I apologize for being MIA for most of the week.  Difficult family circumstances have kept me indisposed.

There will be no posting until, let’s say, Wednesday, July 5.  Enjoy the long holiday weekend. 

And send me some good vibes.  I need ‘em. 

Because I am a nice guy, and because I get a 3% finder’s fee, I agreed to play classifieds for a day. 

If you are looking for a home in South Philly, particularly the Second Street area, a friend of mine is selling his lovely home.  I really don’t know much of the specifics, since I will forever be a renter and suck at houses, but it’s newly renovated, has hardwood floors throughout and central air, and has 3 bedrooms and one bath and nice-sized yard.  It’s on the 100 block of Ritner Street, a lovely area right around the corner from my dad’s house (so if you move there, we’ll kinda be neighbors!). He’s asking $225K but that’s negotiable. 

If you are interested, please email me and I can get you the full info and whatever you need to know about buying a house and stuff.  

And like I said, I get a 3% finder’s fee (even though I haven’t told my buddy about this yet), so if you’re looking for a time to buy, now’s the time to do it.  Please help make my summer better (and by “better” I mean filled with lavish gifts for myself). 

The monthly email went out today. If you like it, please forward it on.

(And I promise it will be more regular in the future – the hardest part was getting the list started.  So if you haven’t signed up, do so now to get next month’s about the five biggest mistakes women make when giving blowjobs.  As I said, these will never be posted on here.  So sign up already.)

When I woke up on Sunday morning, it was 6am.  I had a hangover, heartburn, a headache, and the runs.  And I really don’t regret it.

Aside from a month-long flirtation with vegetarianism, I love me some meat.  I make no apologies for this.  As I debated with my vegetarian friends, God put animals on earth so that we human beings could conquer, eat, and wear them.  Don’t argue with me – it’s fucking nature, man.  

[Though I say this, please don’t confuse me as some Ted Nugent-whacko – even thinking of hunting makes me cry.  I like it when other people do the killing and I see the animal in a presentable and pretty form, like covered in mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce or with a side of potatoes au gratin and creamed spinach.]

In order to further celebrate my love for meat, I went to a barbeque in Brooklyn on Saturday.  I don’t usually go to Brooklyn, but the promise of all that meat and flames and beer was just too much to resist.  So I gathered myself, got on the subway (on a weekend!), and headed to the outer boroughs. 

En route, I stopped at my former roommate Brian’s new place ("ex-roommate" is just too painful).  When he moved out, he found a place in Brooklyn in Williamsburg.  For those of you unfamiliar with Williamsburg, it is a place in New York City that you live in if a) you like bands that no one else has heard of; b) you love irony; c) you have tattoos and/or play an instrument; and most importantly d) you were picked on in high school.

But Brian’s little corner of Williamsburg does not belong to the hipsters, but rather to the people who stab the hipsters.  His neighborhood is dotted with bodegas that intimidating looking Hispanic men, with their tattoos of Jesus and various names, stand outside of.  Needless to say, ever since I was stabbed in the Puerto Rico Day Parade in 1996, I have an irrational fear of Latinos, so we basically saw Brian’s place (which is lovely) and high-tailed it over to the other part of Williamsburg.

The hosts of the barbeque, Greg and Amit, do not belong in Williamsburg.  They wear polo shirts and button downs, some of them strange colors like yellow and pink.  Their taste in music is, um, well I don’t know about their taste in music, but I’m guessing they’re not into Be Your Own Pet or Beirut or Tapes ‘n Tapes.  They work respectable businessy type jobs and do not play instruments, direct, or graphically design.  I would say that they are more suited for the Financial District, Murray Hill, or the Upper East Side.  But they found a nice place in Williamsburg and that’s where they live.

Brian and I arrived at the barbeque, which was temporarily being held in Greg and Amit’s apartment because of the rain, after a solid twenty minute walk.  We immediately headed into one of the bedrooms where Brian and I stayed, with five or so friends, until the food was served.  This was pretty typical of us; refusing to meet new people, drinking beers in the coolest (read: most air conditioned) room in the house, waiting to eat.  We are truly party animals.  

With Greg manning the grill outside in the rain, hot dogs were soon shuttled up to the apartment.  I’m always cautious about eating in front of people, probably because I’m fat and have a beard.  For this reason, I try to eat secretly.  Whenever I’m in a part setting, I constantly fear that a group of people is watching me eat and talking about me:

Guy in Group 1: "Hey, look at Fat Chops over there wolfing down the hot dogs."
Girl in Group 1: "Jesus, if he doesn’t slow down he’s going to cho-"
[Jason starts choking]
Guy in Group 2: "And he’s choking…"
Girl in Group 1: "Wow, he is really turning blue."  
Guy in Group 1: "Yeah, but he’s still putting away those hot dogs."
Girl in Group 2: "Look, he’s fallen but he won’t take his hand away from the nachos!"

So when the first group of hot dogs came out, though I was hungry, I did not partake.  I watched.  And waited. 

More hot dogs were followed by burgers.  The rain stopped and the group went outside.  Greg continued to grill.  It was about time to strike. 

I surveyed the room and determined that most of the people had eaten.  Not only that, people were getting progressively drunken and playing drinking games and conversing – they were no longer standing around awkwardly, looking for people to make fun of (well, my friends and I were, but not the other people at the party).  Satisfied with the current conditions, I grabbed a hot dog and a burger. 

I huddled among my five or so friends who, as we are not interested in talking to others, were standing off to the side talking about a recent fantasy baseball trade I made (I gave up Kenny Rogers, Brett Myers, the closer for Pittsburgh, and Bill Hall for Manny Ramirez – score!).  By the time the players involved in the trade were listed, I was done the burger.  By the time my buddy Bob could say, "That trade stinks!", the hot dog was gone.  And I was walking back for more.

I think that because I was never athletic or handsome or even very clean growing up, I get competitive and very serious about certain things.  Of course, I can’t think of a good example right now (I’m in the midst of a Xanax hangover), but my stealth eating is one.  I felt, in many ways, like a ninja closing in on his target or a tiger about to attack his prey.  Simply put, I ate, quietly and quickly, three hot dogs and three burgers in under ten minutes – without even my circle of friends knowing.  I’m not sure what satisfied me more – the juicy cheese-covered beef of those burgers and the pigeon, leather, and couch in those hot dogs or the fact that I was so secret, so smooth, and so gloriously fat.  

The price I paid, of course, was severe indigestion and gastrointestinal discomfort.  There were maybe 30 or 40 people at the barbeque, many of them women, and Greg and Amit’s apartment had only one bathroom.  I have no problem pulling a stealth poo and have done so in the past in similar circumstances, but the fact that the bathroom was right in the kitchen area, where numerous people were congregating, was enough for me to take a deep breath, move some stuff around in the ol’ tummy, and plan for the future.  

We stayed at Greg and Amit’s place for many hours (four? five? six?) until the beer ran out.  By the time we left, I was feeling pretty good: drunk, full, and no longer suffering from shit pains.  The bar would be a new and glorious chapter in the day/night, and I was looking forward to trying to kiss someone with my hot dog breath.  

Then on the way to the bar, a discovery that changed everything: a White Castle was next to the bar.

White Castle is disgusting.  The burgers are tiny and 60% of their composition is grease, which means the buns are like wet sponges.  Walking in there makes one feel fatter by association.  The whole thing is just gross.  There is no defense for this, except that when drunk, there is nothing better than a sack of White Castles burgers.

(I realize that drunken love-making is probably better than a sack of burgers, but you have to write what you know, ok?)

The bar, which promised to be a fun time, immediately changed from a night of revelry and drinking to "When can I sneak out of here to go get some more burgers?" when the White Castle was discovered.  You see, there is no White Castle in Manhattan.  The only time I am privy to the drunken orgy that is White Castle is when I am either in Jersey or now, apparently, Brooklyn.  This was a once-every-six-months opportunity.  I was not about to pass it up.

So I hung at the bar, having some drinks, all the while biding my time.  After a couple of pints, I pulled what my old roommate Brian calls an "Irish Exit": I told those I was standing with that I was going outside to make a call and went straight to the White Castle to grab some burgers then head home.

The great debate in the White Castle was between a six pack of burgers and a ten pack.  Though I easily could have handled the ten pack, in a rare moment of self-restraint, I went with the six pack and a large Sprite (no caffeine so late at night).

I stumbled out of the White Castle, not so much because I was drunk but because I was happy, and luckily hailed a yellow cab heading back into Manhattan.  By the time I was on the Williamsburg Bridge, I had eaten three of the six and had to convince myself to slow down – I wanted to enjoy the last three back at my apartment.

And enjoy I did.  So delicately did I pull the greasy squishy squares out of their stained cardboard holders that it was like I was making love.  Each bite, in my drunken/sensual state, was an experience.  I was happy.  Very happy.

After finishing the last one, I polished off the Sprite and laid down on my couch to enjoy some Heart videos of VH1 Classic.  Then I woke up four hours later, a physical mess. 

And truly, though I spent my Sunday consuming a concotion of Pepto, Nexium, and Gatorade, I have no complaints.  There are no circumstances under which I will choose a night hanging out with friends over the promise of delicious meat.  If this makes me a bad friend, which I’m pretty sure it does, I’m sorry.  Don’t blame me – it’s just nature. 

The site was down all day Friday and most of the weekend.  It seems that Uncle Jason forgot to pay the web-hosting bill.  Then, when confronted with having to pay a year’s web rent up front, he had to scrounge around and check the couch cushions for change.  Because he is broke.  Thus the delay.

I was not able to access or receive any email while the site was down, which is probably a good thing since (I assume) it saved me from 600 "Dude, your site is down" emails.  However, if you sent an email that was not related to the site being down, you must re-send it if you want me to read it.

Rest assured that the site will not be shut off for at least another year.  And if you want to get an early start on birthday donations (my birthday is July 17 and like last year I will be begging you to show me love in the form of cash donations), click on the "make a donation" button on the right.  My rent is due Saturday and there is nothing left in the couch cushions and I’d rather not spend this week selling my blood and semen. 

(Not that I have a problem with selling my blood and semen, but I have a lot going on this week and don’t have the time.  And they don’t let you do it at home and bring it in.  Which sucks.)

I fought a major bout with insomnia last night.  And I lost.  Big time.

I’m used to such sleeping struggles, but I usually have a little warning.  I realize that when I’m stressed about something during the day, this stress will only be amplified when the lights go out.  Sometimes I still manage to fall asleep.  Sometimes I do not. 

