Out the Window

This weekend, I went back to my parent's house, to visit the family and whatnot. It was nice and relaxing, which of course makes for a horrible entry. Luckily, we can count on the motorists of Texas to provide a little excitement to end the weekend on.

So I'm driving home, sans air conditioning as the Truck of Malfunction (TOM) requires a new bottle o' Freon every Sunday promptly at 2:00, lest the air become the same temperature as molten steel and it is currently 3:45. Thus, I am busting down the highway, windows open, radio cranked, and singing along to Wake Me Up Before You Go Go to distract myself from the fact that it is so hot that my hands have melted into the steering wheel and will require surgical removal.

There is a car in front of me, a little white Toyota of unknown origin. It does not register on my radar too much, until it starts swerving around a little. I am intrigued. Suddenly, it starts to shift over to the left hand lane. Good for him. However, midway through the process, out of the window flies

-- let's pause here a moment to reflect on this. What would you expect might fly out a car window? A paper bag? A piece of paper? Hah, no. You obviously have no concept of my luck --

out of the window flies a carton of McDonalds french fries. Red, greasy, and completely full. It is practically launched from the window, propelled with great force in an upwards direction. I'm sort of hypnotized by the parabolic descent of the fries (little twirling golden arches), and the general weirdness of seeing a big ol' thing of fries sailing through the air, until I realize they're totally gonna land on the TOM.

"This can't be good for the functioning of a Truck of Malfunction" is the only thought I have time for before the fries collide perfectly center with the grill of the TOM. It makes sort of a wet noise, surprisingly. For a second, I actively wonder if a fry might actually get sucked into the engine and cause my fiery death.

"That would suck so bad. And yet, it's just ironic enough for God to pull it on me. Man Killed By French Fries, the headline would read, and you just know it would be in one of those Humorous Notes section, with a little subline - and you thought they were just bad for your cholesterol."

Luckily enough, the carton fell off pretty quickly and I've yet to see any french fry related lag in performance from the TOM.

But man, is that weird or what? I'll always wonder now, what caused the owner of the white Toyota to throw the fries out the window? What kind of deranged person throws out a perfectly good bunch of McD's fries? Those things are awesome. And out a window, nonetheless. Insanity.

Mmm, now I'm hungry. I need something deep fried obviously. And not airborne.

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Complex of Death

So I was going to drop off some papers at my boss's apartment complex earlier this month. I'd never been there before and had no idea how to get there. The directions I had seemed pretty straight forward, though, so I drove over there not really worrying about anything.

My boss had told me to pull up to the gate just outside the complex and then call her and she would come open it with her magic button of opening that the apartment people had so kindly supplied her.

When I followed the directions, though, things seemed really weird. For one, the gate was sort of rusty and really set far back off the road. Plus, you couldn't see any apartments from the gate. It had a sort of creepy vibe, but I'm easily spooked, so I ignored the feeling and called the boss.

NOTE: Never ignore feelings of creepiness! There's a reason you have instincts.

She says she'll be right out. While I'm waiting, some guy in a beat-up suburban pulls up behind me and hits his magical gate opening device and waves me through.

"That was nice of him," I think.

Oh, foolish Jason.

So it becomes very apparent that this is not the place I'm looking for. There are only 3 or 4 really decrepit houses behind this gate, with a little dingy office set over to the side. There are no cars in the place besides the suburban, which quickly pulls into a garage and is never seen again. Realizing that I'm in the wrong and ever so disturbing place, I turn around to head out the gate. No such luck, you need a opener to get out the gate. Try the other side of the complex, same result.

"The hell?" I say to myself. So I'm trapped in a weird housing complex parking lot in the middle of Dallas, surrounded by really tall hedges and gates that don't open. I go to call my boss again, only to see that my phone isn't working anymore. And because it's that sort of day, I look down and see that I'm almost out of gas. It's like I fell right into the middle of a bad Steven King short story.

