He's out, but I'm not alone

My younger brother was married this last Saturday, and a lovely day it was. The service went well, it was a sunny day, we wore simple tuxes, and Yankee John came to town to celebrate with us. All was going splendidly, one required reception duty after the other being hurdled easily.
I danced, I drank, and I made a groovy speech. Cake was eaten, conversations were had. And it's about this last point that I wish to pause with you for a moment.
For all those that have been married or a best man, you understand that during the reception you have little "talks" with two hundred people that you don't remember the next day, since you were allowed a full minute and a half to talk before you had to move to the next table, or felt a tap on the shoulder indicating that your current train of thought had just come to a dead end. Most will be pleasant, with a lot of "Haven't seen you in a while- how ya doin?s", and "man you cleann up wells", and the like. Guys know the drill. Well, most of them anyway. It's the females that were the difficulty at this particular gathering.
Now, I'm not sexist by any means, but I do understand that men and women are wired differently when it comes to certain situations, and there ain't no situation more feminine than a wedding, and it sets the tone for them for the rest of the day. For those people named Ted who might disagree, let me point out the differences between a wedding planned by and for the bride compared to one for and by a groom:
Bride: Church is decorated with flowers, accompanied by gentle flowing music, anticipating a lovely service followed by a beautiful reception.
Groom: Bowling alley halts play for five minutes while the preacher gets you to say I do and follow it up with "anyone who objects to this marriage- Set down your bud light."

Bride: let us pay a lot of money for shit we'll never wear again, but every year on the same day you can look at the stuff in a box you take down from a closet. (If you break down the price of the dress and the like by the number of times you view them on your anniversaries, by the time you die you will be down to $5 a viewing.)
Groom: you have a closet full of dresses. How about you wear the one you own that I thought made you look so hot that I should propose to you on the spot? Hell, it tricked me once; maybe the magic will work again.

Bride: We should have lovely music that reminds everyone of how much we love each other. It will be the music of our lives.
Groom: I got a skinnert tape, and it's already in the boom box from that time we fooled around in the stationwagon.

Bride: I want the entire thing to last as long as we need it to for everyone to have fun.
Groom: When the beer's gone, so are the people. Let's go back to the hotel and get them panties off.

TED-WAKE UP!

Anyway, my belaboured point is that all women talk to all other women in a family. In my family, we have an eight woman gossip ring. And here's the thing- they all came up to me and asked, "When are you getting married?" like they were going to go back and compare notes.
For the record, I anticipated this and answered, "When I find someone saner than my family."
The next question from the females was, "So, what are you going to do with the house." How friggin stupid is that question? Like I'm going to pick it up and move it a hundred yards so my brother will be dumbfounded when he tries to visit? To all of these females I answered. "Porn. Not only viewing it, but most likely filming some too. Whe are you coming over?"

Remember people- No conversations. Smile and small talk. The reason you haven't seen me in eight months is that I don't like talking to you. We both have phones and don't call each other. That should let you know that we ain't girlfriends.

Because Ted's my Bitch

I don't really have anything here. I just thought of the line for the title and figured I had to get it out there.
That is of course, if he's tired of being Yankee John's bitch.
peace-out
Mike &Andy in 08!

No Good Deed Goes Unfunded

Last year my brother asked his girlfriend to marry him, and due to her being able to make poor decisions (on this point they are a perfect match), she said yes.
He had little money being in school and all, and with them pinching pennies on the wedding, I told him that as a gift, I would pay for the bar. Actually less altruistic than acoholicly selfish, I figured that it would be about $600. Not a sum to sneeze at, but enough to beer up the guests, with a few bottles of wine for the posh.
Well, you've anticipated the joke. Last week I asked my brother if I needed to write a check to him, or to the caterer, and how much it would be. Verbatum (you'll know who's who)-
"I guess the caterer. It's only going to be fifteen hundred."
"What? Are they serving liquid gold? for 200 people? That 's over seven dollars a fucking drink!"
"Well, that's just a down payment."
"Just a down payment? Fifteen fucking hundred dollars is just a down payment?"
"No, not a down payment. It's to cover everything."
"It doesn't cover shit, it fucking buys it twice."
"If you'd shut up asshole I'll finish. You pay fifteen hundred, and what they don't use gets credited back to you."
"Do they know I'm backing the car up to the door and removing the remainder?"
"I don't think you can, due to liquer licenses and all."
"Shit. Oh well, I hope they're not dicks. If they are, I'll show them how it's done."