Last night, I had no warning.  I had a leisurely night, a couple of beers, and went to bed at a reasonable time.  But then I kept tossing and turning.  And tossing and turning some more.  Only then did the worrying start.

It starts reasonably enough.  I’ll think to myself, "Hmmm…let’s see.  Rent is due on the first, and that’s $xxxx.  But in my checking account, I only have $yy.  So I looks like I have to come up with $zzz in the next eight days.  I can live on one kidney, right?  If not, even though my semen is all broken and dead, I can probably still sell it for half price.  I think."

But before I know it, my worries spiral out of control.  It’ll go from money to work to women to loneliness to things like, "Oh my god - IRAN!  Those guys are crazy!  What are we going to do about IRAN!  Wait a minute!  It’s supposed to rain tomorrow!  And I don’t have an umbrella!  Fuck!  What am I going to do about Iran and my umbrella situation!  Shit!"

And so it went for me until the sun came up.  I beat off to relieve the tension, but that didn’t work.  I took not one but two "calming" showers to try to ease myself into sleep, but they didn’t work either.  Finally, at 5:45 this morning I started getting ready for work (I usually wake up at 8am).  I did everything but get dressed, then fucked around, watched TV, hung out.  Then I decided to go back to bed at around 7:45.  Naturally, I slept the sleep of the dead and woke up to my alarm at 8:30.  Getting out of bed at that time was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done; I can’t imagine childbirth is much harder.

When I have a night like this, I’ll usually call in sick and spend the day sleeping.  However, I called in sick only a few weeks ago (for a legit reason) and had a bunch of work to do today, so I’m in the office.  I’ve been a zombie all day long, staring at the clock in the lower right corner of my computer screen.  I imagine my co-workers think I’m on painkillers.  Maybe the more street-savvy ones think H is my drug of choice.  One drug I have not had today is caffeine, because I’m going to go home, eat dinner, take two Xanax and drink a glass of wine, and sleep for 14 hours – and I don’t want caffeine to mess that up for me.  I had plans tonight, but I’m canceling them.  I’m beat.  Uncle Jason needs a night to himself.

And so I write you this post not out of my desire to entertain you, the impulse from which all other posts are borne, but rather to help me pass the time.  I clarify this because I just read this post over and it sucks.  I’m sorry about this.  But not too sorry, since I’ve totally just killed about eight minutes writing this.

Now I have to get back to wallowing in the depression and irritation and insecurity that goes hand in hand with insomnia.  But it’s almost four o’clock.  Sweet Xanax, you will be mine shortly.    

Do yourself a favor and either tivo or watch "Dog Bites Man" on Comedy Central tonight at 10:30.

I don’t want to hype it up too much.  My whole philosophy in life is that you should manipulate those around you to expect nothing or the worst, so that when they get even a lil’ somethin’ somethin’, they are more than pleasantly surprised.  Rarely are high expectations met or exceeded.  So when I constantly refer to my penis as a light switch, wine cork, hershey kiss, or acorn and one of my vict-, I mean, ladies sees my bird, she’s happy that it’s not as small as she was expecting (close, but not quite).  Though I guess it doesn’t really matter, since by the time by bird comes out she’s usually so drunk she can’t see it pressed up against her bedroom window anyway.     

Regardless, this is a dynamite show.  I tivo’ed the first episode and watched it just before the second aired last week (it’s on Wednesdays at 10:30pm) and was blown away.  Pretty much every guy I know lists "Anchorman" as one of his top ten favorites movies.  Likewise, every man, woman, and child I know lists "Ali G" as one of their top five favorite TV shows.

While it’s not as good as either of those (c’mon – how can it be?), it has elements of both (remember, don’t want high expectations).  For those unfamiliar with the premise, at the beginning of the show it states that a documentary crew followed around a news team to see how news is made.  Now while the news team (the reporter, director, producer, and PA) are actors, the subjects of their news reports are real people.  For example, in the second episode the news team sits for a seminar on racial sensitivity, given to them by an unsuspecting expert on the subject.  They proceed to toy with him, asking ridiculous questions, leading to embarrassing moments.  My favorite question during the seminar came from the producer, Tilly (who is smoking hot in an "angry bitch" type of way), who asked if she was racist because she had a dream in which she was having sex with a black man and he had a stereotypical large penis, but then during the dream she learned that he was the Dean of Harvard Law School, hopefully evening out her racism.  Just absolutely gloriously retarded. 

I can’t really do it justice on here because the beauty of the show is in its improvisation and dangerous jokes and I don’t want to give any more away, but please, watch this show.  There are a lot of TV shows that suck that stay on television because assholes keep watching them.  Rare is the TV comedy that is legitimately, laugh out loud funny.  This is one of them.  You will like it.

I look forward to getting your "Thank you" emails tomorrow.  And I need some, after the beating I took over the "engagement." 

People, I don’t know if you read Monday’s post or just skimmed it.  Or maybe you read the whole thing, but not very critically (and by ”not very critically,” I mean ”not while sober”).  If you had read the whole post (sober) and processed it (again, sober), you’d realize that I am not, in fact, engaged.

I thought that this was pretty obvious when I wrote the thing.  But maybe I’ve been doing this too long and didn’t realize the confusion and wrath (more on these later) that this would set off.

First, let me give you a summary of the end of the post, which I feel many people overlooked: 

My fiancée is a Mexico-type woman who works (or worked) at Ranch 1.  We met at the restaurant where she served me bad chicken that gave me dysentery.  After that, she visited me in the hospital and gave me a handjob.  We didn’t speak for years but met up after I answered an ad that she had placed on a sex site looking for gangbang participants.  We began dating, and I proposed to her in the parking lot of a 99.  Also she has a retarded son. 

Now, again, maybe it’s me, but I thought it was rather clear that I was playing around.  I wrote it, posted it, and didn’t think twice about it.  The first email response I got came shortly after the post went up.  The subject of the email was ”I get your post!” from a dude saying he picked up on the sarcasm and thought it was one of my best posts in some time.  It made me happy.

But then things started getting weird in the email inbox.  I got an email from my friend’s cousin, who I met for the first time just last weekend, congratulating me on the engagement.  This struck me as strange, because at the time I met this guy I was walking around the bar with two Miller Lites telling women that I go to dental school.  Weird, but whatever.

The next time I checked my inbox, it was filled with emails that ran the gamut from “Are you fucking serious?” to “Congratulations!” to “You lying scumbag sack of shit!”  Again, very surprising to me.  Here’s a sampling of emails I’ve received since my ”engagement” post went up (names have been withheld so that people don’t hurt me):

Congrats on your engagement announcement. Seriously. We’ve all known you’ve been lying to us one way or another since you started this blog. We let it slide, though, because it made us all feel a little better after reading about some pathetic fat drunk in NYC. So why the truth now? We all know wrestling is fake, but we don’t see them ruining it for us after each match telling us that it was all scripted. How would you feel!?!? Imagine that then multiply that by infinity and that is how I feel.  Thanks pal.

*************************************

Jason, 

Long time reader, third-time emailer. Blah Blah Etc. (fyi: my first email was about Country Crock Mac & Cheese and the second was about your reference to Fascism)

Um, I’m sure you were expecting a high number of emails from the latest post (“an end, a beginning” June 16, 2006) so I’m hoping you’ll address this in a future post. I’m writing to share my thoughts on the fact you’re getting married. Reading that post today, I immediately thought you were joking. And as it became more and more clear that you weren’t joking, my disposition went from mildly confused to absolute rage.

Why the rage? Well, to understand how I would be mad about you getting married you have to understand why I (and likely dozens of other people) read your site. It’s funny and true. It’s actually only funny *because* it is mostly true. I find it hilarious that you’re hairy, fat and rarely have your penis touched by a woman. So to find out that you actually have had your penis touched by a women really kinda sucks. (I understand this logic is fucked).

Sure, I’m happy you’re getting married. Just like I’m happy you’re not dead. I mean, it would suck to never have your dick touched by a female and die lonely and single. And likewise it would suck for me to not have something funny to read on Mondays. But here’s the rub: I only read your site because it’s true. There is plenty of fiction and bullshit web sites I could peruse to entertain myself. So stick to the facts. You’re funny enough to make getting married funny. There’s really no need to keep up a false premise and mislead your readers.

To find out you’ve been dating and engaged to a women and subsequently having your penis handled by someone that wasn’t actually homeless (“Stacey” isn’t homeless is she?) is like finding out Maddox is a girl. Or Tucker Max has made up all his stories (which he probably has). I guess my point is this: I am offended by being misled. (of couse, I’m offended in a “I could really care less since this is all really pointless in the great big scheme of things” sort of way.) So I hope this new development will mark a new stage of this site. Wherein you’ll start writing about how horrible married life is. Or how great it is to cheat on your fiance with…well, that’s unlikely. Anyway, I guess I don’t really have a serious point. Just fucking shocked. Happy for you. And looking forward to whatever bullshit you’ll be writing about now.

Congrats on the marriage. Don’t fuck it up.

*************************************

Engaged? Seriously? Congratulations… but you do realize you’re saying goodbye to any and all credibility. All those stories about being alone and miserable were lies? Shame on you. Shame, shame on you, sir. How dare you hide behind your sad fat guy facade while, in actuality, you were out hooking up with real, live women?

What comes next? Posts about your wedding, your married bliss, and then what? I’m telling you right now, at the first story about your son’s potty training experiences, I’m out the fucking door. For examples, see any of the past 400 posts on nealpollack.com.

Fucker.

*************************************

Traitor,

So this marks the end of a great blog, and my only happy refuge from my daily misery.  Your blog made me feel loved, that I am not alone, and much less sad.  Can you keep up the quality now that you’ve assumedly achieved some semblance of happiness and in the process have lost your edge / hunger?  I doubt it.  

Just remember one thing:  women are the ultimate dream killers.

Good luck.

*************************************

I don’t think I’ve ever been so irritated at a blog before that I’ve been compelled to write in.

Seriously? You’re engaged?

You should have waited until your book came out. It’s going to kill your sales. People don’t want to read about a happy person pretending to be miserable.

It’s not fun and it’s really not cool.

*************************************

My wife is a fan of your site. She read about your upcoming marriage and went to the Crate and Barrel website to get you a gift. Your not registered. I told her you were full of shit. She said you wouldnt lie about something like this. Again I said bullshit. So now we have a bet. She is claiming that you just havent registered yet. Im claiming your full of shit. One week from today if you still have nothing registered at Crate and Barrel she owes me 5 blowjobs. If she is right and you are registered then I owe her a very expensive necklace.