It's been about 10 minutes now. The office is completely empty and looks abandoned, for serious, and I haven't seen a single person since crazy man in the suburban who is no doubt warming up the chainsaw right now, as I sit contemplating my doom. And my air conditioning is still broke, so I'm sweating like nothing else.

"Why me?" I think to myself. "I'm too young to die in a slasher movie." And then I realize I am exactly the right age to die in a slasher movie, and that just makes me sadder.

20 minutes in, I'm about to give in to fate and go knock on some doors, where no doubt no one will answer except for the last one, and the door will mysteriously creak open while I'm knocking, and it'll be really dark inside, but then I'll wander inside anyway, and as I'm looking around, the door will slam shut and lock, leaving me in a dark and strange house with a bunch of scary portraits and taxidermy animals, where a madman no doubt lurks, sharpening his collection of knives and laughing at odd times where I can hear him, but can't see him and OH MY GOD, WHAT'S THAT ON THE STAIRS???---

But then a woman in a nice BMW pulls out of garage #2 and lets me out of the back gate.

And that's when I realize that I watch way too many movies. And that the imagination is a dangerous tool. Especially my imagination, because I've lost my damn mind.

Knees, Pirates and Cookies

Yesterday afternoon, I was in the office. I quickly turned away from the copier to answer the phone at one point, and promptly tripped over something (likely culprits: the ground and/or my own two feet) and slammed my knee into the file cabinet corner. I'm pretty sure the entire floor heard my following obscenity. Now there's no way I'm getting invited to any company Christmas parties.

I walk with an odd gait now, sort of how I imagine a pirate with a wooden leg would walk, if he were in an office setting. I refrain from saying Arrrr, however, since it's just a bruise, and I imagine a pirate in an office would have a little more decorum than that.

Anyway, results of my clumsiness:

• I couldn't continue my 'Death by Jump Rope" routine yesterday, so that will definitely push back the 10 minute goal by another 14 years.
• When I got excited during The Amazing Race last night and jumped off the couch, I immediately collapsed into a writhing heap o' pain. A heap that was still yelling "Run, fool, run!" but a heap nonetheless.
• Today, my knee is a lovely shade of purple-ish red that somehow perfectly complements the color of my shirt. Even in pain, am excellent at outfit coordination.

In other, less painful news, I was still able to cook last night and made some awesome chocolate chip/walnut cookies that only set the fire alarm off once. Between those and my amazing guacamole skilz from this past weekend, I'm well on my way to becoming a master cooking guy and appearing on that Iron Chef show. You'll be able to recognize me by the pronounced limp and pirate-like demeanor.

Laundry Makes Jason Cry

You have to understand, I am not as ridiculous as I seem. The way it reads on paper is that I can barely function in the outside world without falling down or horribly embarrassing myself every 2 minutes. I'll have you know, I'm totally normal, things just seem larger on the internet.

That being said, I made a complete fool of myself on Sunday, in an order of magnitude that I don't usually face. So much so that I'm still sort of embarrassed about the whole situation, which is why it has taken 3 whole days to get out.

So Sundays rule. I just hang about, reading the paper, playing video games, and cooking up a minor storm. It's lots of fun and usually by the end of the day, I've gotten everything in the house clean, so's I can let the filth just pile up throughout the rest of the week.

One of the important tasks of most Sundays is laundry. Dear God. Let us begin.

[Scene 1 :Jason's apartment. Jason has finished cooking and has decided to do the laundry. He finds the laundry basket]
Jason: Okay, let's gather up all the laundry, shall we? Most definitely. [gathering] Wow, I do have a lot of socks don't I? For serious.

--A quick note: now that I live alone, I tend to have long and rambling conversations with myself as I go about my daily business. For the sake of realism, I'm including them in the scene, even though it makes me look like a complete wack-job. That is all.--

Jason [has gathered all the available clothes off the floor]: Hmm, is that everything? Laundry, detergent, quarters, keys. Yep, you're good to go.

