Bed Princess

I am the bed princess. I have to have things just right to sleep at night.

1.    I can’t have a freaking duvet cover. They are rough and my sensitive skin feels it with every pore and hair follicle. Duvets feel like sandpaper on my skin. Duvets make me want to go into full body convulsions. They make my blood boil in a way that few other things do. To me, a duvet is the equivalent of wearing super tight pants with even tighter underwear on below. It’s like an errant piece of plastic from a cut price tag poking my hip. It’s coat hangers that are hooked together when I just want one.

2.    I also, apparently, need 5 inches of pillow or comforter between my legs. First, no comforter between the legs (skin on skin) is a nightmare. It’s bone on bone and a sweat machine. For some reason, three inches isn’t enough either. 5 inches is a scientific fact.

3.    I don’t know how to avoid a crick in my neck. I think I get a crick once a week. I’m like Lurch from The Addams Family. When I turn, it’s more of a full body turn than a swivel of the neck. My chiropractor quenches his weird (I think sexual) need for thunderous joint popping when I amble in. I’m like Bugs Bunny dressed as a woman and he’s the wolf in a zoot suit.  I mean, he calls me darling.

4.    I’ve mentioned that I’m super paranoid before… many times. Well, sometimes, not all the time, I have to tell myself that if a serial killer kills me in my sleep, it’s the way things are supposed to be. Mom, wife, don’t comment on this. I know I’m not going to die. Sometimes, that’s the only way to do it though. When I was a teenager, I had this reoccurring thought that Freddie Mercury was going to be the one to kill me in my sleep. I see those teeth… and… it’s over. Come on, wife and mom… laugh!

5.    Sometimes my feet cramp too.

No One is Reading This

I can’t write anything funny because I’m listening to the Republican National Convention. I would feel the same if I were listening to the Democrat version (so don’t jump on me if you’re a nut - also, stop reading my unattended blog). I’ve noticed a similarity between politicians and International House Hunters: both say things in an obviously, certain way. International House Hunters (when they are showing a prospective couple one of three houses): “This is your NEW full bath with granite tile.” RNC or DNC (? – is that what it’s called): “Your NEXT vice president: Prof. Wienerton.”

It’s like we already bought it. Is that supposed to convince me? Is it a Jedi mind trick? Maybe I should start doing that. “Wife, this is your new set of laundry to fold.”

Also, I’m hearing quite a bit of chanting. Maybe we should chant more as a society. I feel like it really gets the message across. “Ice Cream! Ice Cream! Ice Cream!” Maybe that would get the ball rolling: WE WANT MORE ICE CREAM. No more ineffective cream!

I just heard, “God bless, Neil Armstrong.” Don’t get me wrong; he was a great hero. But, is this pandering to the Nth degree? I need to start pandering.Me standing in front of the TV in a suit with my right hand raised as if talking to God and my eyes filled with a tender hopefulness: “God Bless my wife for her excellent Chinese food ordering skills. She is the true. American. Hero.”

I need to get into politics. I’ve got it figured out. I could definitely get more stuff.

Toenail

I can’t tell if this is a gross thing or not, but I haven’t used a toenail clipper in 10 years – at least. Well, that’s not true; I’ve used one to cut thread. As I previously mentioned in another post, I used to split the ass of my pants quite often and I’d use nail clippers as scissors to cut the thread after I sewed up my pants. To be honest, I’ve used my nail clippers for other things, too. I definitely have memories of clipping my nose hair with them. Believe me, that’s a scary endeavor. It has taken some practice to not pinch/cut my nose. You might think that’s gross, but like I said, I don’t use it to cut my nails. In reality, my nail clipper is just an oddly shaped, small pair of scissors. Don’t agree? Well, you’re just a snob. I’ve thought of using a lighter to burn my nose hairs, but I feel like that won’t work. Really though, I think about doing that all the time. Light the lighter and slowly bring it to my nose and wait for the smell of burning hair. If I smell burning flesh, I’ll know I held it there too long or missed and burned my cheek.