*************************************

Again, this is just a small sampling that covers the range of opinions.  The majority of emails said “WHAT THE FUCK???” and “You suck.”  So that was nice.

But I would like to officially go on record right now to say that I am not engaged.  Like I said yesterday, c’mon people.  Really?  Did you really think that I was engaged, after all we’ve been through?  You’d think I’d just blindside you with something like that?  Sheesh.  Give me a little more credit than that.  I thought we were friends? 

I confess though, I thought I’d get a little bit of a rise out of you when I wrote that, but I didn’t think that so many of you would actually believe it.  I realize that the issue was that you thought I was serious about being engaged but not serious about the circumstances that ”Stacey” and I met, and you have a point.  But still…I honestly never thought it would cause such a big to-do.  Three of my college friends who I saw at my reunion less than three weeks ago emailed congratulations and wondered why I didn’t mention my future fiancee to them.  A co-worker called me in my office because his friend in Chicago who reads the site wanted to know the truth.  A friend of an ex-girlfriend called her and left a message asking if she was OK about me being engaged (the ex told me this; I don’t know the friend). 

I mean, am I that good of a liar?  In sooth, I apologize if I have caused you any anger or whatnot over this.  I was just playing.  Because I’m a player.  A player who is not engaged. 

I guess I can’t fully prove to you that I’m not actually engaged.  I hope that now that I’ve explained myself and you’ve thought about it, you’ll believe me.  But if not, I have a back-up plan.  I’m going to pull a Costanza and invite those non-believers to test me (“You wanna go?  Let’s go!  Right now!”).  I am in NYC all weekend.  Friday, I’m to start boozing right after work.  Saturday, I have a BBQ and should be pretty blitzed by about 7pm.  If you’d like to test my engaged status with a make out session that will leave you feeling less like a woman than you ever have before, please send two pictures, a phone number, and your location for Friday and Saturday night.  I’ll show you how unengaged I am.

(Hey, that last emailer is getting five blowjobs out of this – I should at least get my knob rubbed.)

As previously mentioned, the 8^th Annual “Drink Until You Shit” tour will be held in North Wildwood, NJ on July 8.  Location and start time will be provided later, but if you are interested in going, please email me and put “drink until you shit” in the subject line (or something similar to it).  We are ordering the t-shirts and need to get a head count, so to prevent an email volley, please include the number of people/shirts and sizes.  I don’t expect any of you to come, since it’s in a random Jersey shore town, but that’s ok.  As long as I have booze, I can deal with loss.

Also, I’m not engaged.  C’mon, people – let’s use some sense here.  More on this later. 

Well, it’s official.  My run as one of the 50 Hottest Bachelors in America has come to an end.

Start collecting old clothes and blankets.  I’ve begun my descent on the slippery slope of desperation that will lead me to homelessness.  The good news is that I’m going to be an awesome homeless guy (bearded, perverted, no control of bladder, etc).  The bad news is that I’m not going to have a home.  Which sucks.   

I don’t know if I mentioned this to you guys, but last year I was named one of People magazine’s “50 Hottest Bachelors.”  If you don’t believe, you can go here.  Although don’t ask me to show you the magazine in person.  For some reason, I bought a total of two copies of the issue.  You know, not because it was a big deal or anything.

Today, the 2006 “Hottest Bachelors” issue was released and features such sexy men as Matthew McConaughey, Owen Wilson, Wentworth Miller, and Ryan Seacrest (apparently heterosexuality is not a requirement).   These men are undoubtedly hot.  And also bachelors.  I guess that’s all it fucking takes to get in the issue nowadays. 

Yet as I flipped through the pages, I realized that there was something more required.  There’s a little something extra that separates these guys from the estimated 60 million single men in America (I totally made this number up).  And that little something is: unattainability. 

These guys have not just looks, but also talent, money, and power.  This make them hot.  But what makes the most hot is that you can’t get them.  They are entirely out of your league.  Everywhere where they go, they are fawned over by woman and aggressive homosexual men.  They can literally have their pick of any woman they want.  And they don’t want you.  

But I do.  And this is why, without a doubt, I am the shittiest hottest bachelor ever.  If you email me a picture and you are halfway decent, I will come to you in a shirt of hair, with a bottle of cheap wine and some Taco Bell, and, after we chew some Juicy Fruit, we will have awkward (but unforgettable) sex on your living room couch.  You don’t even have to be halfway decent - just catch me on MySpace at the right time of night, live within cab distance of my apartment, and I am yours for the evening.  We can make memories together (and possibly slow and chubby babies). 

One year later, there is still no reasonable explanation why I was even in the magazine in the first place.  It was complete and blind luck.  Not only was I in the magazine, but I was actually the 8th ranked bachelor.  I know that the issue didn’t give rankings to the bachelors, but only eight of us got full page spreads (Colin Ferrell, Jake Gyllenhaal, Usher, Hayden Christensen, Jesse Metcalfe, John Stamos, Bradley Cooper, and, um, me).

You’re probably thinking to yourself, or perhaps even saying it out loud if no one else is around or you’re in the bathroom, “Well Jason, if you were, as you claim, the 8th ranked hottest bachelor in America last year, why aren’t you in the issue again this year?  Was there a particular incident or enormous weight gain that dropped you from 8 to 50+ [my last ranking was actually 74]?”

Well, actually, I was contacted by People again to be in this year’s issue.  Apparently, they were flooded with mail that said all sorts of positive things, like “Thanks for putting in Jason Mulgrew – he’s great” and “You guys know he once beat up a cop, right?  Or was it a priest?” and “What’s a blog?”

But I had to turn it down.  You see, now I am unattainable, but it’s because I’m not a bachelor.  Because [everybody shut up because here comes a big announcement] I am engaged.

Seriously. 

I’ve been keeping this from you for long enough, but it’s just getting silly.  I am engaged and am to be married next September. 

My fiancée’s name is Stacey.  And she is great.  That’s all I’ll say about her, because if there is one rule here at jasonmulgrew.com, it’s that the only person that can be dragged through the mud on this site is me.  Well, and Site Guy Brendan.  And a bunch of my ex-girlfriends.  And the blacks.  Sheesh, how could I have forgotten the blacks?

(And the poors.  Definitely the poors, too.)

Also, I don’t know why she agreed to marry me, but I would say that this agreement is tenuous at best.  I don’t want to give her any ammunition or reason to break up with me, since this is pretty much the only chance I have at sober procreation.

(See?  I think that might have even been too much.)

You’re probably surprised by this announcement and I don’t blame you.  I know I portray myself as constantly striking out with women, but c’mon – this blog has been going on for over two years.  Do you really think that I haven’t gotten laid in 28 months?  Really?  I mean, I know I’m bad, but I’m not that bad.  Hell, I was one of People’s 50 Hottest Bachelors last year!  So therefore it’s not my fault if you’re shocked by this, even though I’ve repeatedly fudged the truth, but your fault for being so naive (I even tried to lessen the blow for you with my last post about getting married).

I guess that I should tell you how Stacey and I met.  We’ve actually been friends for years, but only started dating about a year ago.  I met her when I moved to NYC; she had just moved as well.  I was working as a legal assistant at the law firm I currently work at (albeit in a different capacity), and she had started a job at a local restaurant.  This first time we met, at the restaurant, she was my server.  Shorlty after I saw her in her Ranch 1 uniform, I felt something like I never had before: a fire that started in the pit of my stomach and spread up to my mouth and through my whole body like a fever.  Turns out I had contracted dysentery from eating bad chicken, so it actually was a fever (and also severe pain and diarrhea). 

Feeling bad that she served me bad chicken, Stacey, which is not her real name but the name I call her by since I can’t pronounce her Mexico-type real name, came to vist me in the hospital.  She jerked me off.  I didn’t see her again for four years. 

Last year, I was on adultfriendfinder.com and answered an ad seeking guys for a gang bang.  Long story short, it was Stacey.  Since the gang bang - which was lovely - Stacey and I have been inseparable.  I took her and her son Sneakers (he is a little slow and only says “Sneakers” over and over again) out to dinner for Mother’s Day and proposed to her, right there in the parking lot of the 99.  She cried.  I cried.  Sneakers said something about sneakers.  It was magic.  We are going to be very, very happy together. 

So there you have it.  I am tired of living a lie and feel much better now that you all know and can share in my joy.  And you also know why I’m not in this year’s issue of the “50 Hottest Bachelors.”  I can no longer hide my love for Stacey.    

Of course, you will all be invited to the wedding.  Please save the date: September 19, 2007.  It’s a Wednesday, but it was the cheapest option.  We will be registered at Bed, Bath and Beyond, Crate & Barrel, and Subway.  More info to follow as it becomes available…

I was out sick of work last Friday.  I had developed some sort of head cold; I felt like I was simultaneously hungover, had a headache, and was in the midst of an allergy attack.  I attributed this to the fact that I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning in my apartment, spraying everything I see with Fantastik or covering it in Comet before going to sleep in my air conditioned room (well, I clean off the Fantastik and Comet and then go to sleep, but you know what I’m getting at).  Add that the only "fresh" air I get is the smelled of boiled pasta coming from the Italian restaurant below me, the grease of hundreds of pounds of General Tso’s chicken frying in the Chinese restaurants nearby, and that wonderful smell of freshly dead seafood sitting in the June sun from the Chinese market around the corner, and my sinuses, apparently, collapsed.  Not a good night/early morning.  

But I still managed to trudge down to Philly for the second part of my friends Steve and Kristie’s wedding, a reception held there for people who couldn’t make it to Jamaica.  I’d like to give a recap, but you can probably guess what happened: dinner, boozing, I make a racist joke to the girl at the table with the black uncle, there’s a small skirmish, and finally the night ends in a dance-off.  

My love for weddings is well documented and this one was no exception.  You can’t really go wrong with a free meal, some live music, and a five hour open bar.  I dare you to not have fun.

Which has me thinking – I really want to get married.  I know that my plan for the past few months has been to marry whatever girl I’m dating when I turn 30 (preferably a 24 year old), but I’m starting to notice holes in my plan.  Well, maybe not "holes," but one major hole: right now, I am as good as I’m going to get.  

