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.)