Kid Stories

So here we are, Sunday evening, and like you, I’m excited to see who’s gonna pull out the “Best Sound Design for a Puppet-Based Indie Porno” Oscar tonight. Or maybe your furrowed brow and sweaty palms are due to praying for your favorite in the “Best Key Grip in a Steve Harvey Movie” Oscar? Whatever the case may be, it’s actually one of my least favorite awards shows, since it’s not terribly fun to watch people you’ve never heard of be shuttled offstage by “Crazy Conductor Man”. I’d much rather see Conductor Man try to usher 50 Cent off the stage, only to have 50 pull out a gun and dive into the orchestra pit.

So I’ll be watching, sporadically, but really, only for the first and last 15 minutes of the show. Inexplicably, they front load the show with Best Supporting Actor and Actress Awards, only to delve into approximately 6 hours of “Best Use of A Mug” and “Best Attempt to Play a Scene Against Keanu Reeves Seriously” before getting to the good stuff. Personally, I’m pulling for “Return of the King” all the way, because, well, I got a leeetle drunk last night, and bet a few guys in the North End that ROTK would clean up, and um, if it doesn’t, let’s just say my next entry will be posted remotely from a non-extradition country.

In the meantime, however, the real meat of today’s thoughts: the genesis of the writer.

A lot of people (and by “ a lot” I mean “my mother”) ask me how I started this whole blogging endeavor. And truth be told, I was bored out of my mind when I started, and it was this, or turning tricks in Sullivan Square. I opted for writing. Society as a whole hath benefited from this choice. I’d never written in prose before…or so I thought.

It’s said that some people are “born” to do certain things. Paint, sculpt, perform complex mathematical equations, pickpocket, ram into things with their heads at high velocity after a few too many shots. Genetic dispositions are a hot topic these days, and maybe there’s something do it. After all, my mom recently showed me an ultrasound of me in the womb. Oddly enough, there’s me, with a can of spray paint, pointing to what I had just scrawled on the walls of her uterus: “I’m living Freud’s dream.”

OK, maybe my writing days didn’t start that way. Turns out, well, that the start of my budding career as an essayist has its origins deep in the annals of history, seemingly in the dark ages. And since most people equate “1983” with “the dark ages”, I think my assessment is accurate. I went to my mother’s house on Saturday to help clean out her closets. And yes, I’m aware of the metaphor, so let’s not go there. I also managed to literally trash a lot of my childhood during this endeavor, and again, let’s not go reading anything into this, or I may kick a kitty.

But lo, part of my task involved systematically going through anything that was mine and deeming them trash-worthy. Most of these decisions were pretty easy. Pulitzer Prize for Peace? Keep. Bit of grit? Toss. Framed photograph of Scott Baio? Keeper. Roger Clemens rookie card? Goner. (Kidding, kidding. I don’t own any grit. That’s gross.)

Stuck amidst these boxers, however, lay a bound copy of my 2nd-grade essays. OK, “bound” is a loose term, and this collection is indeed loosely bound by two piece of construction paper and some flimsy yarn. But here, inside this makeshift frame, lies the potential seeds of that which you see now. This man of letters was once a bot of letters. Let’s see what Ryan the Elder can glean from the writings of Ryan the Younger.

I’ve transcribed a few select essays below, verbatim. Buckle up, this should prove interesting. What can we learn?

Colors

Look here, look there, everywhere you look there are colors. Everywhere you look there are colors (unless your watching a black and white T.V.) Here are some things with diferent colors. Fire truckes are red, some cats are black, Some people are white and speak spanish; and some pepole are black and speak english.

Well, first off we can learn that the author probably didn’t head up the “Racial Sensitivity Task Force” in 2nd grade. Before that stunning turn of a last sentence, though, one can detect a certain bravado in the author. He is, from the get go, grabbing the reader’s attention and forcing them to look not simply at the words on the page, but at the very world around them. He drives the point that, “Everywhere you look there are colors…” through the use of repetition, but then backs off, inaccurately deeming black and white to fall outside of the color spectrum. Without defining exactly what black and white truly are, the author’s assertion is a bit weak.