I don’t see myself changing for the better in any way over the next three years.  First and foremost, physically.  I haven’t been to the gym in about a year and a half and I can’t tell you how ok I am with that.  I recently bought a pair of jeans that are size 38, despite the fact that I desperately need size 40 jeans.  I am doing serious damage to my innards every time I sit down or move in these jeans (maybe this is why I have so many pooping problems?), yet I will continue to buy and wear 38 jeans even if this crushes my stomach.  Because I’m not making the move to size 40.  I would rather walk around with my button unbuttoned than do that.  Maybe even my fly undone for extra breathing room.  But I can’t make that jump to 40. 

[I won't get into my receding hairline.  I'm just too sensitive about this to make jokes.]   

Mentally, I’m getting dumber.  I’m currently re-reading a semi-academic text that I first read about three years ago called Hamlet in Purgatory.  When I read it previously, I loved it.  In college, one of my main interests, aside from making out with my female friends and taking Stacker 2’s, was religion in Tudor and Stuart Britain.  I would get into greater detail here, but I can’t, because I don’t remember much about it or why I liked it.  I’m reading this book now and am completely lost.  I find myself having to go back and re-read passages, forcing myself to slow down to read more carefully, and stopping every once in a while to take a deep breath and figure out what’s going on.  It’s at this point that I usually reach for my cell phone and start playing Monopoly or take off my shirt, pour myself a glass of wine, and turn on A&E to watch whatever murder show is on.  I imagine I’ll put this book down for good in about ten days.

Emotionally, I have always been a scumbag, capable only of hunger and lust, but there’s another that should be added to that list: hate.  I’m becoming more introverted, misanthropic, and curmudgeonly.  Pretty soon I can see myself karate chopping a tourist walking too slowly in front of me, gaping at the Italian restaurants in my neighborhood, trying to decide which one to eat at when they are all clearly the same. 

Professionally, let’s be honest here – it’s only a matter of time before I crash and burn.  Not that I’m doing great right now, as people around me try to find nice ways to say things like "You suck" and "English is your first language, right?  Or did you spend the first 25 years of your life communicating by manipulating your genitals as shadow puppets?"   

This doesn’t mean I’m peaking; I did that about nine months ago.  It means that I’m on a downward slide that will only end in betrayal, disease, fire, and, ultimately, death by hoagie.  Realizing that my relative worth is dropping fast, I need to get out there on the market to find me a bride.  As I stood there on Saturday night, pitcher of Miller Lite in one hand, cup in another, watching the bride and groom dance with each other, I realized that if I want that, I have to get moving. 

So I humbly present myself, a supplicant for your love and boobies, to you, dear (female) friends, and ask that you spend some time considering me as a husband.  Though I have offered more than a few negatives, I would like to stress two positives:

1) I should be getting more money.  Not a lot, but more than I have right now.  I am B-R-O-K-E right now.  My friend Meg just emailed me a spreadsheet that calculates your budget.  It is designed to show you how much you can save each month and how much you’ll have saved in six, twelve, twenty-four months.  I punched in some numbers and I should be completely bankrupt by July 2.  Probably a bad time to have moved out on my own, effectively doubling my living expenses.  Oops. 

The reason why I’m so broke right now (here’s the good news) is that I have been paid only a small fraction for my "projects."  And when I was paid this fraction, it immediately went to the debt I accumulated while taking four months off to "work" on those projects (you’d be surprised how much debt you can amass living in NYC for four months without a job – especially when you compulsively send thousands of filthy text messages to your friends every month). 

But in the future, I should be getting paid the rest of that money.  At that point, all of the money can go to my future baby girl.  I would also like to purchase a child house slave, but my future girlfriend and I can work that out once the money comes in.  Until then, I might have to start dancing for canned vegetables and french fries outside of the Macy’s in

Herald Square

.  I worked out a routine to "This Love" last night and I have to admit, it’s pretty fresh. 

2) One of my best friends, my buddy Joe, recently proposed to his girlfriend.  Joe and I have always been competitive – we got the similar grades in high school and college, were always comparable athletes (my friends reading that are guffawing right now), and have just generally been subtly competitive with each other.  In fact, I would say that part of my rush to find a bride is that Joe is now engaged.  Fucking asshole.

At any rate, per cultural norms, Joe bought his fiancée an "engagement ring."  I say "engagement ring" because it’s more aptly called "a band of platinum with a diamond the size of a small moon on it."  I don’t know anything about engagement rings, but when I saw it, the first words out of my mouth were, "My god, Danielle – do you wear that on the subway?  Joe, won’t she get robbed?  You should not wear that out, Danielle, because someone will rob you."  

Now because Joe got his fiancée a very impressive ring, naturally, I have to get my fiancée a very impressive ring.  I’ve always thought that there are few times in life when you should splurge, and an engagement ring is the prime example of when it’s ok to spend a little extra cash.  But Joe took that theory a step further and threw down the fucking gauntlet (no doubt a bejeweled gauntlet).

Next Wednesday, I leave for Serro Frio, a remote section of Brazil.  There, I will mine the world’s greatest diamond.  I have already hired a group of local Amahuaca Indians who have agreed to to help me in this endeavor in exchange for some iPods and titty magazines.  If we have no luck in Serro Frio, we will continue on to Matto Grosso and Bahia, which of late has become a hotbed of diamond mining and shit.  Once I find the world greatest diamond, I will be transported to safety by a caravan of Amazonian pirates.  They have agreed to give me safe passage to Sao Paolo in exchange for me letting them murder my Indian guides.  Also, I have to give the pirates some of my old clothes from The Gap and, though I couldn’t exactly make it out, I think I have to fuck the leader guy or something.  An even exchange, I think.

But when I come back, I will be eminently more marriable.  Women go crazy for two things: bird and diamonds.  The former I can’t do much with (it’s not my fault I’m hung like a hershey kiss and there’s nothing I can do about it), but I will have the latter in spades. 

So get ready, ladies.  Hit the tanning salon, put on the hop earrings and lip gloss, rock the messy pony tail, and lower your standards and self-esteem.  Because Uncle Jason is looking for a life partner before he becomes completely pathetic and unfuckable (too late on that second one).  God help us all.

(But definitely more you than me.)

There’s affection, infatuation, lust.  There’s “like,” like like more than a friend, love.  And then there’s Drink Until You Shit.

The 8^th Annual Flood/Mulgrew Quasi-Celebrity “Drink Until You Shit!” Tour will take place on Saturday, July 8 in North Wildwood, NJ.  We will meet, we will drink, and we will not stop until we shit. 

Myself and my friend Floody will preside as Founders.  Our good friend Doc will reprise his role as Consigliere.  This year, we have a new post: Captain.  The honor of Captain goes to our dear, sweet friend Bucky, who last year was the only one to actually shit himself on the tour.  This great accomplishment makes him this year’s Captain.    

On behalf of myself, Floody, Doc, and Bucky, I’m honored to introduce the (still preliminary) design for the tour t-shirt.  Here it is, in all its glory.

But I should say: The Management Committee of the Tour is unsure whether or not we will open up the tour to people who read this site.  Blame this entirely on your peers, as people who I have met with through this site have only weirded me out.  Or they were so disappointed in me that I got sad because I was letting them down.  Or they didn’t sleep with me.  That’s probably worst of all.

That being said, it’s under consideration.  And hey, at least you’ll be able to buy a t-shirt if you want one (I think).

But I’m writing this to generate some buzz among my Philly peeps.  There are a number of good people who I know and like to drink with (and shit with) that I don’t speak to often, but who may read this site.  To them I say: Saturday night, July 8.  Down the shore.  Get ready.  And get in touch with either me or Floody. 

More information to follow as it becomes available. 

(And more generally to come soon – sorry for the lack of material.  Busy week.)

I put pics on here for the first time in this blog’s existence and all I get is an email from a guy named Dominic that says:

pics are a bad idea.. stick to writing..

and some chick telling me that my finger looks weird?  Really?  Is my email broken or something?  I mean, I know I suck now and all but I was expecting a little more feedback on the pictures.  Sheesh.  Y’all have no problem emailing me when you’re drunk or to tell me that I really do, in fact, suck now, but when I’m looking for a bit of advice, you turn your back on me.  Thanks.  Thanks a lot.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed your weekend.  Hurting.  Hurting a lot, from a mix of sickness and weekend hangover.  More later.   

There’s nothing like sitting on a beach in the Caribbean with not another person around, listening to the waves break on the sand, feeling the slight breeze blow across your skin, watching the red sun set into the blue of the ocean – and having 15 different Jamaican guys come up to you offering pot, cocaine, and “parties.”

Fucking Jamaica, man.  The place was gorgeous and shitloads of fun, but there was always something that fucked it up just a little bit.  In that spirit, below are ten things that I learned about myself, my life, and Jamaica while on vacation there last week.

American Airlines fucking sucks
I already explained my horrible baggage situation, but that’s not really American Airlines’ fault.  They were actually quite accommodating and once my bag was returned by the old lady who took it, they shipped it up to Boston for me so that I could wear different clothes at my reunion instead of the same outfit every day.  Not that it mattered; I could have worn a shirt of one hundred dollar bills and I still wouldn’t have been able to get noticed.

And I can’t really complain about my flights.  Yes, on my return flight I sat on the runway for quite a while before taking it off, but I blame that less on AA and more the Jamaican “We’ll get around to it when we get to it, mon, and maybe not even then” attitude. 

And I can’t really complain about my flights.  Yes, on my return flight I sat on the runway for quite a while before taking it off, but I blame that less on AA and more the Jamaican “We’ll get around to it when we get to it, mon, and maybe not even then” attitude. 

But one thing I will say: American Airlines should change their slogan.  I’m not sure what it is now, but here’s a suggestion: “American Airlines: For People Who are Happy Just to be on a Fucking Plane.”

I think this fits first because the planes look like they were built in Eastern Europe in the late sixties for people with no legs and/or arms.  On both flights I sat crammed in my seat, tossing and turning and cramping up.  I marveled at the girl I sat next to on the flight down there.  She was cute and about my age, so I was hoping I’d be able to strike up a conversation, since sitting next to someone on a plane is about as close to a date as I can get.  But instead she sat down, put her iPod on, covered herself up, and slept the entire time.  I mean that literally – she was unconscious from the moment we took off the moment we landed (and I should know, since I watched her the whole time).  Meanwhile, I sat uncomfortable in my too-small/partially broken/definitely stinky seat, feeling awkward and dirty and a little randy.     