Back to my point, I haven’t used a nail clipper on my nails in a long time. I generally just rip them off. I mess with them until I create a little notch and I, with the touch of a brain surgeon, remove the nail. This works with my fingernails but not so well with my toenails. I’m not flexible enough to see my toenails; consequently, I just have to guess that I’m doing a good job. Where I am a surgeon with my fingernails, I am more of a drunken hobo with my toenails. The extraction almost always goes awry. It usually ends with some wincing and some blood. In fact, I pulled off my entire little toenail the other day. As I write this, I have no little toenail and my right foot. Surprisingly, I didn’t hurt pulling it off and hasn’t ever hurt. I run 3 miles every other day and nothing. What I take from this whole thing is that I don’t need a little toenail.

Here is what my toe looks like without a toenail:

I'm back, baby!

I’m learning that not getting sleep is a hell of a thing. I’ve been the head coach of my swim team for 3 months now, and in that time, I’ve been getting up at 4:45 am. Yes, there is a 4:45 in the morning. Not many people get to experience it, but it’s a glorious time of day. It’s still pitch black outside; you’ve never seen as beautiful a sky as the one that exists at that time in the morning. The blackness has a nice, bleak quality to it. It has the feeling of a vast, never-ending black hole. It’s a black hole that can suck anything into it – like the small amount of lucidity that exists in, say, a swim coach driving to work.

Don’t worry though; I manage to fight that beautiful black hole that begs me to follow it into a highway barrier. I blare horrible dance music in the morning (By the way, this is a trick my swimmers have taught me: dance music can destroy any level of sleepiness that exists). Listening to that kind of music at that time of the morning is like chugging a Monster after getting a massage – any amount of relaxation or feeling of ease is replaced by jittery muscles, fast twitching, and an inability to think about anything for longer than 1 second.  Play this and read these as fast as you can to get the effect:

“Am I driving straight?

“What’s the username for my computer at work?”

“How tall is Yao Ming?”

“It’s just emotions taking me over.”

“Dante Bichette, Dante Bichette, Dante Bichette.”

“Was that car next to me before?”

“Err… err… err.”

“That can’t be my wallet in my back pocket.”

“Dive straight… err… drive straight… drive straight.”

I imagine you get the drift at that point. Well, I’ve managed to make it to work every day, so I guess it’s working. Honestly, the weirdest part about going to work that early is being the first person in the school. I’m a paranoid person (read any of the other posts I’ve written), so I think about all the ways someone could kill me when I’m walking into the school. I keep waiting for an attacker to pop out from behind one of the building walls and come after me. I have my keys between my knuckles though; they’re ready every morning, so don’t try it. It’s probably hard for you to imagine, but it’s also nerve wracking for me to walk into the school when it’s pitch black. I hear weird noises every morning. I assure myself it’s the school settling and not zombies. Not the fast zombies from 28 Days Later at least. Only slow zombies would be inside the school at that time in the morning. The fast ones would never be awake.

Where was I?

Oh, so I had baked chicken from Kroger’s for lunch today. I think it was fried though. Way too greasy to be baked.

[All typos and errors can be blamed on sleep deprivation]

To the Mall!

I went to the mall the other day to do some back-to-school shopping. I decided to do it up because I really have nothing to do during the day, so I went to the Galleria. For those of you who are not from Houston, the Galleria is a huge, three story mall with high end stores as well as normal chains. As I wandered around the mall alone, I had plenty of time to get lost in thought – no, no, no, nothing of any importance or any higher level thinking – just mall thoughts.

First off, why the hell do escalators exist? What fat, lazy American invented this? I’m going to guarantee an American invented this without even looking it up because I don’t see any other culture that would have this demand. Do we really need stairs that move?

Well, when I was at the Galleria, I had to go up an escalator that was broken and my mood changed instantly. I could feel the anger and resentment building inside of me. What the hell? Am I supposed to walk up these stairs, I thought. I could really feel the frustration inside of me because it was out of order. I even looked around to see if there was another escalator around that I could ride upstairs. After calculating that it would take more steps to walk to the other one, I walked up with lifeless escalator, barely able to contain the little tantrum that was building inside of me. I wanted to lie on the ground and throw a full on 2 year old fit, complete with screaming, flailing arms and legs, and tears.

