Urinetown

Anyone else ever have to take a drug test? I guess some of us have taken them for school athletics but those usually involve someone coming to the school to take your sample or you going to a nice, sterile doctor's office (and yes, I know, sterile is not really an appropriate word to use when describing a doctor's office but I hope they at least try).

Well, apparently if you have to take them for an employer (or in my case, a client), you have to go to a special little drug test place. And when I say special, I mean nasty little building somewhere in the ghetto. Okay, nasty is a little harsh but when you force a germaphobe to go to a place of business who's primary purpose is to have it's clients piss in a cup (but only up to the white line, and don't flush the toilet when you are done and DON'T wash your hands while you are in the bathroom), it can get ugly!!! So if rule number 3 is don't wash your hands that means NO ONE ELSE washed their hands after filling up to the white line!!! Well I filled up to the white line and then had a lot more fillin' that I needed to do but really just couldn't be comfortable with having the woman standing outside come in and check out my pee before flushing it herself. So I squeezed it off and zipped up so the pain in my bladder the whole way home was enough to take my mind off that fact that NO ONE WASHED THERE HANDS AT THAT FREAKIN' PLACE!!!

So we took the boat out. . .

So Terrance and I took our boat out on it's maiden voyage a couple of weeks ago in Temple. Temple, TX really doesn't have much to speak of but this summer I learned that it had a great river just west of town with a boat ramp. We started with a picnic by to water and discussed how nice it would be to have a boat to navigate the river in. After a little more discussion, we broke down and bought ourselves a boat. Now it was several weeks before we had a chance to actually take it out on the water and I was so excited to finally get to do it.

Now I had wanted to air up the boat at home but Terrance wanted to wait until we got to the water. Oh, did I mention that our boat was actually a Coleman 2-man inflatable boat? We pulled up to the boat dock on what happened to be a busy day. There were several trailers already in the parking lot and more arriving after us. We hooked up the little air pump up to our deflated boat and tried to ignor the stares of those around us who had brought real boats. Terrance tried to hide behind the car using the premise of assembling the oars as an excuse but I exposed him and guilted him into coming out into the open for all to see. After finally getting the thing all aired up, we trucked it down to the water and stumbled into the thing. This is about the time we learned "2-man" boat really meant that you could fit two men in it but really was only meant for one. The embarrassment that started with the noisy air pump continued with the two guys stuffed in the inflatable boat desperately trying to paddle across the river and have very little success.

We quickly gave up on the paddling and just floated around, trying to avoid those boats with actual motors that were passing us. We regretted not bringing a cooler of beer with us (where we would have put it, who knows). Now on the way back to shore, Terrance got the bright idea to get into the water and swim around. I joined him and we swam toward the shore towing the boat behind us. When we got about three feet from land, we both noticed the little water snake bobbing around in the water nice in front of us. As you can guess, the two of us freaked out and hilariously scrambled to get back into the little raft. I'm sure the snake was laughing at us just like the two families waiting along the shore were.

As we climbed out of the water, we finally accepted our place in the boating community and proudly carried our prized boat back to the car.

"It's my bachelorette party AND my baby shower!"

That was the toast for each shot taken on Friday.
And before you call child protective services, I think it was only a joke. This weekend brought my lifelong bud Tami to the Big D for her Bachelorette party originally scheduled for New Orleans but I think they were having problems with the hotel there.

So anyway, Tami called to tell me that she was bringing her wild and crazy girl group and heading to my city where she expected me to go out at least one night with them. So I called in Terrance for a little back up and planned to meet them for dinner on Friday.

Not to go into too much detail, but the highlights of Friday night included lots of alcohol, the required toast for every shot (see title to post), Tami ending up with some random guy's boxer briefs that then ended up on Cele's head, lots more alcohol and a hazy cab ride home to remove my dinner and drinks from the evening before making it to bed.

Saturday was spent recovering from Friday (the headache went away eventually), changing out the standard apartment vertical blinds in my living room with some Roman blinds and some football. The bachelorette monster roared it's ugly head again on Saturday night just as my hangover cleared up. They were heading to Cedar Springs, the Dallas gay district, for a drag show and some clubbing. The highlight of this night would have to be Cele's new girlfriend, the 50 year old woman, who hung out with her ALL night and bought her lots of drinks. Also of note, the most straight looking gay guy ever getting WAY too hot and heavy with Tami's gay coworker. Side note: What's the deal with drag shows, I just don't get the appeal?

