Contagious Band-Aid Face

Um, yeah, so those of you (or both of you) who read this blog may be aware that I had a tough week last week. I did, it's true. And it has to do with a few things, I think. First of all, I didn't see any boobies all week. I didn't see boobies until the weekend had technically started.

Strike one.

I also decided I needed to take a little break from drinking last week. I have been drinking a lot lately - as in I cashed three big bottles of vodka at home, solo, in two weeks; not including weekends (I know, I know, nice life dude) - and I felt like the best thing for my stomach would be to take a solid week off of the hooch. You see back in May I was diagnosed with several bleeding stomach ulcers. So the whole drinking thing is kind of... Well, I don't need to be drinking multiple liters of vodka per week. Let's just say that.

Oh, the ulcer thing? No big whoop. I had these weird pains that felt like hunger pangs or indigestion for a few weeks. Then they turned into a light stabbing pain for a few weeks, and for another three weeks or so I had severe, sharp stabbing pains for most of the day that would leave me doubled over, gritting my teeth and clutching my side for almost my entire waking day. What did the doctor say? Pffffftttt, what kind of self respecting man goes to a doctor for a little stomach cramp? Not me, that's who. Until five of my friends tried to pick me up off of my bed (where I was gripped with pain and holding my stomach with my teeth tightly clenched) and put me into a car to go to the emergency room.

In Brooklyn.

For a stomachache.

Needless to say, I did not go to the emergency room that day. I had to promise my friends that I'd to go to the doctor the very next day though. My physician happens to be a stomach specialist (that's a gastroenterologist for all you non-laypeople out there, since I'm sure there are at least a few doctors who read this), so he scoped it with a tiny camera snake and told me, "it looks like a war zone down there."

Sweet. Thanks doc. That's exactly the kind of reassuring statement I was looking for.

The ulcer was perhaps due to my mild (excessive), recreational (habitual), infrequent (daily) use (abuse) of alcohol (by the way, are you guys aware that drinking 6-10 beers a day and maybe more on weekends, constitutes drinking "a lot"? I know! I was just as shocked). Other contributing factors may have included drugs (check!), stress (girlfriend troubles were just starting around this time), and diet (I gained like 50 pounds in my first 6 months in NYC by eating Thai food and pizza everyday. Apparently fairly acidic foods. Who knew?).

But I got off topic a wee bit here. So, last week, riiiigggghhhtt...

In addition to not drinking all week (I picked the wrong week to stop drinking), I had a cyst spring up under my ear.

Strike two.

Jesus H this is getting to be like a medical history report, eh? Sorry, but this is my life right now.

For those of you who have never had a cyst right there on your face, it feels like a white hot poker searing into the soft, sensitive skin right where your face meets your ear, only with more pressure from the inside and even more painful than you are imagining it to be right now. Seriously. The little fucker went from non-existent to about the size of a softball (not really) in like a day. A Saturday. Remember how I said I wasn't into emergency rooms in Brooklyn? Yeah, well try and go see a doctor on a Sunday. I waited until Monday to see my doctor who had to cut the bastard cyst open to drain it (still hungry?). And believe it or not: That. Shit. Hurt.

A lot.

Strike three.

So Monday I dealt with that. By the time I made it home from my doc's office which is way uptown, I was very out of it from the pain killers (the sweet, sweet painkillers). I had like 40 emails to deal with and had to spend my afternoon working from home, trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about. Not so much.

Tuesday I was extremely busy after missing most of my day with the face-infection from hell; I played catch up and tried all day not to enjoy, er, eat any of the painkillers as I again needed to sound like I knew what the fuck I was talking about. Which is hard enough as it is when you can barely construct basic sentences in English. I made it through Tuesday only popping pills towards the end of my day. Fine. But now I hadn't been to the gym in a few days which Uncle Ebenezer doesn't feel good about doing (or not doing, as it were).

Meanwhile my jerk off roommate who works from home as a clothing reseller or some sketchy shit was in Brazil relaxing on the beach with his girlfriend, drinking coconut drinks and probably humping in the sand laughing about how lame it would be to have a cyst on your face and to not be on the beach in Brazil in November. Being the stand up guy that I am I said (before Hell Week started) that I would take care of processing, packaging and shipping some orders for him while he was away. So I had that to look forward to every night when I got home, swollen face and all. More work.