I don't want to ruin his day, but damn that boy's expensive.

HANG UP AND WELL, JUST HANG UP

One may have observed that from time to time I get rather irritated, I mean irked, I really mean pissed off when my cell phone rings. Now, you might say that "You dumb shit, you're in sales. You live by the phone. You talkie in one end, and heary in the other. That's how you make money."
I'm here to tell you, it's not the customers calling me that bug the utter can complete shit out of me- it's the others and their total lack of understanding that just because they can reach me, it doesn't mean they have to. And their non use of cell phone protocall, an d unnecessary platitudes.
If you never call me outside of work, and you need to call me because of work, and I sound curt on the line (always do), then don't start with, "Hi Andy, howya doin?," because my answer will always be, "I was doing well before the interruption." Do you think I'm going to say something about how sad I've been ever since All in the Family went off the air? Hell no! I'm going to say "fine," and then ask you what you wanted so I can get you off the phone in order that I can move on to the next schmuck. How about you start the call off with, "hey andy, I've got a question about the Engl 102 pack." Holy cow. We don't need to be friends in order to work together, because honestly, I don't care about you. Well, I care about you in the sense that I hope nothing happens to you that removes you from the ability to be of service to me.
If you are one of the few who do call me outside of work and we are on come-over-to-my-house-and-drink-beer status, and you are in the city limits, then here's the script to our entire conversation:
"this is Andy"
"You got plans tonight? maybe a fuego?"
"no plans. When you comin' over?"

See how easy that is? 'Fuego' can be replaced by "go to the 'Ville?" or "ball game tonight?"

If you live out of town and want to jaw for a bit that's fine. Since you can't physically stop by when you want, I will accomodate with a short conversation. Just remember that all I want to do is joke around, and that the more I drink the more deaf I become. Expect foul language.

If I'm in the car and I answer the phone, I ain't really paying attention to the conversation, as I have a clutch and am concentration on trying to hit pedestrians.

And last and very not least: when you ask "What're you doin'?", and I respond, "Just talking to some asshole on the phone," don't ask who, like I just put someone on hold. It's you.

Now we can all get along.

Dang.

http://csumc.wisc.edu:16080/AmericanLanguages/writings/2_myths_official_language.html

Well, at least it wasn't Polish.

Quiet Night Games Are Better.

I had an apostrophe, epiphany, or what ever last night, and I was forced into it. Well, maybe not forced exactly, but it was the outcome of a chain of events that ended with me sitting alone at Louisville Bats baseball game.
Now, I'm not a loner by any means- just look at my cell phone bill and you will realize that I crave a good conversation, and when I find one, I'll let you know. Perhaps you will be part of it. Most likely not a participant, but if we are in anyway acquainted, rest assured, you have been and will be a subject of one, especially if you have done something stupid, and if we are in anyway acquainted, you can be rest assured that you have. We are, you see, a very odd lot. Very.
Well, the Ottawa Lynx are in town for a few days to show our Louisville Bats how to play baseball, and I had a pair of tickets for last night's game. My cousin and I have season tickets this year, and with 72 home games this season we obviously aren't going to every game, and aren't attending them all together.
My cousin and I stayed through 8 innings on Monday night, attempting to drink a car payment, so I was looking forward to going cheap last night with my brother who owes me a sandwich and a few beers. Little did I know that not only was I not going to get my adult beverages gratis, I wasn't even going to receive the free ride into the ball field's parking lot.
This my seem a bit trifle as the privilege to leave my car parked in a space marginally close to the field only costs four dollars, but you have to remember that parking lots become giant pedestrian through ways. And people exiting expensive cars invariably make quite poor pedestrians, as they are not used to walking anywhere except to and from their cars, and generally in the east end, so they are not aware of the rules of getting near my car that I have imposed upon them. Were they to stroll through downtown around, let's say for argument's sake, the corner of Second and Broadway, they would understand immediately that Andy and pedestrians don't mix. As if that isn't bad enough, there is always a group of children strewn across the lane of traffic looking at their shoes as they walk with their guardians in the lead, not paying a lick of attention. As expensive as children are, one would think that parent would be a little more worried about losing the tax exemption, but who am I to prevent them from becoming a headline.