Fun was had by most (one girl remained in bed for the rest of the weekend following the Friday night festivities. Congrats to Tami and here's to much more fun even after the ball and chain is locked on next month.

New York: A Look Back

Today marks the week anniversary of the our return from Metropolis so I felt it would also be a fitting time to look back at all of the memories and share a few of the highlights. (side note: yesterday marked the anniversary of the attack on that great city and our country. thoughts, prayers and little moments of reflections go out for those who lost their lives or their family members that day. same goes for those working each day to protect us and other parts of the world from something similar in the future- glad to get your email this morning Brandon.)

So this New York trip came somewhat out of the blue when one member of the tribe ended up with an airline credit that was burning holes in the designer jeans it was resting in. Somehow the idea spread and another three tickets were purchased along with a hotel but the planning stopped there. No theatre tickets were bought, no tourist sights were researched. Everyone fell back into a busy work schedule and had to deal with moving into new apartments.

It was looking really bad the night before the flight when one member of the tour group checked out do to illness and I ended up with only two hours of sleep. But as the two of us departing from Dallas arrived with plenty of time to make our 7:40 am flight and got a decent nap on the plane, things began looking up as we met up with our third buddy and ventured out into the Big Apple, all in coordinating green shirts.

[Note: originally provided detailed outline of trip but realized even my mom wouldn't sit long enough to read it so I will change it to only include my personal highlights]

So this was my fourth trip to New York, and as with DC, I am starting to feel more like a visitor than a tourist. I know the basic lay out of the city and have visited the popular sights, what four times now?

First day included celebrity sighting by MP (this merited walking an extra block out of the way for her even though she had been gracefully commenting on the large amount of walking we were already doing doing). Celebrity sighted was one Annette Benning on the east side of Central Park along 5th Ave., complete with freaky bleached and spiked hair. Not to be out done, I spotted the lead singer to Go Go Dolls walking in SOHO on Sunday (and strangely enough, his hair looked remarkably similar to Annette's). While this sighting was not shared by my tour buddies, I've sticking to it. Friday night involved dancing at Red Lion on Bleeker Street. This was a fun little place with a great cover band and beautiful people (some I tried to persuade my single tour mate to flirt with to no avail).

Saturday gets a little hazy but our evening plans involved donating a kidney and promising to send our first born to get tickets to the sold out Wicked. Now I'm not sure, but I think Wicked was somehow written as a political satire with the wizard representing President Bush and Elphaba, the witch representing either the people of New Orleans (who President Bush doesn't "care about") or the country of Iraq. Anyway, the musical was excellent (seeing them in the theatre of New York makes a good show about 100 times better)! Afterwards, we took a bike taxi (and nearly died about ten times as the peddler hurled his little bike cart in front of moving traffic expecting them to stop) to dinner where we found a wonderful piano singer and a huge painting of a naked woman.

Sunday afternoon finds us in China Town (aka: boring fake purse street). While following my two traveling companions through these stores, they wander into a back room and a door/portion of the wall shuts in front of me. After about ten minutes of me imagining the two of them being sold into the Asian sex trade, they each emerge with designer handbags. They try to explain how great the stitching is on them. . .blah blah blah. . .I end up with a new pair of puma shoes (not supposed to be fake) and we head away. We later meet up with Canadian blog inspiration friend and her friend at a rooftop bar. We had a great time learning about the Kibbleses and about the awesome Brazil festival we all missed right outside our hotel. Big thanks and a howdy ya'll to Kim and Mike for hanging out with "the Texans."

Sometime that night at that club, a certain fashion conscience member of our traveling circus realized that true fashion innovation isn't coping the latest high priced trends carried at "her store," but creating your own individual look and carrying yourself in it no matter how it looks to others (I predict this revaluation has faded).

Final day involved DC team member disappearing into the hazy morning to catch an earlier flight, an early jog for those of us remaining (no Today show, THANK GOD) and lots more walking until collapsing of exhaustion, heading to the airport and flying off into the sunset.

In conclusion, I think that for my future visits to NYC, I will try to say with locals so I can get to know another side of the city. This of course will require me to befriend some locals (I tried to nudge my flight companion to help me with this on our return flight. She had the middle seat and was lucky enough to have an attractive young guy in the window seat. While listening in on his cell phone conversation while boarding, I learned that he is closing on a condo in Manhattan but will be traveling to Dallas every week for the next couple of months. Well, my traveling buddy did not see the same potential in our row mate and refused to flirt. We're going to have to work on that because now I still have no New York hook up.

