Being Single Sucks

There comes a time in a man's life when he must admit he has a problem and he seeks out help to overcome this. Lebanon, OH is not a target rich environment for an almost 30 single male, such as myself. Knowing that I needed help to meet women, I thought I'd pay my money to the devil (Dr. Phil) and see what came my way.

I used to wonder why people put up with being in relationships with someone who was really mean and controlling, but after some time under Dr. Phil's guidance, I now understand. There are some real wack jobs out there. I really wish The Miami Plan for Liberal Education has included a mandatory pyschology class or two. It may have saved me some time by helping to identify personality disorders early on. In case you are consdering paying the devil, here are some pictures from my match.com greatest hits collection:

I don't think there is anything abnormal whatsoever about this photo. I think lots of girls just happen to hang up some velour in their basement, put on a skanky Ms. Claus outfit, and have a brief photo session (if you look closely, you can see an obfuscated tattoo on her distal right shin).

Now, I don't know why you're wearing a cowboy hat and a ribbon that indicates you're the bachelorette in a match.com photo, but that's probably perfectly normal

This wouldn't be as odd if it wasn't the lone photo. I'm sure there is nothing she is trying to hide behind that delightful looking beverage and classy top hat.

Now, I can appreciate the blind melon bee girl allusion. I also must give this girl credit for putting a picture of herself dressed in such a manner on a web site--she clearly has balls. However, balls are not something I am looking for in a potential match :(

Opposites Attract

So this week has certainly taken a turn for the surreal. I typically try to avoid political discussions and run from anyone attempting to discuss politics, this week I am willing to make an exception. While I watched none of the democratic convention and do not plan to watch any of the republican convention either, I couldn't help but to ask myself, "WTF?!?!" upon reading each candidates selection for a running mate.

I think each candidate must have been smitten by Brooke White and her rendition of Love is a Battlefield, and were blasted with subliminal renderings of Paula Abdul's Opposites Attract. If one could come up with the most unlikely, most dissimilar running mate for Obama, I'm pretty sure this would be it:

As if this wasn't shocking enough news for one week, the sixth seal was opened on Friday by my personal hero, John McCain. While I can't recall a political candidate I've favored more than McCain, he clearly has bad teeth and hair. I'm willing to look past this and vote for any man who is willing to get into an altercation with a 92 year old Strom Thurmond. Below are six examples of why I plan to vote for John McCain:

1. Defending His Amnesty Bill, Sen. McCain Lost His Temper And “Screamed, ‘F*ck You!’ At Texas Sen. John Cornyn” (R-TX). McCain continues, ‘This is chickensh*t! You’ve always been against this bill, and you’re just trying to derail it.’

2. Sen. McCain called Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) An “A**hole”. At a GOP meeting, McCain erupted at Budget Committee chairman, Pete Domenici, saying, ‘Only an a-hole would put together a budget like this.’ He went on: ‘I wouldn’t call you an a-hole unless you really were an a-hole.’

3. Sen. McCain called Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) a “F*cking Jerk” during an altercation ‘Are you calling me stupid?’ Sen. Chuck Grassley replied. ‘No,’ replied McCain, ‘I’m calling you a f*cking jerk!’

4. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “You’re getting a little thin up there.” To which McCain responded, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c*nt!”

5. A former senator who requested anonymity recalled an exchange at a Republican policy lunch. McCain turned on another senator who disagreed with him. “McCain called the guy a ‘sh*thead.’ And when the Senator asked for an apology McCain retorted, ‘I apologize, but you’re still a sh*thead.’

6.

The Best Day Ever!

For those of you who have not met Abbey, she's pretty much the happiest dog ever. Today was the 942nd consecutive best day of her life. In commemoration of this event, I decided to spend the day with her to see what she does during the course of a day to make her so happy.

She started off this morning by waking up, getting out of her crate, going to the bathroom outside, then eating breakfast. This was followed up by relaxing in my bed while I was taking a shower.

After this, she spend some time in her small, round dog bed. She then got up, took a drink, and laid in front of a sunny window for a while. After this, she went back to her round bed. In order to avoid bed sores, she then got up and laid down in her flat, square bed. After this she went to her large, round bed in the kitchen, followed by laying in her crate, then back to her small, round bed, then back to the large round bed. After this she found a napkin on the coffee table, shredded it, went back to her small, round bed, then went back to her large, round bed--where she is presently. Good times.

