I'm Watching You

Before I start, here's one of the bands we're going to see at Lone Star Jam in Austin next month. It's some nice reading music. If you don't like country, don't start it. 

Amongst the several  weird idiosyncrasies I possess, staring seems to be the one that gets me in the most hot water – or at least what I perceive to be hot water. I doubt the subjects of my staring really care or even notice, but I get anxious because I think, oh, I hope they didn’t notice me staring for 5 seconds too long. For example, the other day I caught myself looking at a student in the hallway, who is neither in my class nor do I know (other than in passing), thinking to myself, she got a new haircut. Then the next thought is, Oh God, how long was I looking at her hair? Did she notice me staring at her hair? Look away. No, not at the other kid! The ground. The ground, you moron!

The worst time to be a starer like me is in the gym. There aren’t even any attractive women (or any women for that matter in my gym), so I could at least think, well, I’m staring at women. My gym is the opposite of Curves gym – they should call it Straights all male gym (hmmm… something about that sounds weird). Anyways, I watch men work out constantly. I’ve caught myself counting another man’s exercise reps out loud before. I could really creep some people out. “Hey bud, I was counting your push-ups using the reflections off the mirrors. Yeah, that’s how I knew how many you did even though I wasn’t facing you. Great form, man. Just damn fantastic.”

To make matters worse, I have a strange habit where I use my bottom lip to push my top lip up to my nose, like I’m getting ready to plant a huge kiss on someone.  I think this habit formed from being paranoid about my breath in middle school and doing it in an attempt to smell my own breath. I don’t think I do it for that reason anymore, but I still do it without thinking and realizing I’m doing it. Well, I do this in the gym more than I would anywhere else. I guess there is something about the sweat on my nose and upper lip that makes me do it. Who knows? I DO know that staring intensely and making kissy faces at other men as they work out is somewhat unsettling. I wonder how many times someone at my gym has referred to me as that big, gay dude.

Fortunately, I will say that my mind has been trained to look forward in the gym locker room – I have far too many images of old man junk burned into my subconscious from the college locker room. So, yeah, that’s a win for me.

P.S. If you have time, watch Waiting for Superman. It’s about the crisis in our public school systems. The movie is inspiring, appalling, motivating, and hopeful all at the same time. Good stuff.

Bar Soap vs. Body Wash II

It seems that there are quite a few opponents of my preference to bar soap and detest my slandering of body wash. Over the past couple of days, I have scoured the internet and made quite a few phone calls to get down to bottom of this body wash phenomenon and its damage on our society’s male population. I read on the website Advertising Age that body wash sales finally toppled bar soap sales in 2008. The website also cites Old Spice in 2003 as the first predominately male oriented brand to produce body wash in the United States. This seems to all make sense, but I figured there had to more than what this website reported. I made some telephone calls and contacted a man at Proctor and Gamble named Ed Shirley who was there from the beginning of the body wash campaign. He knew the answers to all of my questions.  

Shirley admitted the main reason the product researchers came up with this liquid wash was because the CEO of P&G’s son lacked the mental capacity to spin a perfectly good bar of soap between his hands to make suds. He also lacked the coordination to actually rub the bar against his body. He would rub the bar against his body where it would instantly squirt out, landing on the already slippery porcelain tub. His parents were greatly concerned for their son’s safety. After much thought and breaking all preconceived notions of sexuality and gender roles, they allowed their son to use women’s body wash. Inspiration hit Shirley when he realized there were other parents of dimwitted, klutzes out there that would purchase this safety product. Originally, it was only sold on the American Red Cross website but, eventually, made its way to supermarkets.