No no to Nano

So as a birthday gift to myself, I had decided last week that I would buy myself an iPod mini (at first, I spelled it I-pod. Tells you how far behind I am). Beginning with the tease from kimmmm and her friend Cassie, I started leaning to the new teeny iPod nano.

I was over the top convinced when I asked a little group of Apple employees at the Apple store which I might be better suited to own, mini or nano. After an intense two minutes of the four employees arguing among themselves about flash drives or some other such nonsense, the girl I had originally asked turned to me giggling, "whoa, we just got in a nerd debate there." Once I broke her away from the other members of the geek squad she excitedly covered all the cool features showing pictures and songs on the color screens of the EIGHT nanos they had on display. Not to stop her too quickly amid her giddy ramblings but I was convicted I had to have it so I broke in with "I'll take it!" At this she paused, looked at me a little confused and said, "But we're out."

I WANT IT, I WANT IT, I WANT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She doesn't know when they will get any more in. Same story at another Apple store, Best Buy and CompUSA (where the manager told me he wishes he could get a hundred more cause he could sell them all). Bastards are hyping it up and I'm buying into it!!!! . . . .and why did they need EIGHT on display. . .one of those could have been mine!

(poll: when they are available, white or black? discuss among yourselves)

yuck!

worked late tonight, yuck. . . and in other news, my roomy was blasting her new "Wicked: the Musical" soundtrack last night so I can't get that damn "Emerald City" song out of my head!

So, after reading a certain Canadian friend's blog for a few weeks, I've decided to try this whole thing out myself. Maybe its a little naive or a little arrogant but as you guys grow up and move to far away places like DC, Florida and North Dallas, we have lost touch so I thought maybe this would be a small way for you guys to see inside this crazy, screwed up head of mine.

Now remember, this is only a trial period so don't expect anything wonderful out of me (especially out of my writing. . .but you all know that already). To start off my posting, I have gone and shop lifted an idea from my Canadian friend mentioned above. To celebrate (or mourn) my impending 26th birthday (that's right people, its this Saturday so get those e-cards ready) I have made a list of 25 things I've learned in my 25 years:

1. Fate/Karma DOES exist!
2. Sometimes, sitting on the couch alone all weekend watching E! or a Real World marathon can be the best thing in the world.
3. Arrogant people suck!
4. When you start a relationship just to have fun, it never ends that way.
5. When you work 14 hour days regularly, you start to wonder why those who work 40 hour weeks don't go get a FULL time job.
6. Grandparents are priceless
7. The phrase "I'm never drinking again" means never, or until the hang over clears up, which ever comes first.
8. He who insults others actually just has low self-esteem and is trying to make himself feel better. Either that or the guy he's insulting really IS a huge prick and deserves it!!!
9. After seeing the musical "Jesus Christ: Superstar," I finally understand why the Christians hate the gays. If they can take the most important story out of the Bible and turn it into that awful musical, the downfall of all civilization is within their grasp!
10. Rachel Green is the worst mother in the world! (well, except maybe for that woman who drowned her children because Satan told her to do it)
11. People of our generation often define the members of their Urban Tribe by cast members of "Friends" (as I was reminded again this past weekend). So who's your Rachel?
12. Golf really is worthly of being called a sport!
13. Sometimes, sitting on the couch alone all weekend watching E! or a Real World marathon can be the most depressing thing in the world.
14. The suburbs scare me . . .actually, PEOPLE scare me!!!
15. Religion needs to be a personal thing, not what some old guy tells you that an old book is telling you.
16. Money doesn't buy class.
17. Never wear your Aggie ring in a snow ball fight when you are not wearing gloves.
18. Traveling is only one way to see the world.
19. Coudersport, PA is really just Hell with a nice view.
20. Don't talk politics if you haven't done your research.
21. E-mail break ups don't count.
22. Being called Small Town shouldn't be taken as an insult.
23. Just because a city is a great place to visit doesn't mean it's a great place to live.
24. Never put your face up to a door when there is an unstable, over-reactive person on the other side trying to open the door.
25. The best way to make life-long friends involves a little bit of dinner, a lot of Gin, some top less table dancing and that obligatory trip to the emergency room for alcohol poisoning.