However, things pick up a bit as the author uses evidence to support his primary thesis that 99.999999% of the world hath color. Then, his argument slightly derails as his feeble mind attempts to make a fairly solid point about the ethnic diversity in his hometown and instead comes out sounding like an entrant in “Ms. KKK”. This reviewer is fairly certain that the author meant no harm through these statements, and this reviewer is also fairly certain that the author’s teacher might have spit out her coffee while grading this essay.

So we’ve seen, in this first essay, a desire to examine a world-wide view. This attitude is commendable, though one could argue through the almost Tourette’s-esque ending that the author may have bitten off more than he could chew. Let’s see what he can do with a more mundane topic.

Halloween

Go outside, look up, what do you see? A whitch zooming in the light of the full moon? Halloween is the most fun and scary holidays. It’s the time when ghosts and goblens awake from their year’s sleep. Some people aculley belive they’ve seen these horreble ghols.

Well, once again, we find our overly confident author striving to control the very actions of his reader. Such an autocrat, this author. Maybe the reader doesn’t want to go outside, or, if they do wanna go outside, maybe they wanna look down, ever think of that? Maybe they wanna go and grab a ham sandwich. Who are you to dictate your whims to us, O Unmerciful Author?

Despite his illusions of grandeur, the author also employs a subtle device in this terse takedown of All Hallow’s Eve: the unreliable narrator. We cannot truly trust that this author is indeed a skeptic. Oh sure, he seems to deride those feeble minds that believe in things that go bump in the night, but why would he spend so much time on the topic, and in such detail, if he himself we not a bit queasy? Notice how the spelling becomes worse as he tries to shrug off his own fear. What a wuss.

My Brother

My brother is four years old. He is also a pest. Once he socked me in the eye with a starship. But he is also fun to play with, too. He likes to play soccer, frisbe and other sports. My brother’s name is Casey. I like my brother very much. The only thing I hate is that he’s a pest.

Well, here we can see, early on, a preoccupation with his family as a centrally placed series of figures in his writing. One can only assume that the author means a “toy” starship, although this reviewer readily admits both the actually existence of starships, coupled with a humanoid’s ability to sock another in the eye with one, is really frickin’ cool.

One sense a circular logic at work here. It’s as if, no matter what positive qualities this brother possesses, his status as pest will forever mar any chance at approval in the author’s eyes. Might we humbly suggest that the author goes to the corner and thinks long and hard about the psychological damage he’s inflicting upon his innocent sibling? No? Very well then, no dessert for you.

Africa

Compared to the United States, Africa is bigger and has more countreys. Some of the largest states are ten times bigger then the states in America. The biggest states in Africa are: Zabia, Suden, Libya, Mali and the Ivory Coast. I think that Africa is twenty achors long.

While one should ostensibly applaud his desire to learn about other parts of the world, one simultaneously wishes that the author do a bit of research before attempting such an assessment. Or learn a bit of basic geography. Or be able to not use words like “country” and “state” as if they are somehow synonyms. He just sort of throws a bunch of key words onto the proverbial wall and sees what sticks. And I’m fairly certain he just plain made up Zabia. Maybe he meant “Zambia”, but like Strong Bad when naming the mascot for “Crazy Go Nuts University”, was really tired and confused.

In addition, we’d like to ask the author’s parents to test his spatial reasoning, for while he seems to know that Africa is bigger than America, by his calculations, the United States of America is as big as this reviewer’s living room. One should commend the author clearly stating his beliefs, except in cases such as this when the author’s being a schmuck.

Fraggle Rock

Another show beside The Muppets, Fraggle Rock! Again directed by Jim Henson. This show doesn’t have rock music, but it has music. The caracters on the show are: Gobo, Wembly, Mogie, Red, Boober, The Trash Heap, Gorgs, Doc, and Sprocket. The dangers are : The Terrible Tunnel, And The Invisible Gargoil.

Well, once can certainly see the progeny of his pop culture obsession ringing loud and clear. Let’s see…we have obvious excitement for topic, as evidences by the initial explanation point…we have slight disdain for the homogeny of the product…we have biting criticism of said product…we have an overload of details that no one really cares about…typos all over the place…yup, pretty much nothing’s changed between then and now.

