar were then forced to go to a mid-point bar. At this bar a new rule was introduced: Tributing. One person on the team can volunteer as tribute and take four shots. The four shots must be consumed in tandem with the four pints the rest of your team has to drink.

If you “tribute” a bar, then you are allowed to skip the next bar. Simple and dumb.

The results were pretty mixed. My team wasn’t super competitive, so we kind of took it easy, two of us tributed, and by the end of the crawl we were all a little drunk, but nothing crazy.

Other teams, however, took the contest very seriously. This is why my roommate was sprawled on our back deck at 6 in the evening, after completing the entire course in roughly two hours.

We all had a great time and agreed that this year we would, obviously, have to have a Quarter Quell.

My friends and I wanted to make the event bigger this year, but recruiting for a four-hour, fast-paced, shot-taking bar sprint is tougher than one would imagine.  

One of the best parts of this whole thing is that we wanted to revise the rules for the new games. Just like the book, I wanted each games to be unique. While working at my job, which requires roughly .23% of my brain power, I had a revelation. I had the idea that we should make a point system for each bar (bars are worth 6,8, and 10 points depending on location) and then have tributing double the point totals for a bar. So, you can go to a four-point bar, tribute and get 8 points. I also had the…good?...idea of creating The Massacre. A Massacre is when not just one, but the entire team takes four shots of booze and has to drink the four pints of alcohol. This leads to triple the points for a bar. Did I create this rule merely to bait my roommate to see if he was crazy enough to do it?

Yup.

The other two gamemakers and I perfected the scheme, made the maps, and were all ready to go.

While planning the games I was explaining the concept and this happened:

Me:  “I think we should have the total be 50 points.”

Friend: “Whoa. Only fifty? I mean… All you have to do is go to like three bars and massacre two of them.”

Me: “…Do you realize what the massacre entails?”

Friend: “Yeah. You just have the team do four shots per person.”

Me: “Per person. And each team must have a girl.”

Friend: “Yeah.”

Me:  “So a girl is going to have to take eight shots of hard alcohol and drink 3 pints of beer in an hour and a half…”

Friend: “Yeah.”

For some reason no one was getting the concept that drinking eight shots of hard alcohol is going to be hard for ANYONE. I mean, my friends and I are established drinkers, but… But…

Eventually I talked everyone off the ledge and we had the fifty point total. At the conclusion of the games I couldn’t help but bring it up again.

“Remember when y’all wanted to just massacre every bar?”

My friend who won the games, his eyes heavily glazed over, says, “Waddya what are the what?”

This year we added a couple of new things to the Games. Yes, we do open the games with a team 40 chug. You are not allowed to enter the Cornucopia for prizes until your team has successfully chugged a King Cobra. The Cornucopia is a bunch of Gatorades, waters, crackers, and “bonuses” in envelopes. The bonuses were things like, “Your team gets +3 to begin.” I didn’t want people swooping and stealing all of the prizes, so roughly 70% of the bonuses were actually negatives. I am evil.

We also had the Opening Ceremonies this year, which consisted of 6 drinking game events, including Beer 

Ball, Sink the Bismarck, Beer Pong, Flip Cup, Kings, and To Mordor, which put all the teams against each other in matches of drinking valor. Each team who won, or lost, depending on the game, was awarded a bonus prize from above. The Ceremonies also included a Costume Contest that included a team of lumberjacks and my one friend bought presidents masks like the robbers in Point Break.

The day was super successful, but one of my favorite parts of this event was running into one of the new teams at the second to last bar. It was 2 guys and their girlfriends who only knew my one friend. They were all absolutely trashed and we all became instant best friends.

One of the guys felt it necessary to pull me aside and say, “Man, your speech to open the games was great. It was like really inspiring.”

My speech went something like this:

“Anyone have questions? Okay. GO! Drink your 40s!”

By the end of the night my one friends had pulled me aside and swore that were he a homosexual, we most 

certainly would have dated, I confided in my other friend that I think she was the prettiest of all my friends, and I then proceeded to do sit-ups in the street to mock the firemen, who were working out across the street.

Another successful Drunker Games.

If you want to sign up for next year, you can email me and let me know. While I doubt anyone will, I have a feeling that Miley would join in, should she become my best friend...as was my only New Year's resolution for 2013:

Around OK Cupid in 8 Days

I have recently found myself single. It sucks.