Secondly, I don’t know if they were filming a live-action version of “Soul Plane” on my flights but they certainly could have been.  My god.  I don’t know what I liked best: when a dozen black guys were screaming, “Yo – where the AC at?” from the back of the plane for the first hour, when I actually heard someone freestyle rapping a few rows ahead of me (much to the delight of the passengers around him), or all the hooting and hollering and just plain screaming at the in-flight movie (I think it was “Fun with Dick and Jane”).  I was waiting for Snopp Dogg to bust out of the cockpit with a fat ass J.   

The staff reacted to all this by essentially rolling with the punches and hiding.  In eight hours of total flying, I think I saw the flight attendants for a total of four minutes.  I don’t blame them; being a pasty white boy, I was terrified.  Fortunately, I had enough Xanax coursing through my veins that I spent most of my time in the air talking to St. Anthony while Bone Thugs N Harmony had a dance party by the lavatory.      

Am I racist?  Yes.  Do I discrimate against the poors, even though I was once a poor?  Sure.  Did I walk down the subway platform this morning to get away from a blind woman because I was worried that I’d get stuck helping her?  You bet.  But at least I’m not homophobic (my brother’s bi!), sexist (I like to have sex with women!), or anti-Semitic (I can’t afford to be!).  So it’s a push.   

Jamaica is shady as a mother fucker
We might as well get this out of the way now – Jamaica is shady.  Shady as hell, even.  My buddy Steve, the groom, liked this aspect of it, saying it was “refreshing” to have to “keep your eyes open.”  Refreshing?  You know what’s refreshing?  Not waking up on a beach chair with a dreadlocked Jamaica guy lying under you, draining blood from your back to sell on the black market.  That’s refreshing. 

Have you ever seen the animal shows on the Discovery Channel where they show a bunch of gazelles in Africa on the edge of a river, waiting to cross?  But they’re anxious and reluctant because the river is filled with crocodiles?  Then one finally crosses and is immediately ripped apart by six crocodiles? 

That’s kinda like how it was on the edge of the resort.  Once you walked off the resort, you were immediately descended upon by Jamaicans selling all kinds of stuff that you can’t buy in the supermarket, including but not limited to your organs, fingers, and genitals.  

The resort had a private beach but the end of it was blocked off.  There, at the dividing line between “White people resort” and “Get your shivs out – here’s comes a tourist!” sat a security guard.  If you wanted to leave the resort’s private stretch of beach, he’d make you sign a release.  As I was full of pina colada when I signed it, I couldn’t read what it said, but I’d guess it went:

Dear Tourist,

You are about to make a big fucking mistake and will probably never see your friends and family again.  Please sign below so that they don’t sue the fuck out of us.

We hope you have enjoyed your time in Jamaica.  And may God have mercy on your soul. Sincerely,
The Management of Beaches Resorts

Fortunately, as soon as I left the grounds of the resort I finished my pina colada and had to head back to get another, so I escaped harm – all thanks to booze.  And my mom tells me I drink too much.

Fortunately, as soon as I left the grounds of the resort I finished my pina colada and had to head back to get another, so I escaped harm – all thanks to booze.  And my mom tells me I drink too much.

I am not built for Caribbean
The pool was beautiful.  As was the ocean.  But I didn’t go too close to either of them.

I’m fat, yes.  This is true.  But I try to keep that a secret as much as possible.  That means keeping as much of my body covered as I can.  I think I’m too old to rock the “shirt in the pool” look, so instead I stayed away from all bodies of water.

Where I spent most of my time.

And it’s actually not so much that I’m fat, because a lot of guys are fat.  It’s that I’m almost unbelievably hairy.  I can’t think of a single non-Greek 26 year old that is hairier than I am.  And this, for the most part, is a secret.  Looking at me, you’d never guess what kind of thick fur lies below my shirt – I don’t have hairy arms, though I do have a beard it’s not particularly overgrown, and I’m not swarthy.  But boy am I hairy.

And it’s actually not so much that I’m fat, because a lot of guys are fat.  It’s that I’m almost unbelievably hairy.  I can’t think of a single non-Greek 26 year old that is hairier than I am.  And this, for the most part, is a secret.  Looking at me, you’d never guess what kind of thick fur lies below my shirt – I don’t have hairy arms, though I do have a beard it’s not particularly overgrown, and I’m not swarthy.  But boy am I hairy.

So not once did I go in the pool or the ocean.  Actually, I went in the ocean up to my knees when I spilled a strawberry daiquiri on myself, but that doesn’t really count.  As I watched everyone having fun at the pool, carrying on and partying while I sat far away, clothed and covered, I swore that I’d lose some weight and get some waxing done.  Then I had a dozen frozen drinks and three ice cream cones.  So I guess not.     

Me = Mosquito Food
There must be something about my blood that drives the mosquitoes crazy.  I spent the first half of the trip beating off bugs the size of apples.  Sadly, I was very unsuccessful at this, since I was high about 85% of the time and thought the bloodsucking mosquitoes were just little unicorns kissing my legs. 

After the first night, I woke up and looked at my leg.  Apparently, I had contracted small pox. 

I know it’s gross, but that’s my leg and I have to stand by it (get it?).  I’ve been bitten by mosquitoes before, but never have the bites swelled up like they did in Jamaica.  If I wasn’t in a third world country, I would have considered seeking medical attention.  Instead, I ate beef patties.

Fortunately, the bites have subsided.  All that remains is the emotional scarring a fear of bugs that will last my entire life.  And if I drop dead tomorrow, you will know why.     

Sunburn will torture me until it kills me
Another reason that I am not built for the Caribbean is that I sunburn very easily.  My main focus was that I not allow this to happen before the wedding.  Last year on a trip down the NJ shore, my feet, shins, and legs got so sunburned that they swelled up, grew unbearably painful, and I had to call out of work because I couldn’t walk.  It really, really sucked.

To that end, I kept myself lathered in sunscreen at all times.  I spent my days on the beach, reading by myself, listening to my iPod, thinking dirty thoughts and recovering or feeding hangovers.  All the time I had 40 proof sunscreen caked on me.  I made it through the wedding burn-free. 

To that end, I kept myself lathered in sunscreen at all times.  I spent my days on the beach, reading by myself, listening to my iPod, thinking dirty thoughts and recovering or feeding hangovers.  All the time I had 40 proof sunscreen caked on me.  I made it through the wedding burn-free. 

But after a few days, it bothered me that everyone had a nice healthy coloring and I was only slightly less pale than normal.  Determined, I bought 15 proof sunscreen and headed to the beach on a particularly sunny day.  I lathered myself up as usual, but this was 15 proof, so I hoped that would help me get a little color (I can’t express how bad last year’s sunburned scarred me). 

I sat on the beach reading, but got tired.  I wasn’t wearing my sunglasses because, though sunny, I was ok without them.  I put down my book, turned up my iPod, and spent the next hour and half falling in and out of sleep.  It was lovely. 

When I woke up, I saw that my skin was irritated, but only mildly so.  I could expect some color the next day after I woke up (it always takes some time to settle for me).  We went out and partied that night and got drunk as usual. 

The next day I woke up and rubbed my eyes and they hurt.  By that time, the maid of honor, Nicole was staying in the room with me (separate beds, perverts – take it easy).  After rubbing my eyes, I turned to her and said, “Man Nicole, my eyes really hurt.” 

Her response: “Oh my god, Jason – go look in the mirror.”

I burned the fuck out of my eyes. 

This picture doesn’t do it justice, but my eyes were badly burned.  I had put sunscreen on, but didn’t think of putting it on the skin under my eyebrow and on my eyelids (who does that?).  When I woke up, it looked like I had two black eyes – they were puffed out, painful, and purple.  Mother fucker. 

Soon, Nicole was on the phone calling everyone and they were coming to look, taking pictures, laughing, having a good old time.  Some “friends” they are.    

The best part is that the rest of my body had no color, except for my arms.  Though I was lying directly in the path of the sun, my right arm was beat red while my left was pale white.  In summary: burned eyes, one sunburned arm, very little color everywhere else, lots of laughs at my expense.    

My Best Man grade: solid B
The wedding itself was wonderful.  The ceremony was held on a gazebo facing the Caribbean just before the sun set.  The reception was held in a (thankfully) air-conditioned tent on the beach.  Since the whole thing was low key, it worked out great.  Meaning, on the day of the wedding, everyone woke up, went to the pool/beach, and started drinking.  Then they went home, changed, and we had the wedding after that.  It only last ten minutes, then after that, people went right on drinking.  At the beginning of the reception, I left the tent to take a piss.  When I came back, every single person was dancing.  Incredible. 

But back to me – my best man speech, which was arguably the most anticipated in the Western Hemisphere in 2006, went just ok.  I’d give it a B.  My first joke bombed, but at least it was the only joke that did so and it was the only one in the speech that wasn’t original.  It’s the old intro when you get up there and say, “Today, I’d like to talk about someone not only very special to me but to everyone in this room,” acting very serious and emotional.  Then you go on to list a bunch of great qualities (“Through the years, he has been a rock for his friends and family…His sense of humor has brightened the days of everyone he comes in contact with…” etc), closing with, while looking at the groom, “And might I add, he looks great today.”  Then there’s a pregnant pause and you say, “But enough about me – I should probably talk about this jerk too.” 

It usually works in any speech/roast situation, but my problem was my circumstance and my delivery.  In order for the joke to work, you need to hear that first line (“Today, I’d like to…”).  That sets up the whole joke.  Only a few people heard this though, because everyone hadn’t settled in when I started speaking.  So the set up was lost.

Secondly, I oversold it.  It’s appropriate to act a little emotional, but I went too far, pulling a fake stop to collect myself as if the moment was too overwhelming for me.  It was just bad acting and I think I lost a lot of the crowd on that one. 

But the golden rule is that if a joke doesn’t work, you just have to keep going.  So I did, and once I got into the meat of the speech, everything worked out.  Thank God, because I was pretty nervous.

Now I have to give the speech again in Philly, where the happy couple is having a reception for those who couldn’t make it.  I tried re-writing the speech, but haven’t been able to come up with anything, so I’ll have to give the same one (unless inspired at the last minute, like I was the first time).

…

I can’t believe I just dedicated five paragraphs to my best man speech.  Let’s just move on now.  And I’m sorry.       

I like getting high a lot
One of our big concerns prior to going was where we were going to get weed.  Um, not a problem.  Every time you turn around, someone is offering you pot, which is much cheaper and much better than the stuff in the States.  And of course, while high my friends and I had the obligatory “We could totally sneak some of this stuff back home,” conversing about this for about an hour before deciding the best course was the old standby: weed in ziplock bag inside bottle of shampoo.  Then we got less high and decided we didn’t like Jamaican weed as much as we like not being in prison.