I also contacted the man in charge of product development for Axe in the United Kingdom, Richard Lipisky. While Axe began mainly as a body spray producer, they quickly jumped into the already over-crowded, bloated body wash market. Lipisky quickly admitted, without much prodding, that Axe body wash was created for Europeans who rarely showered. “We hoped that Europeans, who already look at showering as a novelty, would enjoy this novelty, however ridiculous body wash might be,” Lipisky said with an eye roll. After finding huge success in Europe selling Axe in gag shops, marketers for the company decided to roll the dice in America. Using commercials meant to be nothing short of idiotic, Axe hoped Americans would follow Europeans and use Axe body wash as a gag gift for white elephant Christmases and bachelor parties. Lipisky and his bosses at Axe were pleasantly surprised that American high school boys didn’t quite get the joke and used the ridiculously smelling product for real hygienic purposes.

Whether it is for dimwits or people unaware of the novelty, ultimately, body wash is here to stay. I’ll admit defeat because I know I’m in the minority in this debate, but I will never give in and my children will never play with children who use body wash.

 For any reading this thinking of a witty comment to leave because you’re annoyed with my insults, please just stop. Ask yourself, can I take a joke? If the answer is no, then you’re probably reading the wrong blog. There are some great, serious blogs out there about cooking and housekeeping to anarchy and socialism: pick one. If you get the joke, I congratulate you for being a reasonable, normal person.

Bar Soap vs. Body Wash

There is a point in every couple’s relationship where a decision must be made: bar soap or body wash. This question is more than meets the eye because, while not spoken out loud, we know it’s really: man’s bar soap or woman’s body wash. The path that a couple takes depends on who makes the better argument for their choice in body cleansing.

Body wash is inferior. First, when I use body wash, I use half of the bottle. I squirt a bunch on my arm, smear it around trying to work up some bubbles, and vainly try to wash it off. I repeat this process all over my body until the bottle is half full (at least I’m positive about it). The body wash never really gets off my skin. I just get out of the water with a nice film of soap still on my body.

You’re probably thinking, well use a luffa, dumbass. This brings me to me second point. I refuse to use any type of hygienic body product that requires a special tool. A wash cloth is not a tool because I already have one. I’d have to purposely go to a luffa store and buy one. Furthermore, one doesn’t NEED to use a wash cloth with bar soap; however, Dave Chappelle and the big, fat cat wash cloth lobbyists would have you believe otherwise.

Third, bar soap makes bubbles. Bubbles let one know they’re being cleaned. Did I get my back? There are bubbles, so yeah.

Fourth, body wash is only for girls. They don’t make manly body wash. It might have a manly label, but it’s not manly. Bar soap has Irish Spring. Ireland makes me think of bare knuckle fighting, Irish whiskey, and derby hats: all manly. Hmmm… perhaps all of my knowledge of Ireland comes from Far and Away. 

Fifth, my bar soap can be used for hand soap, too. It’s the Swiss Army Knife of the washing world.

Here are my wife’s counterpoints: “I don’t care. You’ve made your point. Stop standing on the couch.”

Checkmate.

**Update: I've finally started updating my work out page if anyone is interested.

Weather Checker

If you have been keeping up with my blog, you can probably tell I have many different idiosyncrasies. One thing that I am obsessed with is checking the weather. I have four different weather apps on my phone, and I never just check one. I always check all four.

I keep all of the places any relative, friend, or wife and I have visited on my list of cities to check. I have intimate knowledge of the weather in Houston, but I do know what’s going on most other places. For example, my buddy and his wife honeymooned near Hawaiian Acres, HI, and I can tell you that it’s mid-80’s high and mid-60’s low right off the top of my head. My wife and I went to Destin, FL, last summer for a wedding and currently their weather is basically the same as Hawaiian Acres but with a 75 low. I check the weather so much that I just have a Jedi-like sense of the temperature. Right now, I have 20 different cities programmed into my phone that I check regularly.


The issue with this is that a normal person doesn’t do this, right? This is more of a Rainman type of thing. Knowing the weather all over America for no reason is like knowing how many Lumpkins’ there are in the phone book. This isn’t just knowledge of useless information. I respect people that can go into a bar, play trivia, and know that Boner from Growing Pains was the son of Chekov from Star Trek. That is awesome information. That information gets you places in life. Knowing that Las Vegas is still pushing 100 degrees in mid-September is useless. Is this the beginning of dementia? I just hit 30 so maybe it’s downhill from here. Next I’ll probably start collecting gnomes and giving them back stories or designing doggy clothes for Sampson and Earl. Come to think of it, I do have some excellent ideas for wizard costumes for them. I found this delightful star and moon fabric at Big Lots! Their catch phrase: “You… shall… not pass… until you give us some steak fat and belly rubs!”