Wednesday I had an awesome surprise meeting with an agency I just started working with and instead of being the one or two dudes I thought I was meeting with, I got to meet an entire team of people and give (an impromptu) presentation that I didn't know I was giving. With a fucking bandage on my face.

Awesome.

Thursday. Oh man, Thursday was great. On Thursday I overslept - like WAY overslept and rolled into the office pretty (read: really) late. (I was in one of those funk moods too right from the giddy-up and it took me like a week to decide what to wear - sweater vest or no sweater vest? I went with the vest, this turned out to be a decision that would haunt me later.) Which isn't too abnormal for me, but I was LATE, late this day, my friends. About three minutes after I sat down at my desk I decided nope, no sweater vest (Indecision is going to be the name of the movie they make about me after my trial, conviction and imprisonment). In removing my stupid, green sweater vest that took me, no shit, fifteen minutes to decide whether or not to wear out of my house I pulled out the stitches in my face.

Let me repeat that. I pulled the stitches out of the extremely painful wound on my face with my sweater.

Awesome. I don't know about you, but I love bleeding at work and having people say, "oh man, are you okay? Are you sure? You're bleeding."

I gave up at that point. In addition to having an already overloaded week, full of business (ha - that was supposed to sound like 'busy-ness', I am so having a lexiconal epiphany right now, wow) and being overloaded with work I was fortunate enough to deal with the painful fucking cyst/open wound on my face, working through the day on or jonesing for painkillers (I still am by the way, so if you have some email me. I ran out), walking around with a swollen face and bandages/band-aid on my face (not in a cool way like Nelly either, more of an overlapping the bottom of the ear and onto the cheek kind of look - so not hot). As well, some shit kind of hit the fan at work at the end of the day on Thursday. (I'm not getting into work details on here because I already got fired from a job for going on TV and talking about humping that midget in the elevator at my old job.) Let's leave it at: Things went bad with business towards the end of the day.

I swear to you it was the closest I have ever been to actually crying at work. Ever. Horrible week. And it was only Thursday.

And still no drinking. Why I did that to myself, I have no idea.

Strikes four, fi- fuck it. Ballgame.

Friday wasn't actually that bad. We did a pot-luck thing for Thanksgiving at work; tons of food, relaxed kind of day, lots of desserts after not being in the gym all week. Solid day. I hit the gym after work (for only the second time in a week), went home, saw some boobies, watched a movie and went to bed pretty early. I stayed horizontal for most of the weekend. Seriously, I said I was going to sleep all weekend and forget my week and I did. Saturday I was horizontal on my great futon couch and watched college football all day. I did not even open the door of my apartment. The biggest distances I covered the entire day were from the bedroom to the couch, and from the couch to the bathroom. The most effort I put into my whole day was making myself breakfast (toast) and hitting the jump button on the remote to go back and forth from football games.

(Oh, did anyone see Oklahoma slap the pants off of Texas Tech? Wow. Why even bother leaving Lubbock guys?)

Sunday, my friend Joey made a big pot of sauce and homemade meatballs and we watched NFL all day and ate a great dinner to finish off the weekend. Something about Sunday and a big Italian meal just makes everything better, no? Plus, you know, Entourage on Sunday nights is always good.

This week is shaping up to be better so far. We got a short week, a holiday to look forward to and to be thankful for and all that shit, and more importantly my face is feeling much better. I am still dealing with the fallout from Thursday work-wise, but at this point I just want to find any resolution, and I think that will happen today.

This past week has helped to put things in perspective for me though. I am much more appreciative of not having four shitty days in a row - or for even just having one good day. The weekend was the most relaxing one I have had in a while, because I (successfully) tried to make it that way.

And most of all, I have learned to be much more careful when removing my sweater.

...That's what she said!

(I couldn't help myself )

Somebody Loves Me

Not too terribly long ago RB (Wicked Witch of the Web) tagged me with an award/meme thing of sorts. Now, I mentioned previously that she either was manipulated by me into thinking I am much more awesome than I actually am (I got another one!), or she is equally as immature as I am and has such tawdry and questionable taste that she actually does like this blog. Whatever the case may be, I am honored that she found me worthy of it and I would like to take this opportunity to say: I am way better than all of you who did not get the award.

Oh snap!

