Monthly Archives: November 2011
My Life So Far
This post is a look back on my life, with one sentence about one important event that occurred during each year of my life so far:
1961 – I was born, duh!
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis
1963 – Kennedy Assassinated
1964 – The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show
1965 – By the end of the year, 190,000 American soldiers were in Vietnam
1966 – I enter Kindergarten
1967 - Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first black Supreme Court justice
1968 – Martin Luther King Assassinated
1969 – Apollo 11 Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Ed Aldrin walk on the moon
1970 – National Guardsmen kill four Kent State students during a protest
1971 – Intel introduces the microprocessor
1972 – Nixon goes to China
1973 – Cease fire signed in Vietnam
1974 – Nixon resigns
1975 – Saturday Night Live premiers with host George Carlin
2008 – The federal bailouts begin as the US elects its first African-American president
2009 – The bailouts continue and expand as unemployment increases to 8.1%, the highest level since 1983
2010 – I meet the woman I will marry in 2012
2011 – Occupy Wall Street
Holidays in My Brain
It’s officially “Holiday Season.” For me, that means many things, none of which are normal! First, we have Thanksgiving. For you, that means a day off filled with family you may or may not like. If you’re the host of this gathering, you have to get up early to get ready. Then, you get to clean it all up and fall into bed wishing you had spent the day at work! For me, it means a day off that begins with a 10K and ends quietly at home with the woman I love. In between, it’s filled with football, naps, and Facebook.
I have had Thanksgivings filled with family. As a child, we had to have a “kids table” for our own family! We didn’t need to invite extended family to fill the house. I liked helping Mom make the stuffing because it involved tearing up stale bread. As an adult, I found a recipe for White Castle Stuffing, so I had to make that! It was awesome! When I clean and prep the turkey, it comes to life as I thrust my hand into the cavity and make him dance. I never understood why the include the neck, but it was always a source of “R Rated” fun. Carving the turkey starts with such precision and ends with a plate of shredded meat yanked off the bone. Patience is not my strong suit.
The Thanksgiving conversations remind me of a first date. They’re always so polite and safe and no one really says anything. You haven’t seen some of these people since last Thanksgiving! If they’re on Facebook, they should know what the hell you’ve been up to so why do they always start with, “so what’s new with you?” Some families have the drunken uncle at the table who will say just about anything. Sometimes, I’m that uncle!
The first year after my divorce, my brother Carl invited me to his house for Thanksgiving. I went and had a nice meal, but it was awkward and uncomfortable. I don’t meant to offend him, I just felt like I was an intruder and not a guest. Every year after that, I was either happily alone or in someone’s house trying to find a comfortable chair. You can’t do a seat check in an away game!
I won’t even mention how much I hate using the away bathroom! (I guess I just did.) First there’s the lock that I’m never sure if it actually locks the door. Then, I have to turn on the fan to drown out the god awful noise that I’m about to unleash! Time to wash my hands. What the hell kind of soap is this? I just want clean hands – I don’t want to smell like a tropical rain forest! We top it all off by trying to figure out which towel I’m supposed to use. I’d almost rather be using the gas station’s bathroom at this point!
My current tradition with my sons is to take them out for pizza on Friday. We get to hang out and I don’t have to clean up. If I do decide to host another Thanksgiving, it’s going to include drinking games and Survivor style competitions where one family member after another gets eliminated from my house. I’ll leave the Feats of Strength for Festivus.
My Inner Larry King
Larry King used to write a column for USA Today where he would share random thoughts. Now it’s on Twitter, but I’ve never seen it. I never watched his show when it was on, but I liked how he could just sit down and write such randomness for the newspaper. I too have many thoughts that pop into my head, with many of those thoughts turned into a Facebook status update. Today, I’d like to share with you my random thoughts Larry King style:
1. I have entirely too many plastic cards in my wallet. I have everything from credit cards to library cards to shopper loyalty cards. The only two I need are the Kroger Plus card and the 5/3 debit card. I’m one sub away from a free one at Jersey Mike’s, so I’ll keep that one too.
2. There’s not much worse than using a bathroom away from home, only to find out it’s broken and won’t flush! That’s a walk of shame if there ever was one.
3. Is there a better band than Radiohead? No band has put out such consistently good music that the masses don’t really understand, and where the band itself doesn’t really care if they do.
4. The internet consists of countless websites but I still go to only a handful of them every day. I always use Facebook, Yahoo e-mail, and dailywhat.com for comedy. If there’s anything else I want, I Google it.
5. Suspenders on suits make a man look like a man. Suspenders on jeans make a man look like a farmer.
6. I wonder if there’s a doctor willing to put me in a coma for 12 hours so I can get a decent night’s sleep.
7. The NFL on CBS is sponsored by Miller Lite and Viagra. Did they ever stop to think that if you didn’t use the first product, you wouldn’t need the second?
8. Knowing that today is the first day of the rest of my life, while knowing that tomorrow is also the first day of the rest of my life does nothing to help me with my procrastination problem.
9. You know how it feels when you’re watching a TV show or movie and you see an actor you can’t quite name and you sit there trying to figure out what other TV show or movie you’ve seen them in? I feel that way when I can’t remember the name of the person in front of me.
10. Being funny is easy. Writing funny is hard!