[Ominous music plays in the background, for Jason has forgotten to change into his laundry day attire (namely his pajama bottoms). He leaves the house in normal Sunday attire. Dun dun dunnnn.]

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[Scene 2: Laundry room. Jason has appropriately placed all the colors in one machine, all the whites in another.]
Jason: Sweet, everything's ready to go. No wait! I'm still wearing the shorts I was cooking in earlier. I needed to wash these! Crap. I guess I'd better go change out of them and come back. Or maybe. . . [here Jason hatches what is most definitely the stupidest idea in the history of time and space. Anything that was ever used as a plot point in MTV's Undressed undoubtedly qualifies, as you will soon see]. . .maybe I can just grab my other pajama bottoms out of the washer here and just change right now. I mean, no one would see me and it would save me a precious 55 seconds of my life, walking there and back. I'm such a genius.

[Jason finds the pajamas in the washing machine then begins the quick change. Because it is Jason, as soon as he is halfway through the process (namely, in his underwear pulling out the pajamas) the Nice Girl from building #2 walks into the room. ]
Jason's Mind: OH SHIT!
Nice Girl [eyes wide, tries not to laugh]: Hi there.
Jason[turns entirely red]: Uhh, hi.
Nice Girl: So, definitely needed to laundry then? Really out of clothes? [Is sort of failing at the whole 'not laughing' thing]
Jason's Mind: Which option is worse, going to do the laundry in your underwear, or changing clothes in the laundry room? Is one of those really worse than the other? . . . How the hell do I end up in these situations? Crap, probably should have said something by now, or done anything besides just stand in the middle of the laundry room half naked. Is it too late to hide behind the washers until she leaves. Probably. Crap.
Jason [deciding that honesty is the best policy, especially since saying that he came to the laundry room in his underwear would mean walking out in public in his underwear]: Uhh, no, see I was cooking, right? And then I spilled avocados on my shorts? Not that avocados are liquid, I mean I had cut them up? And then they fell on my shorts? So I had to wash them? But I forgot to change? And then I had this idea?. . . [you get the idea. This continues on for quite sometime, as Jason is incapable of stopping the stream of babble coming from his mouth when he's this embarrassed and Nice Girl seems far too amused to try and stop him.]

Finally, blessedly, I managed to put on some pants, turn on the washers, say goodbye to obviously traumatized Nice Girl, and run the hell away from the laundry room and curl up in a little ball under my desk, never to see the light of day again. I'm pretty sure it'll only be a couple of days before I'm evicted for being Crazy Indecent Exposure Laundry Guy, but we shall see.

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Jump

I'm pretty much your quintessential bookish nerd. I read constantly. I got a degree in Computer Science. As an outgrowth of that degree I'm preternaturally pale and incredibly sensitive to natural light. I sneeze horribly whenever I walk outside, away from the precious glow of a computer screen. Hell, I even play the clarinet.

So, in general, I'm content to let others be physical; I'll stick to more mental tasks. This seems to be a very good idea, since I'm also incredibly clumsy (see: every thing I've ever done in my entire life).

In something of a contradiction, I lift weights all the time. This summer, the gym was my second, really smelly home. Not to say that my first home was really smelly.

I think my apartment smells nice.

I'm saying the gym was smelly.

. . .

Glad to have cleared that up.

Where was I? Right, so I lift, like, a lot.

By the end of last week, I was up to 156 pounds. That means I gained 16 pounds of muscle since May. I now weigh more than I ever have in my entire life. I am pretty excited about the whole thing, but I was thinking there would be more practical application to all this extra muscle. Because despite the fact that I can bench-press 190 pounds, I still get winded carrying my groceries from the truck to my apartment. And I live on the first floor. That's just sort of sad. And by "sort of sad", I mean "incredibly and pathetically sad."

Thus, it was decided that my next phase of exercise would be more cardiovascular in nature, so I don't drop dead trying to carry a dozen eggs 25 feet.