(I hate when people say that)

Before I get into the meme/award part of this I just want to mention Barack and Michelle Obama’s appearance on 60 Minutes the other night. Barack was, as usual, very candid. He was poignant and well spoken; he was humble and spoke with a sense of purpose about hitting the ground running when he takes office and starting to make the change happen. He touched on overturning some of Bush’s executive orders with executive orders of his own. He also mentioned he has been reading and trying to draw wisdom and inspiration from presidents like Lincoln and FDR (think Bush read much of either of those two?). This is an inspiring fellow who we should all still feel proud about electing President.

But what made an even bigger impression on me was the interaction between Barack and Michelle Obama. We've all seen Barack speak many times in the past two years, but I haven't seen a great deal of the two of them sitting together and interacting. They seem like such an amazing couple, such a strong couple. I would love to hang out with the two of them. First of all, she is a brilliant woman who seems as dedicated as her husband to truly affecting a positive change in the world. Everyone knows she is exceptionally intelligent, but in addition to being a strong, astute, smart and opinionated woman, she is also funny as hell. She was giving Barack a hard time and even sort of breaking his balls a little bit for fun. I think she is just great.

And now onto the award (I'm going with award here, it makes me feel like I accomplished something). The way it works is that I mention six blogs I like and six things I like.

I’ll start with the blogs.

1) Everything is Wrong With Me. This is the blog that started it all for me. It’s the first blog I ever read regularly and as far as I’m concerned, this is the funniest website on the whole damn interweb. If you don’t already read this blog, you should start now. I stumbled upon this blog when I trimmed my chest hair. I didn't shave it or anything weird (What? It's too late to not be weird?) I simply trimmed it when the hair from my chest began to tickle my chin. Well that shit itched like crazy for days after the manscaping debacle. I got nervous about what I had done to myself and Googled something like, "Chest hair trimmed, extremely itchy." This blog came up. I laughed so hard reading it that I almost cried.

2) Surviving Myself. A well-written, hilarious blog that is funny, judgmental and pretty blunt. He gets right down to the point: He is more awesomer than you. Good stuff.

3) Your Beard is Good. An anything but normal blog that is both hilarious and down for the cause. If that cause is being funny and/or donating money lately for every comment to help fight Leukemia.

4) Redacted. In just the past month alone this guy has written about math, Jean-Claude Van Damme, sex and bacon-wrapped steak. Plus it makes me laugh. A lot. I even LOL'ed in my pants the other day reading it. Go there. Now.

5) Cajun Boy in the City. A great blog about politics and tons of other random funny shit. As well, it gets updated like 5 times a day, so you can read it several times throughout your work day instead of doing whatever it is you should be doing.

6) A Blog of a Good Time. An absolutely ridiculous blog about all things fun. She is comical, convivial and back-slappingly hilarious. Plus, at least once a week you're guaranteed survival tips and some nonsense. However, she just kind of broke up with us because stupid grad school is taking too much time lately. Her triumphant return to regularly scheduled awesomeness is something we can all look forward to together now.

Honorable mentions go to all the blogs I have listed on my page (that's why they're there), they are all great, but I was only allowed to list 6 here.

Six things I like:

1) Music.

Music is one of my biggest passions in life. As some of you know, I spent many years of my life following Phish around the country and seeing live music almost every night, both Phish and other bands (in between Phish tours). I have since expanded my musical tastes, but nothing makes me feel like good music makes me feel. We all know that feeling that a song can invoke in you. And that feeling can be so dynamic - how hearing a song in a different place or time or context can create something really special inside of you or among you and other people. Music can be the soundtrack to your life, the support you need in tough times, and it can be the often unrecognized addition to a moment that makes that moment or the memory of it that much better.

Playing music is one of the few things that can make your brain shut off. In a good way. It is like meditation in that you become so in the moment, you stop thinking about all the stuff that normally clogs your thoughts. It's a way to really channel the moment and truly experience the moment for the now, for what it is. Another one of those things for me is skiing...

(How's that for a segueway?)

2) Skiing.

I grew up a skier. My uncle has lived in Taos, NM since before I was born and my family and I would spend a few weeks a year skiing there ever since I was born. Taos, by the way, is one of the steepest, most shredtastic mountains in the US. I started skiing there when I was two years old; as soon as I could walk, I could ski. I was a ski racer in Minneapolis when I was growing up, until I was a teenager and got too cool to continue to do so (there is something about wearing a one-piece, spandex GS racing suit when you're 15 that just doesn't scream to the world, "I'm cool and rebellious!").