The World Travler

Once there was a man. He was very interested in the world. One day he said, “I am going to explore the world.” No” said the mother “You won’t survive.” “But I must try” he said. So he went off on his trip. The women and her children spent a very unhappy year. Then, one morning, they found him, Eating Breakfast!

Well, now the author’s moving away from slice-of-life narratives, away from pop culture criticism, and straight into that little-known genre of “What The Hell Was He Smoking” Fiction.

Given the amount of padding one finds in modern fiction, it’s refreshing in some way to see the author feel that the “middle” of the story was entirely unnecessary, instead opting to merely insert “a beginning with a lack of context” and a “surprise ending that seems to want to be dramatic but instead is just kinda weird”. Maybe the author wants to test our deductive powers. Maybe the author is challenging the very notion of narrative itself, forcing us, the reader, to supply the gaps, and answering such lingering questions as: Where did he go? Was his mother part of a concubine tribe that collectively mourned his loss? Did his breakfast provide a healthy balance of vitamins and minerals? Does the shock value lie in the fact that, upon his arrival, he invented the very concept of breakfast, providing evolution with that much needed culinary push?

Or did the author simply want to finish his essay before recess? We may never know.

The Wrong Address

One day I mailed a letter to my Grand-Mother. A week later, my Grand-Mother called. “Hi,” I said. “Did you get my letter?” “What letter?” she said. “The one I mailed last week.” I said, then I went to the post office. “Didn’t I bring a letter here last week?” “Oh yes,” he said, “But we didn’t mail it.”

In our final analysis of the day, we find the author’s nascent struggles to communicate. A boy-man trapped in a world full of people who wouldn’t let him write. Speak. Communicate. Express himself. In short, this essay is about that which we hold near and near as American citizens. Nay, as CITIZENS OF THE WORLD: democracy.

Or sure, he was subtle. He may have wanted his teacher to think he was writing the mother of his father, but the clearly use of capitalization and punctuation (“Grand-Mother”) give the game away. Like the characters in a Dan Brown novel, our author here is using code. The first letters, “G” and “M”, obviously are signifying other words, relating the author’s true intended recipient: namely, the “G”reat “M”asses.

Yes, he’s writing, as a member of the world, to the entire population. But the post office, here a stand-in for the government (or any power structure in general, for that matter), won’t let him. They want to shut him down. But nobody puts the author in the corner. Oh no. He might have failed this time, but there’s more than one way to write a letter. More than one way to send a message.

And while the “post office” may have won this battle, his spirit remains indomitable. That’s one to grow on folks.

Many more essays lie within this bound tome, but those will have to see the light of day another time. Soon enough, I promise. In the meantime, I wish you all the best as your battle your personal post offices.

Fight the good fight, people.

R Is For Ramble...That's Good Enough For Me

So I just finished one of the greatest tears in the history of the game “WWE Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain”. After picking up mid-season, with this iteration featuring me as Chris Jericho, I managed to beat RVD and Lesnar in a 2-on-1 impromptu street fight, defend my Intercontinental Title in a Fatal 4-Way against Stone Cold, The Rock, and Goldberg, and get Stacy Kielber as the manager of my faction.

I mention all of this at the get go to illustrate how very badly I need a life. A life however seems to cost money. Oh well, I’ve saved up a few bucks, and I’m getting the heck out of town next month.

Looks like I’ll be in NYC next weekend, for the first time in nearly five months, and two weeks after that, I’ll be flying out to Chicago, where I haven’t been since that squirm-inducing trip to Tiffany’s a few years back. Carryover vacation needs to be taken before April 1st, and by jolly, I’ll take it like R. Kelly takes high-school sophmores’ virginities.

NYC will feature the usual—me crashing at the Commander’s, most likely the glory that is Houlihan’s happy hour, and then…um, beer, I guess. I like beer. Never lets me down. Unlike the Democratic Party. As for Chicago, well, I’ll be staying with a college friend, seeing an old work friend, and meeting some of the ever-increasing “Ryan McGee Fan Club” based there. OK, the club consists of like, three people, but be that as it may, I’m going to meet at least 66% of that club while there. Also, beer will be on the menu there as well. Beer: the other, other, other white meat.