After careful consideration (which consisted of asking my friend Sean what he was doing to get in shape and then blatantly copying him) I took up jumping rope as the new, most efficient way to kill myself--wait, "to get some healthy exercise."

No ne'ermind, I was right the first time.

You may have forgotten this, (because the last time you jumped rope was in elementary school (and don't try to pretend otherwise, no one over the age of 11 jumps rope unless s/he plans on a career of boxing or PE teacher)) but jumping rope is fricking hard.

Not that understood this at the start. I was all "Well, I should start out easy, I'll only jump for 10 minutes."

[Scene: Jason's apartment, in his ginormous living room. He clears out an area big enough to jump in. After carefully ensuring that every damn window is completely blinded and the doors securely locked, he grabs his new jump rope.]

Jason: Alright, Jason, you can do this, no one's watching, even if you make a fool of yourself, no one will know. [begins to jump]
[30 seconds later]

Jason: Huff...Puff...Dang, this is hard. [continues jumping]
[Almost 2 minutes total elapsed time]

Jason: Wheeze...gasp...dear God.

[The jump rope catches on his leg, tangles up, Jason takes two hops forward and collapses into a heap on the ground, narrowly missing the television stand]

Jason [comes to, panting]: Very smooth. [checks the clock] Either I just passed out for exactly 24 hours, or I almost died from less than 2 minutes of rope jumping. [thinks] I'll just let this be one of life's eternal mysteries.

In other words, Jason continues to be foiled by even the simplest tasks in the world.

But I will not be deterred! I have continued to jump every day for the last three and am proud to report that I no longer fall over dead after 2 minutes. I still can't go past 2 minutes, but at least I don't require life support any more. At this rate, I calculate I will reach 10 minutes of continual jumping in roughly October 2009.

Sweet, no?

Don't Look at Me

When driving, I tend to believe that I am insulated from the rest of the world -- I'm alone in the one thing in this world that I own free and clear. It's just me and the Truck of Malfunction (heretofor known as the TOM). It never really dawns on me that just because I'm in the car by myself, that doesn't mean other people can't see me.

Usually, this is not a horrible problem. Yeah, I may sing along to the radio and do little dances on occassion (that occassion being All the Damn Time) but whatever. I mean, how do people know that I'm not just talking on one of those hands-free phones or maybe a spider just crawled down my shirt and I'm dislodging it -- whateva, all you people judging me for dancing in my car, you don't even KNOW ME!
...
...
Ahem. I seem to have fallen off track here. Point being, I may seem a little weird at time whilst driving, but it ain't no thing. Usually.

So the air conditioning system in the TOM has, you guessed it, malfunctioned and only spews incredibly hot air these days. Living in Dallas, this is a very bad thing since the weather in the summer on a mild day can be nicely referred to as Scorchingly, Brain-numbingly, Freaktastically Hot. The only way I survive trips in the TOM is to open both windows and let the blistering wind of downtown pollutants waft around my body to dissipate some of the heat that is slowly melting me.

This is all careful buildup to this last Monday...

Oh wait, before we get to the story proper, we have to go over one other fact that I generally take for granted that you, my constant and ever so attractive readers, know -- namely, I am a huge dork. HUGE. I tell you this now to lessen the blow that is soon to come when I explain exactly how big of a dork I actually am in practice.

So last Monday I'm driving home from work around 5:30-ish right in the middle of Dallas rush hour traffic from hell. It's ugly, as usual, and the fumes of the highway are even greater than normal and we seem to be completely stationary in traffic. I try to take my mind off of the situation at hand by flipping through the radio to find something pleasant to listen to. I happen up Britney Spears' Toxic, a lovely song of which I am a great fan.

Now, I may have sung along with this song, in beautiiful falsetto. And I may have done a few impromptu dance moves in the limited confines of the TOM, including some excellent judo chops and head bobs. I really don't recall, my memory, she is not that great, especially about such situations. All I know is that I enjoyed the song to it's fullest.