I’ve never really dated that much before, but to avoid random bursts of tears and floor-laying sessions listening to love songs, which the breakup facilitated, I have recently decided that I’m going to get out there and start shaking my money-maker…  I’m not really sure what currency my butt would trade in, but I’m hoping for something amazing like gold bullion.

Today, after a solid 8 days on the website, I can say that you do not find a lot of gold bullion on OK Cupid.

Firstly, I almost had a seizure immediately upon signing up. I finished my profile, uploaded the picture, and was taken to the land of epileptic love. Stuff was flashing. YOU GOT SHIVERED! shot up on my screen. I had messages piling up in my gmail inbox. “CHUKD gave you 5 stars!” The number counter on my profile kept shooting up. I got weird messages. My old rowing coach gave me 5 stars. This all happened within hours of me opening my profile. I almost had a panic attack.

The people who are looking for action don’t mess around, either. I had multiple messages of, “Hey Handsome.” Pop up in my inbox. These were often sent by the older gentlemen on the website, who probably just copy paste and message EVERYONE who signs up that day.

I decided to gird my loins, however, and keep an open mind. My strategy was to message back and forth A LOT before anything really happened to make sure that I was not found murdered in a Boystown dumpster. This led to some amazing interactions.

The first was this 22 year old, who I actually had no interest in, but he was the first normal person to message me, so I was like, “Whatevs!” We went back and forth a bit and then exchanged numbers. I don’t really do the texting thing. Like, I’m not going to tell you every detail about my day, or send you lewd pictures, or send smiley emoticons at random. That ain’t my thang. I think this disappointed the 22-year old, who would send me smileys and “Hey, Cuties,” usually after 10 pm when he was drinking on Wednesdays…because he’s still in college. We set up a lunch meeting, which he totally blew off.

Me: Can u still meet?

Him: Oh. This surprise work thing came up. It’s a training.

That was the last text I ever received from him. I can say that I didn’t expect anymore because that was about the most made up thing I can possibly imagine. Who works someplace where you can have surprise all-day trainings? Maybe he’s in the CIA? Maybe he was waiting for me to start the conversation back up? Maybe he did have an all-day training?

There are a lot of maybes, but the one definite is that I didn’t care one single bit.

On to Guy 2:

Guy 2 was the BEST. Why? Because this:

So he messages me a few times back and forth. And then we exchanged numbers. I texted him:

Hey, it’s Tedd, what’s going on?

15 mins later I get this message:

“Geu”

Uh…what? I don’t respond because Geu doesn’t get rewarded with a response.

10 mins after the “Geu”, I get:

“Sup.”

So I respond: “Not much, just getting ready for bed.”

15 mins later he says: “Same.”

Uhhh….

The best part was that at about 2:30 in the morning, I get this text: “Why are you so attractive?”

I think I need to remind the reader that this was about 4 days into the 8 day period. One blow off, one guy who obviously has never communicated through text message (or possibly any medium) before.

Winning.

The text guy still messages me at 2 am on weekends. It’s always the same. It’s always just: “Howdy.”

Yup.

The rest of the four-day period was full of more “Hey Handsomes” and awkwardness. I found one guy who wrote complete sentences back to me and went on a date. The results were mixed, but he was a really nice guy.

I decided to pack it in more because I just didn’t have time for dates. The guy I went on a date with I messaged back and forth pretty often and it took roughly 10 days for another night to open up. My hearts not really into the rapid-fire dating thing, so I’m going to lay low the rest of the summer. In the winter when I’m cold and lonely, I’ll think about going back to OK.

This all was juxtaposed to my other friend who joined about the same time I did. He went on his first date and goes, “Yeah, he was really hot and nice. I guess he’s a consultant, so he makes lots of money. He bought all my drinks and we set up a second date.”

It’s at this point in my day when I wonder if I’m living in a parallel universe. Dating is easy? How does this guy get Handsome McCharming and I get Sup Geu?

The OK experience was, of course, better than my 8 minutes on Manhunt. Being a complete idiot, when my friend told me he had a free month on Manhunt, I didn’t question whether it was a dating site… or a site with lots of prevalent male genitalia hanging out and people who are more interested in orifices than faces. After signing in once, I’d had about as much as I could handle.

This all culminated in me telling my therapist, which led to this interaction:

“So, how’s it going Tedd?”

“My dating life is a series of PG-rated trainwrecks.”

“That’s fine. Write about it. You could be the gay Taylor Swift.”