For now, though, I content myself with knowing that this Saturday, I help my mother clean out her closets. There’s a metaphor there, staring me straight in the face, and I’m just going to ignore that for the time being. Onto the return of the Friday Ramblings, after a brief detour last week. Sorta like the detour I had to take coming back through the Big Dig last week, and really, I’m gonna have a flashback any second, so let’s just move on up, to the Eastside…

***

Where exactly is the line, timewise, between a “booty call” and simply “contacting someone for sex”? Is the time in question a matter of pure minutes between initiation and, um, copulation? Or does this work like cell phone plans—you know, it only applies after a certain hour of the day? I really need to know.

Best Song By A Band I Can’t Believe Hasn’t Broken Up Yet: “Numb” by Linkin Park. Seriously, they released “Meteora” last year to all the acclaim of a Freddie Prinze Jr. indie flick, yet someone this gem of a song appears nearly 6 months later. I play it roughly 120 times a day, because when you spend your day working on books about prostate cancer, you feel a little numb yourself sometimes.

I’m diggin’ how the Red Sox are deriving hair tips from the world of cinema. Pedro Martinez showed up looking like Eriq La Salle’s stunt double in “Coming to America”, and apparently Johnny Damon starred in “The Passion of the Christ”. And, of course, Nomar’s gonna spend all season doing his own version of “I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka” dedicated to the Sox brass.

Here’s my depressing thought of the week: As I’m typing all of this out, it’s more than likely that William Hung is having sex. Excuse me while I weep a little.

No men’s bathroom should be as fragrant as the one we have at work. I’m just saying. All I wanna do is perform nature’s duty, and I come out smelling like a bed of petunias. That. Ain’t. Right.

Wait a sec. Lemmee see if I’ve got this straight. Elisha Cuthbert is starring in a movie called “The Girl Next Door” as a porn star. Why am I not allowed to see this right now? Here, just take all of my income this second, Elisha.

Speaking of Cinemax-esque porn for the masses: I keep almost getting hypnotized by the “Eurotrip” trailer into buying tickets, then they show Michelle Trachtenberg’s ribs and I get snapped back to reality (oh, there goes gravity!). That’s the biggest buzzkill since…well, every scene in which Clark almost kisses Lana on “Smallville”. Seriously. My roommate and I have taken to shouting increasingly vile obscenities each week during the “Clark looking plaintively at Lana, Lana looking Neutrogenically-enchanced at Clark, alt-country music plays, then wanna get freaky, yet can’t, leaving Lana severely c@ck-teased yet again” scene. The obscenities usually take the form of “Well, you may be Superman, but you sure don’t have a SuperSac, do you, pretty boy?”

My vote for the weirdest example of how “The Passion of the Christ” has seeped into everyday life: Watching someone at my office whip themselves over the shoulder with Twizzlers as if flogging themselves with reeds. And not even in a masochistic way. Just sorta did it after raiding the snack cabinet. Maybe I work with a member of Opus Dei. Like I said, it was weird.

Is there a more backhanded compliment than, "You're not unattractive"? I mean, normally, a double negative would turn into a positive, but no way was this girl telling me I was attractive. And yes, as per usual, this is all about me. Thanks, but next time you wanna boost my spirits, just buy me a lapdance.

I’ve been reading some of the personal ads on Craiglist, mostly for fun, but hey, you never know. Wait, yes I do. Bad juju. So I’m reading, and nearly every person makes the point, it seems, of declaring how they both “love to dress up and go out” and “love to kick back at home”. Well, that’s really covering all of your bases. Next, they might tell me they like “eating food” as well as “drinking liquids”. Or that sometimes, they really dig “being awake”, and yet other times, when the mood strikes, “being asleep”. Jeez Louise..

Songs added recently into my “Dream Set List If I’m Ever in a Band”: If I’m the singer/frontman, Ryan Adam’s “World War 24”. If I could actually sing, Peter Gabriel’s “Sky Blue”. If I were a female who could sing, “My Immortal” by Evanescence. If I could play the guitar, “Slave to the Traffic Light” by Phish. If I was 117 years old and could barely talk, nevermind sing, I’d perform “Buckets of Rain” by Bob Dylan. (Yes, I’m got lists and lists of these sets, depending on genre, instrument played, and venue. And yet I can’t play any instrument and have a vocal range of 4 notes. Go figure.)