Following that song there was some horrible song of pain which I could not stand, so I switched over to the classical music station to cleanse my palate. They were playing a particularly excellent version of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody On A Theme By Paganini and once again, I may have gotten into the music a bit. I may have hummed along, or sang with some of the more exciting parts. I may have conducted the music with a little imaginary baton and banged on the steering wheel in time with the music. And I may have done all these things simultaneously while rocking-out like some teenager at a Limp Bizkit concert. I just don't recall, it's all such a blur.

I do know, however, that near the end of the song, I happened to look out my driver's side window and realized that the people in the car next to me were staring at me. Not just staring - I mean mouths-hanging-open-sheer-horrified-train-wreck-can't-look-away staring at me.

It is at this point that I realize that my windows are open and that my usual antics may be more publically available than the norm. And since the staring guys in the next car over had their window open, I well imagine they've been privy to most all of said antics, seeing as we haven't moved in about 8 minutes.

I quickly go over my options and decide that it's really time to cut my losses and run, so I stop the singing and dancing, slump down in my seat, and burn in shame while praying for God to either get traffic moving or to smite me from the earth.

God chose to move traffic and I learned a valuable lesson about not being a dork when you have the windows rolled down. But really, I should have known better: Britney Spears and Classical Music? With my luck, it's like tempting the Gods.

Trouble w/Haircuts

I'm not sure what it is about me, but I am incapable of getting a normal stylist when I get my haircut. Ever since my Awesome arcading Woman of the Deadly Scissors left Dallas 3 years ago, I've been going to different people at different places all over the city in search of the perfect stylist. At this point, I'm now just looking for someone who can be described as 'possibly competent'.

To illustrate, let us consider the last 4 haircuts I've received, in the last 5 months.

1. I head home for a weekend, decide to try out the Marshall, Texas cosmotology scene via Down Home Hair Fashions or some other, equally bucolic sounding salon type place. I am seated immediately by one of the largest women I have ever encountered in my life. She proceeds to begin to cut my hair without slowing her conversation with the woman across the salon. Their conversation? Practicing their lines for a play they're in. The play? Salome. In Marshall. Texas. Dear God. Ignoring first the butchering these women are doing to a great play with line readings that could kill small birds, I spend the rest of a half hour in pure terror, as every time the hairdresser can't think of the right word, she pauses her clipping mid-stroke and waves the scissors/clippers/razor about my head in a frustrated manner. I escaped with only 2 bandages and a renewed appreciation for Oscar Wilde.
2. Back in Dallas this time, I go to a local chain of salons, thinking institutionalize might serve me well. I'm actually doing okay until the third time she puts the clippers to the back of my neck and pauses halfway up my head. She shrieks "I love this song!" swings the clippers from my head to her mouth and, miming a microphone, proceeds to complete the entire song playing on the radio, with dance moves natch, while occasionally taking swipes at my head. I came out of this learning nothing except Jessica Simpson's irresistible is a very dangerous song.
3. In a big hurry before my latest job interview, I head over to the same place as last time, vowing to not get the same chantries as last time. Instead, I get a woman who has a graduate level degree in Computer Science and knows more about programming than I ever will. She's incredibly interesting to talk to. Meanwhile, she cut's my hair using her '4 quadrants method' which is so complicated that the explanation is akin to a geometry lesson and leaves me looking like I did it myself in a dark closet with a steak knife. Lesson: never let a Computer Scientist cut your hair.
4. Today, I find a new place, and a new woman. She is soooo cute and friendly. I am tentatively hopeful, until 2 minutes into the haircut when she asks me, quite innocently, "Have you ever had a Red Bull?" This sends a few warning signals to my brain, but I soldier on, "Uhh, no." "Well I just drank my first one, 'cause I was sleepy. Now I'm not sleepy, but I can't stop shaking," she says as razors off the hair around my ear. Oh that's comforting is all that is running through my head. Because now that she's said something, oh my God you can totally see her arm shaking in the mirror! Dude! Lesson this time? Hell if I know, I guess it's "always ask your hairdresser if they're shaking uncontrollably before submitting to their ministrations."