But being high every day, most of the day, for a week in paradise was a pretty good gig.  I can’t wait until I retire next year and do this full time.  It’s going to be sweet.    

I do not like having the runs a lot
I know this may surprise many of you, but I pretty much pooped from the time I got off the plane until four days after I got back.  Good lord.  On the fifth day, I wasn’t sure if I had eaten something bad or if someone had shot me in the asshole.  Yes, it was as horrible as it sounds.  And no, I have no doubt that I have some sort of colon cancer.  My whole “stop wiping when there’s more red than brown” approach went out the window.  By the end of the week, all sorts of things were happening: I was seeing no browns, but lots of reds, greens – I think I saw some purple, but that could have been part of one of my balls.  Just a total mess, figuratively and literally.

[God, that was gross.  Even for me.]

I will never stop loving boobies
I wrote a while back about trying to kick my booby habit.  Well, forget that.  The title pretty much says it all, but there’s nothing like being surrounded by almost naked boobies for a week to get your right back on the boobie wagon.   They are truly, truly magnificent and every day I thank God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and George Washington for inventing them.    

A date, a female date, is required on all destination weddings
As I predicted, at the ends of evenings, when couple retired to experience love in the physical sense, I headed back to my room, high and drunk, to watch TV, eat, and shit. 

I knew that a date was required for a destination wedding, having gone to my cousin’s solo in the Bahamas in August 2004, so I don’t know why I couldn’t convince some woman I know or kinda know or met via Craigslist to join me in Jamaica for a few days.  Big mistake.

I have another one of these in the Virgin Islands in November.  If I don’t have a girlfriend by then to accompany me (ha!), we’re going to have to hold some sort of competition.  So ladies, get ready.  We’re talking five days/four nights in paradise with one of the worst human beings in the Northeast.  Here’s your essay topic: “What is your favorite color and are we going to have sex?”  Please, no more than 1000 words.  Good luck.   

[Many thanks to Site Guy Brendan for helping me get pics on here.  We've been doing this for over two years and we finally realized how easy it is to put pictures on here.  God we stink.]

Prior to attending my five year college reunion, I thought my post-reunion angle for the blog would be to write a guide to college reunions; a how-to successfully navigate the awkwardness inherent in reunions, especially if you were known as the guy who got caught masturbating in the laundry room floor of Fenwick Hall freshman year (doing the one arm push-up, no less).

But after attending the reunion, I realize that that would be impossible.  If I were to do that, I’d have to write two how-to’s:

Larry Awesome’s Guide to College Reunions (For Men): How to Gain 25 Pounds, Drink Yourself into Oblivion, and Get Depressed

and

Larry Awesome’s Guide to College Reunions (For Women): How to Lose 15 Pounds, Look Spectacular, and Make All the Now-Fat Drunks Who Wanted Nothing to Do with You in College Even More Depressed

I joked that this was not my five year reunion, but rather my five year revenge.  Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time in college.  I have no regrets – at all - and carry no personal vendettas against anyone I went to school with.  If anything, I hate Boston College as an institution, since I was thrown out of housing two of my four years there.  However, out of high school they gave me a scholarship that I had no business getting which allowed me to go to school there, so it’s a push, I guess.        

By the grace of God and the boredom of thousands of (extremely) unproductive workers, some pretty cool things have happened to me since graduation.  All of this, I would assume, would be a major surprise to my classmates.  If at graduation there were any sort of awards, I’d be much more likely to win “Most Likely to Have Restraining Orders in Each Time Zone in the US” or “Class Arsonist” than any award relating to actual semi-legitimate success. 

(I wince when I use the word “success,” as it implies a reward for hard work, perseverance, originality, and dedication – not related so much to poop jokes and repeatedly asking women you don’t know for threesomes via email and/or MySpace message.)

It’s not that I’m above not bragging about myself to others, it’s that I really didn’t have anyone to brag to.  It’s not like I was going to go up to random people at the reunion and say, “Hey, you didn’t know me in college, but you probably know me now.  Buy me a beer, asshole.”  I approached the reunion for what it’s worth: a chance to meet up with old friends and hook up with any old flames who weren’t engaged.  Simple.  I know that most of my guy friends felt the same way.

For women, however, it appeared to be a different story.

Upon my arrival at Walsh Hall, the dorm on BC’s campus usually reserved for sophomores where the class of 2001 would be staying for the weekend, I was hanging out with my buddy Matt who said, “So this weekend we get to see which chicks got fat and which chicks got really fat.”  The five guys in the room all high-fived and muttered things like, “Yeah, fat chicks” and “Totally – though I’d still do them!” (I said that second one).

Well, we were wrong.  Big time.

In a completely surprising turn of events, the women at the reunion looked SPECTACULAR.  I put that all in caps to stress how good they really looked.  And us guys were SHOCKED (again, notice the caps).  Truly fucking surprised.

It seemed as though women had been preparing for this reunion since they graduated from college.  There is no other way to explain the metamorphosis that took place in many of them.  I’m not just talking about how they were thinner and fitter, though that was certainly the case.  They dressed better, were tanned, and seemed more confident, as if they knew that guys were looking at them thinking, “Holy shit – that’s Jessica?  Last time I saw her she was sucking down a Miller Lite at the Kells and we were throwing balled up napkins down her shirt!”

Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there were a decent amount of boob jobs in the house. Some were tasteful about their new boobies, wearing shirts that revealed just enough cleavage to raise a few eyebrows (and birds) but maintaining non-whoreishness.  On the other hand, there were a few girls who seemed to be saying, “Fuck you all – I paid for these titties and I’m gonna show them off” and wore shirts that looked like little monkeys had ripped into them, revealing more boobie than should appear on any Catholic university’s campus.

(Not that I’m complaining.)

I still can’t get over it.  I showed up at the reunion with two thirty packs and a cooler full of ice wearing a four year old polo shirt.  Many girls showed up dressed to the nines and looking F-I-N-E.  And no, I didn’t mean for that to rhyme.  It just came out that way.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised about the change in hotness in many of the girls I went to college with.  I was talking about this to a female friend and she pointed out that girls drink many times a week and subsist on dorm food in college.  Logic would follow that after graduating and getting a 9-5 job, drinking would subside a bit and better food choices would be made (like sushi instead of a chicken finger sandwich).  This makes sense.  But that doesn’t mean it was any less surprising.         

Meanwhile, the rest of my guy friends, without naming any names, had, um, expanded.  It seems like just about every guy gained at least five pounds, some significantly more (to say nothing of hair loss, which is so not funny that I won’t make any jokes about it).  This made me feel great, since I’ve been the same size since about senior year of high school (except for my stretch studying abroad when I lost weight because I had to stop eating due to economic considerations).  I’ll take ”looks bad but at least he’s consistent” as opposed to “looked good but spent the last five years drinking milkshakes on a bean bag.”      

That didn’t stop us fat guys from oogling the girls.  We were sure to take advantage of that, even though more than several guys didn’t seem healthy enough for sexual activity.  There’s nothing quite like drinking 20 beers, eating $25 worth of Chinese food, then going out to the bar and saying “Damn” to yourself over and over again as you realize the girl with the nub on her back who sat next to you in Poli Sci got it removed and apparently put it into her new, tan boobies.   

The one group who lost out in the reunion were the girls who were hot in college.  There were several groups of girls who were smoking hot in college and served as masturbatory material for hundreds of students.  These girls still looked good at the reunion, don’t get me wrong, but they looked a little worn out (probably from years of fucking guys with muscles and hair gel who slap their asses in public and/or at holiday dinners).  In college, at many a drunken party, I sat bitter, intoxicated, and lascivious and stared at these girls, wondering what would become of them after graduation.  Now I know.  Nothing.  They are exactly the same – and I mean that in the worst way possible. 

[wipes venom off computer screen, puts penis back in pants]

People got fat, people got skinny, people stayed the same.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but it was really fucking fascinating.  And entirely too short.  Personally, I didn’t do much.  We stayed up late drinking each night, each night ending in a haze, but there was nothing universe-collapsing that happened.  My favorite time during the reunion was on Saturday afternoon, when it was raining sideways and about 55º and my buddies and I sat in a dorm room, drinking and playing Asshole for a few hours. 

That’s why the reunion was too short.  Each night there was an event and lots of heavy drinking.  I have no problem with the later, but the whole thing felt rushed.  There was no time to really catch up with anyone aside from the cursory “How are you? What do you do? Where do you live? Nice to see you!” conversation.  I could have sat in that dorm room playing drinking games and pounding canned beer for at least a week.  You know, like I did in college, but with more jadedness and anger. 

Now that it’s over, the real question is what happens in the next five years at the ten year reunion.  It’s ok to be “Eh” for the five year reunion; hell, I’m still only 26.  I have no problem with waking up on Saturday morning and needing 45 minutes to figure out whether or not I pissed the bed the previous night.

But in five years, I’ll be, um, 31.  That’s fucking old (no offense to people 31 and older).  I have no idea what’ll happen between now and then.  I don’t know what job I’ll be doing, since I’m guessing everything good that has happened for me will have fallen apart by then, leaving me Assistant Manager at the local Pep Boys.  I don’t know if I’ll be married by then.  I mean, I will have been married by the time I’m 31, but whether I’m still married or divorced at that time, I’m not sure.  And I don’t think I’ll have any kids, since I’m not sure how fertile I am (I’m not a doctor, but I would guess it’s not looking too good).    

But one thing I do know: I will be much fatter and much balder.  At least I have that to look forward to.    

Last evening I returned home to my apartment from Boston and my reunion and began cleaning.  Now that I’m living alone, I feel almost like a homeowner.  Previously, I was happy if nothing else was living in my apartment aside from my roommate Brian and I.  Now, every item in the medicine cabinet must be facing label-out in alphabetical order and the pubic hairs, which for so long were staples on our coffee table, have been Fantastiked away.   

Part of the cleaning involved the fridge – throwing out both my old food and Brian’s old food.  This did not take very long, since our fridge is usually completely empty, aside from Friday nights when it is filled with Pabst, leftovers, a pizza, whatever we can mix with vodka, and usually something horribly gross (band-aids,Q-tips, condoms, etc).  After I trashed all the old food, I went to the super market to buy some new groceries. 

[Seriously, you have not lived until you've masturbated into a cold condom.  You're welcome.]