So what exactly are the odds now that Howard Stern will let Janet Jackson on his show, now that she’s known for “The Nipple That Restarted Censorship”? About as slim as an African-American male showing up at a KKK rally, right? Oh wait. Maybe not.

Various media outlets have reported that Rosie O’Donnell got hitched this week. I knew it was only a matter of time before David Guest found someone new, I suppose.

Did anyone else start humming Color Me Badd songs to themselves after the BBC accused Alastair Campbell of “sexing up” reports about WMD a few weeks ago? Oh, just me? Nevermind.

You know, I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of years, but I haven’t been able to come to any conclusions, so I might as well ask all of you. I’m a proud man, but I’m working on asking for help when needed. OK, here goes: When Bell Biv Devoe sang, “Do me, baby…”, what exactly were they talking about?

OK, I’m not done with the “Red Sox Go To The Movies” thing. We got Manny living perpetually in “The House of Sand and Fog”, seemingly. Curt Schilling should have batters “Against the Ropes”. Theo Epstein’s moves may make him “The Lord of the Rings”. And rumor has it that Pokey Reese wants to “Win A Date With Tad Hamilton!” (Sorry, gotta make fun of a guy named “Pokey”, I don’t care what his fielding percentages are.)

Speaking of baseball, I got back into a fantasy league this year. I have appropriately named my team “Ryan’s 7th Placers”, after the position I inevitably fill in an 8-person league. As inevitable as the tides, the sun rising, and Gerardo in the cast of “The Surreal Life 3”.

Speaking of “Surreal”, anybody see Tammy Faye Baker reduce Ron Jeremy to tears with her words of kindness last week? That was like watching Arafat and Sharon observing Shabbat together. Just truly bizarre.

I’m not going out on a limb, I think, when I say that “F**k It (I Don't Want You Back)” by Eamon might be the new “Worst Song to Play for the Last Dance at Your Prom”. It takes its place amongst the pantheon of “Gett Off” by Prince, “(I Hate) Everything About You” by Ugly Kid Joe, and “Three Little Maids From School Are We” by Gilbert and Sullivan.

How Not to Date Me, Part 2

For those of you just tuning in, go here for the beginning.

But OK, fine, you’re ready to be in some sort of relationship. Probably it’s monogamous, but that’s OK if it’s not. Here, check out my coat pockets: no ring there. We don’t need to move in for a good long time. Maybe we can look at puppies in the park, but I’m not planning on getting one and naming it after you. Honestly, I’d like to think I can express interest in you without you sailing to Isla de MySpaceNowBackOff, and if you can stick around, it could be fun. But make sure you don’t do this:

3) Keep asking me if you’re fat.

Look, we all have our self-esteem issues. My cranium looks like a Picasso rendering by way of Hieronymus Bosch. I’d never make it as one of those women who balances the urns of water on their head, unless Jai from “Queer Eye” got me a couture urn. Hey, it’s possible. And at least then he'd be doing something useful. I know I'm not asking for theatre tickets, Jai, so it's a bit out of your comfort zone, but come on man, I have faith in you.

So I get it, you have things you’re insecure about. But if you point them out on a daily basis, I might have to kill you. I never had a fat day until I met Jenny. Now I have them all the time. I got fat days through osmosis. This is so not fair. And my T zone won’t stop acting up. Someone please just kill me.

I’m your boyfriend/dating partner/boink buddy. You know, whatever we are. I’m not your therapist. I’m not dating only the good parts of you, I’m dating all of you. You’re not just dating my skull, and thank God for that, hunny. Earlier I said I didn’t have a specific visual type, but I do have a fairly specific interpersonal characteristic I cherish, and that’s self-confidence. Not saying you have to be Wonder Woman, but if you’re happy with who you are, most likely I will be. Unless, you know, you derive inner satisfaction from slaughtering homeless people. I think right about then we’d have to get into a trust tree and work things out.