I think sometime in a past life I didn't tip someone who cut my hair, or I killed a hairdresser over a bad perm or something, and now they're haunting me from beyond the grave.

That, or I overreact to everything and these people are perfectly good at their jobs.

Yeah, right, I'm totally cursed.

Friday Morning Haze

On the way into work today, I laughed at one of those morning radio "personality" shows. And God help me, it was not the first time this week. It's a sickness, I tell you. It's how work gets to you: you start getting up earlier, going to bed earlier, thinking about salary, and before you know it, you've got a house, a mortgage, lower back pain and you laugh at morning radio talk shows. Damn you, adult life! Additionally this morning, I received in my email the following message:

THIS IS GOD
TODAY I AM GOING TO DEAL WITH ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS --I WILL NOT BE NEEDING YOUR HELP!!!!

This worries me to no end. First of all, when did God get my email address? Second, the way it's worded, it looks like God is pissed off that I was apparently trying to help deal with my own problems. Well excuse me, Email God, sorry to be so proactive, I'll try to do less today. And third, why does God feel the need to talk in ALL CAPS? I'm not deaf, God of the Electronic Mail System. (Although I guess if someone is allowed to speak in all caps, it is God.)

Geez, I definitely need some more coffee.

My Life in One Word: Sedentary

So this weekend I was supposed to go to Austin for a fun-filled three days of debauchery and whatnot amidst the burnt orange. Instead, my wisdom teeth got all inflamed on Friday and I opted to stay home and lie on my couch bemoaning my fate.

And while I was bemoaning, I watched a bunch of movies. A quick recap of all that went down.

LotR : Return of the King - Wow, so the ending of this movie is even gayer than I remembered. Which is saying a whole lot, because I remembered it being insanely gay. Not that the movie doesn't kick 14 kinds of ass, because it does. But damn, really, really, very gay.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Okay, so these child actors cannot act at all. Some of those line readings physically hurt my brain more than my teeth. Still, not a bad movie, although the ending completely bugs me. Probably because I hate that Hagrid fellow with a passion. Stop applauding, you fools. He's incompetent. Oh well. The snake was pretty cool.

Center Stage - Okay, how much do I love this movie? Yeah, the dancing actors give worse line readings than those kids in Harry Potter. And the ending is the ludicrous and defies the laws of time and space. And they cast Peter Gallagher as a former great ballet dancer. But come on! Dance. What. You. Feel. So much over the top fun.

By late Saturday night, the pain in my teeth had subsided, so I went out to see a movie, you know, just to mix it up a little.

A Home at the End of the World - Man, I just don't know. The first third of the movie was so freaking awesome. (Highlighted by the fact that 15 minutes in two old couples bolted from the theatre, realizing that this movie contained *gasp* godless sodomites! Way to read the synopsis before you got in the theatre. Not.) The rest of the movie was still very good, but weird and sort of depressing. It made me sad in a way that a movie hasn't in a long time. Which says something good about it, I suppose. Plus it has some really funny lines and the story is all sorts of complex and interesting. I wish they had explained Sissy Spacek's character more, since she sort of got lost in the end.

Oh, and shut up Vulnerable and Sexy Colin Farrell. I have a very well defined hate-filled image of you and I don't need you screwing it up by playing wounded, sweet, hot guys in independent films. (This also applies equally to Subdued and Cute Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.) But if you want to make out, I guess I can make an exception.

Right, the movie.

So yeah, good but indescribably sad-making. (Especially at the end, when he actually makes a decision, and I was all "good for him, he finally did something for himself" and then I thought about it and realized that he didn't do it for himself, it was just more of the same, and then man was I depressed all over again.)

Aaaaanyways.

That was my weekend. Today I played video games and beat that stupid Mario game which has been haunting me for the past couple of weeks, read the paper, and plan on watching more TV as the day goes on. Damn if my life ain't as full as they come.