Oh bla dee oh bla da

So, as a means to get out of the house, get totally ripped, and get to see women in tight clothing I've been attending EveryBODIES Bootcamp at Urban Active. There is a mix of people who attend this, but most fall into a few categories: insane fitness girls, normal girls, buff guys, creepy guys, old couples trying to get in shape together... A few weeks ago someone strolled into bootcamp with his own category. I don't know his real name, but there is something off about him--so I call him Corky.

Corky takes bootcamp very seriously. He almost always wear some sort of military themed, airbrushed t-shirt, sports the crew cut, carries his items to the gym in a US marked camo buttpack, and goes hog wild when we do mountain climbers. A couple classes ago we were doing 'parachute runs'. During this exercise, one person loops a rubber band with handles around themselves and a partner runs behind them, pulling, to create resistance. I think mostly because of the mud episode, but possibly also due to my lack of coordiation, the fitness instructor paired me up with Corky. Now you might not know it to look at him, but Corky can run like the wind. I really had to struggle to keep up, to avoid the waterskiing home video of someone being dragged behind the boat image that kept playing in my mind. Being dragged behind Corky on the sidewalk could have really impacted my career as a male model.

Last night at class, Corky broke out a move that had everyone in the class laughing/impressed. We were doing a series of three lunges, and after the third we did a small jump up into the air. Corky decided gravity was a week opponent, so he strayed from the standard Jazzerise move and while jumping insanely high, did the splits and was able to touch his feet with his hands. Now say what you want about mentally disabled people, but with moves like that I don't think Corky is spending his evening watching a woot off.

From the halls of Urban Active to the shores of the Great Miami

There are certain skills that a normal person aquires during their childhood, which for some reason or another I never mastered. While I can repair a watch, teach people to ski and row, or work some mojo with t-sql... sadly, I never learned to hula hoop or jump rope :( While this has impacted my professional career several times, today my weaknesses were exposed in a social setting. I was attending my EverBODIES Bootcamp class at Urban Active, when the instructor set up stations. At one of the stations was the dreaded ropes. I tried my best, but for two minutes the focus of the entire class was on me and my inability to jump rope :(

This was not the worst of tonight's bootcamp, however. On Tuesday of this week I went for a row in Hamilton. The river had dropped since the last time a boat was launched so we had to push the floating dock further out into the river. While pushing the dock out I got quite a bit of river mud on my shoes. I had forgotten about this until I happened to noticed a muddy footprint on the fitness instructor's pants. I recognized the tread pattern as being from my shoe, but did not remember stepping on her. I then looked around and noticed there were bits of mud scattered all across the hardwood floor of the classroom. What's worse, nearly everyone in the class had Great Miami River mud marks on their clothes. It was as if Pig Pen from Charlie Brown was in the class. Who knows how many people I accidentally infected with Hepatitis A, B, and or C :(

P.S. I Love You P.P.S But not when you're pretending to be a dude!

So evidently someone has hacked my netflix account and has added a bunch of girly movies to my queue. I bet it's the same person who hacked my iTunes account and downloaded all of that Belinda Carlisle.

So I found myself forced to watch P.S. I Love You, mostly just to test out my new tv and HD upconverting home theatre.

Then yesterday I was chain saw shopping at Home Depot when someone must have hit me with chloroform. I blacked out and when I came to, rather than having a chainsaw somehow I wound up with my own copy of P.S. I Love You. This madness has got to stop.

So while I was watching it again, I happened to think to myself that Hilary Swank is pretty hot. I check out imdb to see what other movies she was in. I was expecting to see more pictures of her looking like this:

Little did I know that the Swanksta had a less flattering role in the movie Boys Don't Cry:



I'm really not feeling Hilary anymore. For a while I was seeing someone who had a picture of herself and a friend on her refrigerator. The picture was from some sort of costume party where they went as Sonny and Cher--she was Sonny. It's really difficult to be attracted to someone when in the back of your mind you're seeing them dressed up as a man; let alone Sonny Bono. The only thing I can think of that may be worse would be dressed up as Billy Crystal or maybe Larry the Cable Guy... blech!