When you point out a flaw of yours, generally you’re showing us something we never even so much as noticed before. So, you’re not doing yourself any favors, because now, I’m not gonna look at anything BUT that scar for the next hour, thank you very much. In addition, hey, one man’s poison, another mans’ J. Lo booty fetish. Accept the fact that I, and most guys for that matter, don’t expect you to have a triathlete’s body. Especially when we could stand to lose 20-30 pounds ourselves, let’s be honest. You wanna lose weight for you, hey, I’m there 100%. You wanna get a facial/new shoes/a bag because it’ll make you happy? Hey, go for it. But don’t do it for me/us. Hell, we’re barely able to wear different boxers back-to-back days. Let’s not waste effort on the wrong reasons.

One time, late at night, Jenny asked me the “Am I fat?” question. For the 1,327th time. For the first few hundred times, I put on my game face, smiled, and said, “No way!” Luckily, I believed that to be true, so it wasn’t hard. But Jenny didn’t have Jennifer Garner abs, and as such, never felt comfy with what she called her “chub”. Meanwhile, I was pushing 260 pounds, and while I wasn’t HUGE, you could almost pinch an inch…on my forehead. So we’re in bed, and by this point, I’m getting a bit annoyed by the whole process, because she either didn’t believe me the 1,326 times, had developed selective short-term memory loss, or had insecurity bordering on paranoia. So I formulated what, in my mind, sounded like a fairly lucid and explanation on how different body types were appealing, and that the media had contorted our general few of what “beautiful” is, and how I loved the way she looked and everything about her and let’s just go to sleep nestled in each others arms. It was gonna be profound, beautiful, and in the end bring us together as a couple closer than ever before.

What first came out of lips, however, was “Well, you’re not skinny…”

Yea. You can imagine where it went from there. But know what? After sputtering out some poor-ass version of my initial sentiment, she went to bed, and really never asked me again. So I felt bad, but I slowly regained that bit of sanity I had lost previously.

Point is, we’ve all got our foibles and insecurities. Me, I’d rather assume that the fact you grab my ass when I leave to get you a drink means you, overall, don’t hate me too much, and will be willing to deal with my imperfections. Likewise, I’m gonna treat you the same way. I’m there for support and validation, absolutely. Goes with the job description. We’re a couple, but we’re independent people. I want to be your rock, not your crutch. Big difference there, in my humble opinion.

Then again, I am a single guy who’s spent the last year repeating the same mistakes. But while I’m the first to admit I’ve put myself in a lot of these circumstances, I refuse to believe I have sole culpability. To say I’ve been led on in certain cases is an understatement on the par with, “The Titanic had a bit of a problem on its first voyage.” So, please, please, and can I say it again, please, don’t do the following:

4) Lie about your feelings/intent because you think you’re sparing my feelings.

Look, I’m 28, and yea, I cry every time Shane West builds Mandy Moore that telescope in “A Walk To Remember”, but all in all, I’m a fairly mature guy. The fact that you “don’t see me that way” hardly puts you in a unique category. It’s all good in the hood. I can’t believe the number of women (and yes, guys) who string people along—not out of malice, but out of genuine concern for the soon-to-be-departed’s feelings. That, or they just want some good sex until the guilt is unberable. Hey, I’ve been on the end of both of these over the past year. I mean, um, hi Dad. Hi Mom. Wow, how long have you been there? You’ve been reading this whole essay, huh? This is, uh, all fun, and stuff. I’m, like, still a virgin. Wow, this is embarrassing.

True story: soon after Jenny and I split up, I had my first fling. First girl in the post-Clinton era who wasn’t Jenny. One of those amazing, everything-is-in-sync, you can’t say anything wrong, you can’t do much of anything wrong, and before you know it, the sun’s come up. Just awesome.

And when the sun came up, I dropped her off at her place so she could pack for a weeklong trip. And while on the trip, she found her way onto the ‘net like 4 times, and we spent maybe a dozen hours instant messaging, with her also sending emails when possible. Hey, I thought, it’s too soon for another relationship, and I know she’s skipping town in the Fall, but hey, this might be fun as a dating prospect anyways.

But when she got back into town, it was almost utter radio silence. She was hardly ever online anymore, didn’t really reply to emails, and did a few other funky things that didn’t at all jive with her attitude while away. Turns out, in her mind, our fling was a one-night thing, and rather than tell me that, she decided the best way to let me know was to treat me nicer than every before.

OK, kids, all together: what the FREAKIN’ HELL?