I admit, I got a little out of hand at the supermarket.  Whenever I go grocery shopping, I always have a (mental) list, which is comprised of:

- chocolate milk
- skim milk
- cereal
- ice cream (one pint of Cookies n Cream and one exotic pint)
- frozen pizza

But last night, flushed with feelings of independence and "living single," I went on a shopping spree.  In addition to extra cleaning products, I dropped $140 on all sorts of garbage that I will never eat, including but not limited to:

- organic broccoli bites (which can not be microwaved and so are useless to me)
- stuffed shrimp
- meatless meat crumbles (?)
- fake chicken patties
- three different kinds of pot pies
- regular chocolate milk AND soy chocolate milk
- a two pound tub of yogurt (which I will probably eat in one sitting and then immediately throw up)
- fifteen different Lean Cuisine/Weight Watchers/Healthy Choice frozen food dinners

After struggling to carry the heavy bags through the throngs of tourists in Little Italy, I got home and started unpacking.  I heated up one of those Lean Cuisine bad boys (a surprisingly good chicken fettuccine alfredo dish) and sat down to waste yet another hour watching The Sopranos (seriously – what the fuck?  I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath until next year for the new episodes).

After that disappointment, I headed for the fridge to grab some ice cream.  Brian had left some Haagen Dazs strawberry, which I planned to rip into.  But when I grabbed it, I noticed it was very soft.  I pulled off the lid and saw that water had begun to separate from the ice cream.  It was melting, and in a weird way.

I stuck my hand in the freezer and noticed it wasn’t as cold as it should be.  The ice cubes were beginning to melt in their trays.  I opened the refrigerator and that too was too warm.  Then I stepped forward and when I did so, stepped in a puddle of water.  The fridge was not cooling properly.  And it was leaking.  

I did my "man" thing, inspecting the fridge, opening and closing the doors, trying to find the source of the water – pretending like I knew what the hell I was doing.  I juggled the thermostat, unplugged and replugged the fridge (after letting it sit a few minutes), and generally walked around it, checking it out.  I couldn’t figure it out, though I was not trying very hard.  It just wasn’t blowing cold enough air anymore. 

Normally, any NYC apartment dweller would call his/her superintendent to resolve the problem.  However, I don’t have my super’s number.  He spends his days and nights drinking wine in the Italian restaurant that I live above.  Also, he speaks no English.  I am not joking when I say that I would probably understand him better if he spoke in Italian, even though I don’t know Italian (but it’s close to Latin and Spanish).  So no super.

So I called my dad.  Not only was my dad was a mechanic, but he has tattoos, smoke two packs of Marlboro Reds a day, and wears bandanas.  He knows how to fix shit.

I, on the other hand, do not.  There is no limit to my ineffectiveness around the house (though it is not as illimitable as my ineffectiveness in the bedroom – I hooked up with four girls at the reunion this weekend and two of them actually punched me in the face midway through the Mulgrew Show).  

Yet I try to hide my inability to fix shit when talking to my dad, because I think it secretly breaks his heart that I don’t know what a nail is and instead of changing light bulbs, I just move out of apartments when all the lights burn out.  I had no doubt that he would know how to solve the problem and it was probably something easy to fix, so I had to play it cool and not let on that I had to take some Xanax, so concerned was I about losing all the food I just bought.  I called him and we were shooting the shit for a while before I broached the subject:

Me: [nonchalantly] "Oh, one thing I wanted to mention – my fridge is leaking."

Dad: "Where at?"

Me: [playing cool] "Uh, you know, I think the thermostat is busted.  It ain’t cooling enough, so it’s starting to leak onto the floor by the door.  It’s not a big deal though."

Dad: "Well, it could be a big deal.  I don’t really know about refrigeration, but…

[Ten minutes of words that mean nothing to me, stuff about "gaskets" and "drip pans" and "coils" and "the manufacturer," as I said "Yeah" and "I know" and finally "That's what I thought, too."]. 

Dad: "So if I were you, I’d get that figured out."   

Me: [fighting back tears, clutching rapidly melting frozen White Castle burgers] "One step ahead of you."

I hung up the phone and went to bed, resigned to the fact that my food is gone and my fridge is dead.

***

This morning, I woke up and there was more water on the floor.  The fridge was marginally cold, but it’s only a matter of time before the whole thing goes to shit.  I called the landlord but didn’t get an answer.  Seeing as I told him that my mailbox was broken three months ago and he hasn’t fixed that, I can’t imagine how long it’s going to take to get this fridge problem fixed.  So it looks like I’ll be living out of a cooler for the next few days/weeks/months.  I don’t mind that I haven’t received a piece of mail in three months, since it was all junk anyway.  But not having a fridge, well, where am I going to put my chocolate milk?  And do you really expect me to drink warm vodka?  I mean, fuck.   

So the past two nights I’ve been in my "new" apartment solo, I lost my luggage and my cable was shut off and now my fridge is broken after I bought $140 worth of groceries to put in it.  I am on quite a run here.  I’m waiting for my boss to walk into my office and punch me in the face or my mom to call and say that some black chick just dropped off a blind kid saying it was mine (no regrets – 2003 was a good year). 

After work, I’m going to go home, put on some Sigur Ros, and throw out all my food.  It’s going to be a sad, sad moment.  Close friends should expect a sobby phone call sometime after 10pm.  I would post at that time as well, but my hands will be covered yogurt and meatless meat crumbles and I don’t want to fuck up my computer. 

[Jamaica and reunion recaps forthcoming.]

[Not now, but in the next couple of days.  I haven't forgotten, but I got some shit going on.  Don't be a dick.]

I should have known it was going to be a bad day when the rum broke.

I bought a bottle of Appleton Rum to bring back to the States.  This is the ubiquitous alcohol that they put in just about everything in Jamaica – frozen drinks, mixed drinks, milkshakes, baby food, whatever.  I wasn’t sure if you could get it in the US (you can), so I picked up a liter at the gift shop.  I figured I would bring it back to NYC and at some point throw a Caribbean-themed party at my place for my friends, which would consist of us drinking the rum in pineapple juice, watching VH1 Classic in silence, then going out to our local bar to sit in silence.  It would be an awesome party.

But when packing up yesterday morning, my last day in Jamaica, I knocked the bottle of rum off the hotel room desk and onto the floor, where it broke.  Fortunately, it was wrapped in newspaper and taped up so it didn’t spill everywhere, but I should have known that was an omen.  Because the rest of my Wednesday totally fucking sucked.

Before I continue, I should declare that I have only two pet peeves: 1) Don’t touch my shit; and 2) Be on time.  If I am punctual to the point of compulsion, I am possessive to the point of mania.  It is a major con, I know, but I can’t help it.  I like my shit.  I like to use it, look at it, wear it, or wrap it around my testes – whatever the situation calls for.  Although I am more than happy to let others use it, all I ask from anyone in my life is to not mess with it and/or fuck it up.  And also, just be on time.     

At 9:30am, the hotel shuttle was to take us to the airport for our 1:30pm flights (I was the only one returning to NYC, while the rest of the party was flying back to Philly, but our flights were only minutes apart).  We were instructed to leave our bags outside our hotel room doors at 8:30am.  At that time, a member of the hotel staff would come by, bring it to the shuttle, and from there it would be loaded onto the bus.  Though I was reluctant to do so, as I was essentially forfeiting the care of my bag to someone else, I put my bag outside the door at 8:30am.

We were to go to hotel reception, pick out our bag, and they’d load it on the bus (we had a large group and were taking three different buses).  When at hotel reception, I noticed my bag was not there.  They (the hotel staff in charge of it) had no idea where it was.  Thus continued the downward slide.  I would have flipped out more angrily, but by this time I was so sweaty that I resigned myself and hoped that it would be on one of the other shuttles that had previously left the hotel.

Thankfully, it was.  I picked up my bag and got in line to check in a full 2.5 hours before my flight was to take off.  Crisis averted.  Now let’s go home. 

Because everything moves very, very slowly in Jamaica, even though I made it to the airport 150 minutes before my flight was supposed to leave, I barely made it in time to board my flight.  I stood in line for over TWO HOURS.  The line wasn’t even that long, but they had only two people working on checking passengers in, and those working the counter talked with the passengers, laughed, made plans for later – I think I saw one girl getting a massage from the counter guy.  It was unreal.  Behind me, the line grew and grew and was soon stretching halfway down the terminal.  We we all in line to check in for the 1:30 flight to NYC and it was almost 1.  I wondered how the hell the 150 people behind me would make it in time.  I was making myself sick with worry.     

I finally checked in, checked my big bag, and tried to race through security.  Of course I was grabbed for a random bag check.  I told the guy that my plane was boarding and had to hurry, to which he replied in his Jamaican accent, "No worries, mon."  I told him, "No, there are worries, man.  Lots of worries.  I have to go."  He half-assedly looked through my toiletries and at my laptop and let me pass.

I ran through the terminal, reached the gate, and boarded as they were calling my row.  This threw off my pre-flight routine, which entails me getting to the gate of the flight, then pooping at the nearest bathroom.  While pooping, I eat two tablets of Pepto and spray Afrin up my nose and then pray like a mother fucker that should the plane go down, I die quickly, violently, and, above all, with my shirt on.

I sat down in my window seat.  Next to me was only one aisle seat (the plane was an airbus and so the seating went 2-4-2) which I prayed would stay empty.  I thought I had a good shot, since we were very close to departure time and the plane was not nearly full.  

I slowly realized how all those people in line behind me would make the plane.  The plane was running late.  Real late.  I wound up sitting on the plane for an hour and a half as I watched people slowly and casually file in, with their deep tans or bad sunburns and bottles of rum.  Fucking assholes. 

My neighbor for the flight showed up and took her seat beside me.  I hated her immediately.  First, because she was fat.  I don’t mean to be self-loathing here, but there’s me fat – like how I can’t have sex for more than two minutes and how three flights of stairs is entirely out of the question – and there’s her fat – like how she has to pay the slow neighborhood boy two dimes every morning to tie her shoes because she can’t reach them and how her breathing sounds like two cattle mating.  Mother fucker.

Not only that, but she had more carry-on luggage than whole aisles of passengers.  She had four items instead of the limit of two – her giant handbag, a cardboard carrier for four bottles of rum, a "small" piece of luggage that was bigger than the bag I checked, and a "large" piece of luggage that was bigger than most of the girls I’ve made love to (not that they were especially tiny, but regardless).  This blatant disregard for the rules drove me up the wall, and I was close to going off on a Walter Sobchak rant. 