Reckless and Too Hard

I am reckless and do things too hard. Not in a James Dean do drugs and run a car off a cliff way but in a normal people don’t do that kind of way (I think there should by hyphens in there but that seems like too much work). I have a huge problem with my tooth brushing skills. I know it’s weird for a grown man to say this, but I apparently don’t do it right. I’m pretty sure my parents and elementary school taught me how to brush correctly, but at some point, I took it upon myself to do it my way. I brush my teeth so hard that a toothbrush doesn’t last longer than a month. I brush so hard that the bristles turn sideways far too quickly. In a month, my toothbrush looks like Keanu Reeve’s hair in Parenthood. My toothbrush ends up with a “butt cut.” I get to a point where I’m using mostly the plastic of the brush along with the bottom of the bristles to brush my teeth.




The bigger brushing problem I have is doing it too hard. It is an all too common occurrence for me to wake up and think to myself, hmmm, the back of my gums hurt. I basically pound the back of my mouth with the tip of my brush. Does this happen to anyone else? Am I just too aggressive for this activity? I think I am. Sometimes I take out my contacts with so much gusto that I poke my eye. You’d think that after 17 years of wearing contacts that I’d have mastered this. Nope, not me.


Another big problem I’m having right now is with my left forearm. I think I have tendinitis in it. I have trouble lifting the heavy pan out of the cupboard sometimes. I have to use both hands to pull it out. I was carrying my grade book the other day and it slowly slipped from my fingers because my forearm hurt too much. “Have you been lifting too much weight?” you might ask, or “Do you have an old football injury?” No, I played 2 years of middle school football, and I doubt the residual effects of those strenuous years are coming back to haunt me now. My arm hurts from playing and sucking at golf. I swing too hard ALL of the time, and because I suck, I slam the face of the club into the dirt 90% of the time. I played golf 3-4 times a week this summer; in that time, I shredded my forearm. My left arm exists for symmetry alone. It is completely useless. I can point to things on the fast food menu and push buttons on the remote with it. It’s all because I am reckless and do things too hard.


I know what you’re thinking: one problem might solve the other problem. I’ve tried my weak left arm, and it isn’t strong enough to brush my teeth. I’m stuck with either bruising the back of my mouth with my right hand or doing a less than adequate job with my left. I’m will sacrifice myself for others and save them from stinky breath. You don’t have to thank me; consider it a public service.


The last problem I’ve been having this past week is utter recklessness with my chewing skills. I bit the right, inner side of my lip this past weekend, and it’s become a bit of a problem. I bit it on Sunday. I bit it again later on Sunday and drew blood. I bit it this morning and drew blood. So far today, I’ve bit it 5 times and counting. I was eating at Subway tonight and I bit it TWICE while I was eating my sandwich!


Interesting side note: I usually order the same thing at Subway. 12 inch white with ham and cheese. I’ve gotten into this nice, gluttonous acceptance of my tubby reality where I order extra mayonnaise. Usually, they put two lines of mayo on my sandwich, and lately, I’ve been asking for two more lines. I like Subway mayo; it tastes better than my house mayo. Today, the girl let me have it. She put 6 lines on it. I was thinking that’s a lot. From the first bite to the last bite, I gagged every time. It was too much mayo. So you have to imagine, I’m gagging on this sandwich (don’t even suggest not eating it) and wiping blood from my mouth. Sort of messed up.


I need to change my reckless/too hard ways. I’m destroying myself one bruise, torn tendon, poked eye and gnarled piece of lip at a time. What’s next clipping my toenails too far so they bleed… more often? Breaking one more toe running into a wall… more often? It just needs to end.