I made it to my seat without having to deal with any form of law enforcement outside of a voice on the loudspeaker warning me or anyone else not to go onto the field for any reason during the game. It seemed silly, as even though the view of the game would be much better at ground level, there are no chairs out there. This announcement became even sillier as the game progressed, as it was evident that someone had to go out there and replace Louisville's pitcher.
As I sat in my seat last night not engaged in conversation I recognized some of the nuances of baseball that I had heard about, but had never observed. The way the pitcher comes in to cover home when the catcher is involved in a squeeze play, or how the out fielders move depending on who's batting is something I hadn't paid attention to before as my focus was on words exiting my mouth, and not completely on the game I had spent money to see. I was also introduced to some of the other realities of attending a ballgame, like the fact that the guy going around selling beer will pass by your seat mid beer, and then disappear for the length of time it takes you to finish your beer and wait for him for some minutes, only to reappear the moment you sit down with a beer you walked to purchase from another vendor. I avoided this disparity from reoccurring when I overheard a gentleman a couple of rows over tell the beer man to "come back at the end of the inning," and noticed that Doug (we're on a first name basis now. I call him Doug, and he calls me "another Bud Light?") did as directed. Neat.
Another aspect of not jaw-jacking through the game is that you can listen in to people around you doing exactly that. The one difficulty associated with this activity is denying myself the gratifying act of breaking into a conversation and asking the guy, and it's always a guy, if he always spouts absolute bullshit, or if he reserves speaking out of his ass for the ballpark. I listened in for about fifteen minutes to his ramble, and was privy to only one funny line that was purely unintentional, not from the guy, and only funny if you dislike Ohioans as much as I do. It went something like this-
"Where are you from?" asked one of the ladies.
"Dayton Ohio," replied the guy through a mouthful of hot dog.
"Oh, I bet you're glad to be out of there," she said in a comforting tone, as if to say, "I've been there. It's shitty."
This is where I lost it inside. "Ohioans making fun of themselves- don't that beat all. If they learn to drive, I'll be out of a job!"
I stopped listening to them at that point knowing that it couldn't get any better than that.

In the seventh inning i decided to leave when I found myself considering the absurd notion of hopping onto the field in order to show the third pitcher of the night a thing or two.

MY APOLOGIES MR. BRYSON

I decided to get some new trail hiking shoes, as I've decided to hit some of the 3 and 5 mile trails in Jefferson memorial forest nearby.
Hiking, you see, is something that completely changes the nature of exercise. It's walking in large circles, but in the shaded forest that change somehow on every circuit. It's outdoors, but close enough to home to sleep in your own bed. It's using up calories, but not on the guess-who's-fat tour of city sidewalks, in full view of the neighbors. Instead you are a hiker.
Hikers by nature come in all forms and sizes, and no one pokes any fun at any other because the woods are the great equalizer when it comes to the simple act of perambulation. I, for instance, have a difficulty getting my dwarf legs up trails with steep ledges, but I know that that tall fellow farther back that almost hit his head on a treebranch that I couldn't jump and hope to touch won't be able to get under the tree covering the path, and will eventually be covered in sticker bush scrapes later on circumventing the offending encumbrance and wondering to himself how it is that he finds this activity refreshing.

I'm sorry-I will finish this when I get Bryson out of my head. A mental act that seems at first to be simple enough, but is instead so difficult that I am actually hearing his voice right now, as if he has somehow supplanted my mental voice box and replaced it with his. Moreover, his manner becomes so very rhythmic that I cannot help but fall into the motion that is his style.

Christ, I'm doing it right now.

OUT! OUT, DAMN SPOT!