Adventures in Speed Dating - The Musical

Here is a play by play of my most recent (3rd) speed dating episode. I consider it the most successful to date.

Girl 1: I don't remember what she did for a living. Works in Norwood and lives in Crescent Springs. She grew up in West Chester, went to OU and was pretty promising.

Girl 2: Blonde and probably too thick for me. Also lives in Crescent Springs and had lived her whole life in N. KY. She laughed a lot and it was a really annoying laugh. Nothing too interesting about her.

Girl 3: The highlight of this came towards the end when I asked what she did for a living and she told me she was a school psychologist. I asked if she was picking up on some abandonment issues or a little Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. She found this hilarious and laughed into the first 10 seconds or so with the next guy.

Girl 4: There weren't enough girls to go around, so I had a bye with some other dude. Girl 4 joined up with a few minutes to go. She had on a shirt that read 'Cincinnati Eye Bank'. I made a comment that I was thinking about depositing my eyes into a savings account and trying to draw some interest—she didn't find it nearly as funny as I. I then asked what she did for a living and she replied that she harvests eyes. I asked if she used a melon baller type instrument and she informed me that this was a common misconception. At this point in time the conversation was then taken over by the other guy, who I've dubbed Rusty Grinder. He told her that he frequently gets metal in his eyes while at work (grinding rusty metal). He typically removes it with a magnet. She informed him that was really bad to do and he should go see a Dr. when that happens. He then told the story of how he had a particularly large fragment of rusty metal embedded into his eye that the magnet trick wouldn't work on. He went to a physician who then drilled out the piece of rusty metal. Rusty then attempted to make this story into a catharsis talking about how many things he took for granted before this experience and how it changed his life. He then elated praise towards those in the eye care industry. My expression changed from 'what the hell is wrong with you?' to her and then back to 'what the hell is wrong with you?' to him.

Girl 5: A Mercy graduate. She also attended St. Catherine's grade school. I told her I couldn't remember where St. Catherine's was, and she said Westwood. She grew up there but now resides in Delhi. I started to make the comment of 'well, I guess you've moved up a little bit' but decided to bite my tongue.

Girl 6: A CPA who resides in Middletown. I asked her if she worked for one of the big 5 (not sure if there still are 5). She replied no, at which point I thanked her for her time and told her that I think I have all of the information I need to make my decision. I guess she thought I was kidding as she then asked what I do for a living. I told her, 'computer stuff'. She said, 'ooh! I just bought a laptop' I responded that I couldn't really help her with that, as most of the work I do is server based. She replied, 'Oh no! That's not what I was asking for.' I then told her that periodically a friend will call me and tell me that they think they have a virus, at which point I explain to them that I don't really do that type of work. CPA girl then said, 'Yeah, tell her to get some antibiotics.' I then clarified that I was talking about a computer virus rather than a pathogen. I didn't see the need to point out that antibiotics are typically only effective against bacterial infections and not viruses.

Girl 7: I had my eye on this girl from the start, pretty cute, pretty short. Turns out she's 4'9', deaf, and a dietician at a hospital. While she could make out what I was saying without issue (perhaps a lip reader or coclear implants?) her speech was very difficult to understand. It took four tries for me to comprehend 'if you had a one year paid sabbatical, what would you do?' She was nice, and so far the only girl to select me as a match.

Girl 8: Kelli. Short, cute, kind of thick—I liked her. She had a wine glass, and I think perhaps they must have been offering free refills. She made a face and I think she actually said, 'eeeg!' when I told her I live in Lebanon. After telling her I grew up on the west side, she asked where and said she was very familiar with Western Hills—her father was a manager of Johnny's Toys. I then told her of how growing up somehow I was signed up for the birthday castle but my parents would never drive us to pick up toys. Once the Johnny's toys opened up near us, I took my stack of keys and was able to raid the castle (maybe not my best material). After the final bell rang, we remained seated. To verify the evening was over she said that all guys should have met 8 girls. She yelled out, 'I met 8 girls!'. After the coordinator finished thanking everyone for attending, Kelli said, 'I need chocolate!'. She then walked over to the dessert fondue pot. While she didn't drop in strawberries and bob for them, it was very similar to watch.

Good times.