…I’m going to pretend that this is a compliment.

Come Fly with Me

No – don’t. Don’t ever get on the same flight as me because it is misery and emptiness and terriblocity. Most recently I went with my friends to NY. The plane ticket I had was worth roughly 10 billion dollars because I flew United and got to pay for TWO change of airfares. They were both due to my own issues, but it still is not cheap and I hated how much cash I basically just flushed down the drain.

I get to the terminal with my buddy and we go to check in. Try to check in. I get bounced from the self-serve kiosk, so I get in line and go to an attendant. She tries to check me in twice and fails. Rather than helping me there, as I thought would be the case, she shuffles me over to another line where I’m behind five people.

Five. That can’t take long, right? Try forty minutes.

Watching the United team take care of guests was sad for everyone involved. I guess no one has ever been trained, so they all shuffle between podiums asking each other questions. It didn’t matter how advanced a person was, they still did the old shuffle-roo over to their neighbor, waited five minutes for them to finish a task, then brought them over to their own podium where, generally, they had to get a third person to figure things out. These two women in front of me had two suitcases roughly the size of elephants,  and the entire hour and ten minutes I was in the process of fixing my ticket, they were dumping out clothes, putting back in clothes, talking to the attendant, weighing bags, getting new tickets. When I left they were still figuring out what to do.

When I got up to the podium, I was met with the same kind of shuffle party that the others had been treated to. My lady looks at my ticket. Then, oh lawdy, I have never seen such typing. This lady made hunt and peck look like rapid fire stenography. It was one – letter –at –a –time. My friend said, “Maybe it’s a different operating system.”

I guess I shouldn’t expect the team to understand the operating system if they still couldn’t weigh a bag without getting 14 people to help.

So the lady types in about 5 keystrokes (read: 3 minutes of typing) and then just does the TSK. She TSKs and then looks to the left…to the right… Then, yep, she shuffles. She shuffles over and asks someone for help. The guy she asks for help is busy, so she bashfully walks back to me and doesn’t say anything. She stares at my ticket and then stares at the computer screen like it’s going to help matters. Then she stares at my ticket again – stares at the computer – stares at the ticket – stares at the computer – stares – stares….

It’s like their training manual is a piece of toilet paper with this on it:

Lots of stuff can go wrong – figure it out as you go! In the meantime, please practice looking between the ticket and the computer monitor and tsking and sighing, as if you are actually doing something constructive. <3 United Airlines

Finally the other guy gets done with his thing and then hustles over to us. I figured he was a manager, so he would know how to type at least 15 words a minute.

Nope.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

He pulls up something and finally explains to me why the ticket I paid 892080398 bajillion dollars for is not presently getting me on an airplane.

So he picks up the phone.

At this point I look back at my buddy, who very dramatically mouths, “PHONE?!” To which I have to just shrug. He gets on the phone and talks to this guy. Of course there is no urgency, even though my plane is leaving in thirty minutes.  So the guy laughs, laughs, then all of a sudden stares, horrified at the computer screen. This lasts for about 30 seconds before even more laughing begins.

After another solid minute of guffawing, he puts down the phone and hands me my boarding pass.

“We completely deleted you from the system,” he says smiling. “That was a close one!”

I barely had time to hear him as I sprinted toward security.

NY

New York was a complete blast, but one of those good times that doesn’t really do anything for people who weren’t there.

“How was it?!”

“Fun! We…went to bars…and then…ate pizza…”

“Oh…”

Unless you’re there to see my friend, wearing a bejeweled crown and supporting two of my female friends, while eating a slice of pizza, though, you don’t really get the point.

The best anecdote from the whole weekend was after a night out on the town when my friends and I went to a pizza place. I was with two girls and they went to get pizza.

My one girlfriend went first and ordered a slice, followed by me.

These two guys at a table hollered: “She’s cute!” Then the other said, “Yeah, she’s got her man, though…”, meaning me.

The guys were cute, so my friend whirls around, and without missing a beat, says, “No, he likes d—k.” She then says, “I like d—k, too.”

For some reason, no one thinks this is odd or vulgar. The two guys at the table go, “Yeah, man. That’s cool if you like d—k. We know guys like that, too.”

My friend proceeds to sit down, at which point another young gentleman comes over, reaches out to grip my hand and goes, “I like d—k ,too, man.”

Ahhh… The things that bring people together. Only in New York!

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.