I didn’t though.

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This trip to the mall also reinforced my hatred for kiosk people. I’m sorry if you’re a kiosk person and you’re just trying to make a living, but it’s like, come on. They are the equivalent of a telemarketer. When I was there, I got asked by no less that 10 kiosk people to try their lotion. Readers, you can’t see me, but I am not a candidate for lotion wearing. If I do wear lotion, it’s Lubriderm. It’s white, odorless, and masculine.

Normally, when I walk by these… people… I pretend to check my cell phone. That usually does the trick. These people are like mean dogs; you just don’t make eye contact with them, and they’ll leave you alone. Sometimes I just walk really fast, put my hand out like I’m stiff arming them, and say, no, thanks, before they can say anything to me.

Also, what is it like for these people when they get home? How much rejection can one take? I bet in a given day they suffer through an inordinate amount of rudeness. Furthermore, how much business can they be doing? How many small, remote controlled helicopters could they possibly sell in a week? Five?

Over Christmas, I actually stopped and indulged one of the lotion sales girls. She basically told me my hands were gross and that my wife couldn’t possibly be that attracted to me because of them. She then told me I had big ears and was a loser. She said, I’d be bald soon and was too fat to not take every step possible to be inoffensive to the senses. She rubbed some of the lotion on my hand and asked me if I was a construction worker or if I put up drywall (No joke, she said that to me).

I’m not sure how I got out of the situation, but, yeah, that’s why I hate you, kiosk workers of America.

Scatterbrain Tuesday

I’ve been working on a new smile lately. You know, just tinkering around the laboratory and trying to come up with something new. I’ve always had sort of a closed mouth, head tilted, kind of dipshit grin that I’ve always used. While said dipshit grin has been good enough for years, I have recently decided to change it up. I’ve come up with a mouth agape, mid-laugh kind of smile.

I came up with this new smile while I was at the gym – really the only place where I look at myself in the mirror. I was sitting on a bench and in between sets I’d try out new kind of smiles – big, wrinkly smiles, cocky half-smiles, and every tooth smiles (to name a few). I came up with the mid-laugh smile as I was laughing at myself doing this at the gym.

I doubt anyone noticed me doing this.

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Does McDonalds have a predominately black consumer base? This isn’t meant to be racist or anything but why are their commercials urban/hip-hop oriented? Have they done some research that shows that more black people eat there? I eat there sometimes, and my wife buys coffee from McDonalds quite often. Maybe they should have some yuppie white people in their commercials, too. For that matter, my area of town is mostly Hispanic and there are always tons of Hispanics there. Let’s get some Mickey D’s commercials that have Latin stereotypes, too.

I’ve NEVER seen an Asian person there though.

They got their marketing campaign right with that one.

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My introduction to higher level vocabulary began with old episodes of The Simpsons. In fact, most of my knowledge of American culture can be traced back to learning it first on The Simpsons.

Everything goes back to The Simpsons.

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As most of you know, I am a high school teacher and coach. I also coach little kid swimming as well. That usually takes all of the first month of summer. That month is over and now I have nothing to do. I watch House Hunters on HGTV and play Words with Friends. I need to come up with a legit hobby. Maybe I could scrapbook – the female equivalent of Worlds of Warcraft. Maybe I could start making model airplanes or cars. Maybe I could start making garbage art; I could pick up cigarette butts around my neighborhood and make things with them. A cigarette butt cowboy riding a cigarette butt cow, anyone? Maybe I could cut out pictures of magazines and find something to do with that. I could have the foremost collection of Nick Nolte pictures in America; there is one with him holding a punch of pool noodles in this week’s Us Weekly. Sounds like a start.

Don’t all of those things sound like something someone does when they are waiting for something else to do? Like, I paint model airplanes because I’m waiting for my pot roast to finish in the oven. When my roast is out, I’ll put my toys away and eat.

Maybe I could write a blog.

A funny blog, this time.