After the 1.5 hour delay that left my knees and legs aching, the flight took off.  I noticed something else about my neighbor: she had body odor.  This was going to be the longest four hour flight of my life.  I crammed my considerable frame into my seat, plastering my body to the window as far as possible away from her, and turned up my iPod so I didn’t have to hear her cattle-breathing.

It only got better from there [sarcasm].  I thought she wouldn’t be able to top herself when she bitched out the poor, flamingly homosexual steward who wouldn’t give her the whole can of Sprite even though she was "damn thirsty because it’s so goddamn hot in here," but she proved me wrong.  About an hour into the flight, one of the stewardesses came over the PA and announced that they had recovered a pair of sunglasses and asked passengers to check if they were missing their glasses.  My neighbor sat still for about for three minutes before hitting the call button above our heads. 

A stewardess came over (I guess she scarred the effeminate steward) and my neighbor said that she had lost her glasses.

Stewardess: "OK, where did you lose them, on the plane or at the terminal?"
Neighbor: [blindly guessing] "Um, in the terminal?"
Stewardess: "Oh, well, we found these on the plane.  They belong to a woman back there."
Neighbor: [unconcerned] "Oh."
Stewardess: "If you like, you can file a lost and found claim for your glasses when we land."
Neighbor: [having lost all interest] "Ok."

The fat woman next to me was trying to get a free pair of glasses by claiming someone’s lost pair was her own.  She was caught was and completely unconcerned and unembarrassed.  I was turning red with rage at this point (or maybe the toxins coming out of her were causing my blood pressure to rise).  The best part about the above exchange?  The entire time she had sunglasses propped on her head.  No fucking shit.  She was trying to say she lost her sunglasses when they were on her face.  In her defense, her face was so fat that she really can’t be expected to feel all of it.  That’s just too much to ask. 

Finally, thankfully, the plane landed at foggy JFK.  I could not wait to get out of there, as I was uncomfortable and sweaty from my strange positioning and very, very angry.  I wanted to run out of the plane as soon as we touched down, but then we proceeded to taxi for about an hour. 

I can’t do justice to this moment.  All I can say is "We proceeded to taxi for about an hour" because though I got a 4 in my English Literature exam, I only got a 3 in the English Language exam.  Therefore, I can’t accurately portray how quickly I descended into madness as the plane drove around that runaway when all I wanted to was get off the plane, away from the stinky porker next to me, back to the safety of my apartment.  One hour - when you are so close to home, after flying for four hours, sitting for 1.5 before that, waiting in line for two before that, and driving for 1.5 before that –  is an eternity.   

We got off the plane and I was clocked in at about 20 mph as I raced to immigrant, which I got through without incident.  As I waited at the baggage claim, I stopped at ATM to take out some cash for the $50 cab ride from JFK back to my apartment.  Soon I’d be laying on my couch in my own apartment – and alone, too.  Brian moved out over the weekend, so I finally had the place all to myself.

But we had one minor snag: my bag never came.  I watched and waited, waited and watched, as bag after bag was pulled off the belt and people walked away.  There were two hundred of us, the one hundred, fifty, twenty, a dozen, a handful, then me.  My bag was fucking gone.  

I went up to the nearest American Airlines employee who used her amazing powers of ratiocination to confirm that no, my bag was not there.  I had to file a missing bag claim.  

I had lost a bag before after flying and it wasn’t very painless.  But the problem this time was that I would be in NYC for less than 24 hours.  Immediately after work, I’m leaving for Boston for my five year college reunion (or as I call it, my Five Year College Revenge).  When, exasperated, I brought this to the attention to the person working the baggage claim, she said that I could have the bag delivered to Boston.  of course, this whole process took about thirty minutes, since this woman was having problems with the computer, with the phone, understanding me, and taking simple commands and answering simple questions.  I dialed about nine Boston friends before one finally picked up her phone and gave me her address.  When located, my bag would be delivered to her.  I would get it Thursday night.  That was the plan, at least.

I was reasonably ok with the bag missing, as all I had was clothes in there.  Until I realized that I had more than clothes in there, namely my iPod charger, my cell phone charger, and my computer’s extension cord. 

This was a devastating blow.  I hadn’t used the internet all week in Jamaica and was looking forward to checking email and stalking new MySpace friends.  I also was planning on writing a mega-post about my week-long experience in Jamaica, which I had written a little of while on vacation.  Why, you ask, was I even carrying the extension cord in my checked bag to begin with, as opposed to in my laptop case?  Well, that’s because Site Guy Brendan convinced me to buy a 400-pound laptop computer.  The cord, but moreso the charger attached to the cord, is very heavy.  I didn’t feel like lugging it around on my shoulder, so I put it in the checked bag.  So no internet and no recap post.  And no MySpace stalking.  Fuck.     

I sunk into a cab, over two hours after I landed, completely fucking defeated.  That I had to pay $50 for the cab ride was only a minor kick while I was down, as I was more concerned with just getting home.  Once the hour long ride was over, I gave the man $55 and headed upstairs.  

As I mentioned, Brian moved out this weekend.  He’s gone and I’m living alone now.  Though I cherish Brian, the thought of being able to return to my empty apartment gave me a great deal of comfort on the cab ride.  

So I was saddened when I opened the door and it looked as though squatters had been living in my place in my absence.  Brian’s bedroom was cleaned out, but there were boxes lining the hallway, bags of clothes in the entrance area, and dust, dust, dust everywhere.  The kitchen was a mess: piles of dirty dishes, dirty rags, and trash on the counter.  At least there was no shit on the bathroom floor (none that I saw, at least).

I left the apartment, needing some air, and walked to get some food.  I wound up with a chicken parm sandwich, a bottle of gatorade, a pint of Haagen Dazs cookies and cream, and a $12 bottle of white wine.  I was going to sit in that filth and stuff myself, god damn it.  

I knew there was a basketball game on TV, so I plopped down on the couch with my food and flipped on the TV.  The screen was blank.  Then, a message appeared: "Your service has been discontinued.  Please call your cable operator to make a payment."  My fucking cable had been shut off in my filthy fucking apartment.  

My mailbox has been broken for about three months.  The mailman hasn’t delivered during this time, so I haven’t gotten a single piece of mail since the winter.  The cable bill is the only bill that is not automatically drawn from my bank account.  I owed three months worth of cable.  To the tune of $501.36.  

I was punch drunk by now.  Just like the $55 cab ride didn’t faze me, charging over $500 to get my cable restored didn’t either.  I was beaten.  Defeated.  Done.  Please god, let this day end.    

The cable came on and I ate.  A lot.  After the meal, my phone rang – an unfamiliar number.  I answered.  

An old Jamaican woman was on the other end of the phone.  She said that she had my bag.  Finally, some good news.  

But not really.

She asked if I had her bag and I told her I did not.  She explained that she is in a wheelchair and when the person at the airport helping her asked her which bag was hers, she pointed at a bag she thought was hers and was helped into a cab.  It was only when she got home that she realized she had the wrong bag.         

At that point she could have told me that she was raised by wolves and had both male and female reproductive organs and I wouldn’t have cared.  All I heard was "I have your bag."

I asked her where she lived, hoping it would be close by, so I could take a cab to her place.  But this just wasn’t my day.  She lived in Mt. Vernon, NY, which is outside the city in Westchester County.  To put that in perspective for non-NYC people, that’s would be a $300 cab ride for me.

Finally pushed to the breaking point, I flipped.  I told her that there was no way that I was paying for my mistake.  She offered, feebly, that she was in a wheelchair.  I told her that she still could have looked at the tags on the bag, which clearly said my name and address.  This was her fault and it was her responsibility to make it right.  She said, "Oh dear" and that she had to call her son.  

I sat down and drank the full bottle of wine in about seven minutes.  I don’t remember the next several minutes, blinded and blacked out as I was by sadness, desperation, and alcohol.  It’s all kinda blurry. 

Late last night, the resolution was that the woman got the bag back to JFK airport.  From there, American Airlines would ship the bag to Boston like I requested.  When I leave arrive tonight in Boston, my bag will (hopefully) be at my friend Danielle’s place.  Hopefully.

And now, I have to prepare, mentally, emotionally, and physically, for my reunion.  I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of people, and, more importantly, talking about how successful I am in front of a lot of people, especially girls who rebuffed my advances in college.

Me: "Hey [girl], how are you?"

Girl: "I’m doing great.  How are you?"

Me: "Pretty great, too.  I just finished writing my memoirs.  I know, it’s weird – I’m only 26 but I was paid a substantial amount of money by a major publisher to write my memoirs, but really, it’s all luck.  What do you do?"

Girl: "I’m a teacher."

Me: "That’s great.  That’s really great.  I totally support educating America’s youth.  Hey, you don’t happen to be one of the 37 million people who read People magazine, do you?  Or perhaps you’re even one of the 3.7 million people who subscribe to it?  Because if so, you may have seen me in it.  I was one of People’s ‘50 Hottest Bachelors’ last summer.  Pretty crazy – all that recognition and all.  I’ve come along away from that time when said to your friends you could never hook up with me because I have bigger tits than you.  Remember that?  That was so funny.  God, we were so crazy in college.  So what do you teach?"

Girl: "Well, it’s special ed, so I teach a bunch of subjects.  Mostly we try to – "

Me: "How about TV?  Do you watch TV?  I’m developing a TV show about my life for a major network.  I don’t want to get into the details, because I can’t, but really because they’re embarrassing.  There was this big bidding war over me and I don’t know – you know how crazy Hollywood is."

Girl: "I – "

Me: "It’s all because of a blog.  Do you read blogs?  You might – there’s like 42 million of them or something.  But only two bloggers of the 42 million have both a development deal with a major network and a book deal with a major publisher.  So I guess you could say I’m more than one in a million – I’m one in 21 million!  Thousands of followers, the ability to get laid with the click of an email – at least it hasn’t gone to my head!" 

[Guy walks over]

Girl: "Jason, this is my husband, John."

[John extends hand]

Me: [breaking down] "What?  Your – your husband?" [breathes heavily, looks around] "How could you do this to me?  And here!  HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME HERE – IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE!" [John and girl take a step back, people start looking over, getting more agitated] "You are a heartbreaker!  A stone cold heartbreaker!  And I will never forgive you!  EVER!"   

[runs away shrieking, knocking over trash cans, sobbing, and screaming about fireworks]

…

Wish me luck.