In college in Portland, Oregon I worked in a ski shop and shredded the gnar at Mt. Hood, where I got my first sponsor. I moved from Portland to a tiny little ski town in Colorado and was an extreme skier/ski bum there for about 4 or 5 years before I got hurt, got fat and moved to NYC for a "real" job after finishing school. I would ski super gnarly terrain daily - steep, tight chutes, trees, and would spend as much time as possible throwing myself off of cliffs. There is something really cool about scaring yourself.

(See how much more you know about me after reading just those last two?)

3) Sleep.

Man do I love to sleep. If I could, I would sleep 16 hours a night and stay in bed until sometime between 10am-2pm everyday. I love that feeling of waking up in the morning (afternoon) and saying, "fuck it" and stretching out, pulling the covers up to my face and then staying in bed.

Conversely, I hate waking up. I am, however, sometimes willing to get up early for something really cool - like a backcountry ski tour, or for fresh powder, or for boobies. But I love to stay in bed and sleep, sleep, sleep. How can I be that tired all the time? I have no idea. Maybe I'm not. I just enjoy sleeping that much. I am actually going to take a nap right now. Well, no, I'm not, but I do love me some sleep.

4) Boobies.

Truth be told, I am a fan of a very nice ass as well, maybe even more so than boobies. I don't discriminate.

5) My friends.

You know how everyone says, "I have the best friends in the world"? Well, they don't. Because I do. My friends would gladly slap me just to see me cry and then laugh at me (what?). Most of my friends are those people I traveled around the country seeing music and partying with. Many of us live here now, in NYC, and we see each other a lot. But even for those of us who don't get to see each other much, when we do get to hang it's like we never missed a beat. We are all very close with one another and we are always there for one another - no matter what. More importantly, they are the funniest, most outlandish, wild, sarcastic, fun and utterly ridiculous motley crew of hooligans ever. They fucking rule.

6) Bacon.

Holy shit. I could eat bacon everyday for the rest of my life. Bacon is the essence of all things good and right in the world. I could add bacon to anything (bacon milkshakes anyone?). I think that bacon-wrapped anything is like adding an orgasm to a state of nirvana. I truly believe that bacon is made from magic. Not magical pigs, magic.

So there you have it - six blogs and six things I like. These lists were actually pretty difficult to put together. I could easily have come up with a less serious list that would have been less mature and more fun to read, but I felt like it was time to let you know a little bit about me (do you feel like you really know me now? I know, it's frightening for me too).

In listing those six blogs, I feel like I left out some really important people/blogs that I read everyday and that I love. So, if you feel like you should be on that list and you're not, well, you're probably right. Sorry. There are just so many great blogs out there that I went with the ones I have been reading for the longest amount of time. I still love you all.

I'm going to go make a bacon milkshake now.

Halloweenies

Yesterday was my birthday. We ended up going out to dinner after all at one of my favorite spots, Noodle Pudding. there were 8 of us in all and we had a great time. I am nursing a bit of a hangover today resulting from the mandatory 19 bottles of birthday dinner wine. But...


Today is Halloween.


Or as I like to call it "everyone gets drunk and chicks dress up really slutty" night.


I love this night. A whole night where women dress up as slutty everythings - slutty nurses, slutty teachers, slutty ghostbusters (yes, I've seen it), whatever - well that just rules. Which leads me to point out something I feel obligated to address that bothers me to no end.

Why on earth does it happen every year that, around this time, when girls are getting geared up to get dressed up even sluttier than normal and go out and actually act slutty, people start asking, "how come all the girls dress up so slutty every year? What's that about?"

Dude, what in the Fucking Christ is wrong with you people? Why in the name of all that is holy would you want to send some girl, who is planning to show me her tatas all night, questioning why she would do such a thing? I mean, what if when you ask, she starts to think about it? (we all know how dangerous women who think can be) And what if, god forbid, she thinks about it hard enough to decide she doesn't want to dress up slutty because the urge to dress slutty is only really about an issue with her low self-esteem related to her childhood issues with her dad and also that one time in college with that one guy and that maybe now she doesn't even think she wants to come home with me and listen to Air Supply or Lionel Richie (seriously baby, I have scented candles too) after the Halloween party?


Why?


Why would you do that?


Can't you leave well enough alone and just go with it?


We are talking about potentially seeing boobies and short skirts here. Those things are good. There is a (slutty) balance in the force. Do not upset this balance or you will suffer the furious wrath of my ninja fists to your neck. You've been warned. Enough with the questions.