That’s what I mean about misreading signs. Women, think of men as a variation on the tag-line to the MTV show “Diary”: “You think we know, but we have no idea.” Really. No clue. And you should know we have no clue, since you spend most of the time telling us how stupid we are. Yet, what it comes down to the mysteries and vagaries of the female mind, we’re now Mensa members. Sorry, Homey don’t play that.

I’ve given up on signals and assumptions. I have no need for either of them. Firstly, signals. I’ve discovered, and I think a few of my friends will back me up on this, that signals come in two varieties:

• Those given, received, and interpreted by everyone else


• Those given, received, and interpreted by me

I’ve had many a conversation where I have listed the signals which would indicate something positive imminent in my future, only to have someone remind me, “Yes, but this is YOU we’re talking about, Ryan.” For instance, when a girl responds to your personal ad on Match.com, you might interpret that signal as “She has some interest in me, and it’s not hard to imagine it’s romantic in some way.” That would be a logical, normal response to this stimulus. You would not jump to the conclusion, nor would I, that her reply to your ad means, “I’m still living with my ex-fiancée and have a f#ck buddy on the side already, so I just need a pal.” In your world, this wouldn’t happen. In my world, it’s called “last May”.

If we’re in some sort of courtship/dating period, and you treat me nicely, I’m going to go out on a wild limb and assume you’re interested. Call me nutty that way. If you’re doing it to spare me the letdown I’m going to have eventually, you’re doing neither of us a favor, as you’re only putting off the inevitable, and making it more painful along the way. I’m a big boy, I can totally take it. My heart, like Celine’s, will go on. My hairline, like hers, will not, but that’s another story entirely.

And I guess, if we get to this point, and you’re OK with a basic proximity to my person, and you’re ready to share a part of yourself with me, and you’ve got the esteem thing working for you, and you’re being honest, I guess there’ just one more thing you think about not doing to make this whole thing work:

5) Show up high for our date.

I don’t really have to explicate this one, do I? Didn’t think so. Don’t do it. Makes me unhappy.

***

Well, there you have it. The cheat sheet that none of you in particular clamored for. Past it amongst your friends; there will be a quiz later on. As for now, I’m going to ice my wrists. Gonna be even harder to pick up da ladies if I inherit those carpal tunnel wrist bandages.

Cheers.

How Not To Date Me, Part 1

Well, I meant to write this little ditty on Sunday, and somehow, in writing the introductory paragraph, I took a major detour off the beaten path and waded through the muck and the mire for about four pages. But hey, obviously that’s what needed to come out the day, so far be it for me to get in the way of my subconscious. It’s always fun to watch smoke rise from the keyboard because your fingers are trying to keep up with your brain.

Interesting how we often think something will go one way and end up another. Maybe that’s what this little list below is about. When expectations get defied. Now, often this can be quite a good thing. Say, you go to a party out of obligation, and not only is Mark Wahlberg there, but the entire Funky Bunch as well. I mean, that’s cooler than being cool. Or you go to a business dinner, expecting the doldrums of number crunching over escargot, and instead, you get drunk, table dance, and then flash the client. I mean, that’s the very definition of “the most awesomest ever” right there. Look it up in the OED.

That being said, the over/under on “happy” surprises is just about 50%. As many good as bad, in the general overall scheme of things. And while I’ve had many happy surprises in many parts of my life, I’ve had an almost operatic level of drama when it comes to my dating life in the past year. I’m out to dinner with a friend roughly a month ago, and I’m relating what had been going on in this particular sphere of my life since last we had met. She got increasingly bug-eyed and finally exclaimed, “Jesus, I only left you alone for two weeks!” Well, gotta keep up with me. Actually, don’t, it’s exhausting enough for myself, and while my mile splits are steadily decreasing on the treadmill, I’m moving about as fast as my body can currently handle.

I’m coming up on my one-year anniversary of singledom. As such, I thought it would be good to give a few tips to any and all potential suitors as to what has been…oh, I don’t know, how to put this, ah yes, “events, actions, and attitudes that have pushed me to the brink of not wanting to even deal with humanity on any basic level”. I’m sure many people have similarly weird things happen to them, but in relating the string of circumstances, it would probably become clear that I may have run over a nun last March and am still paying off the karmic debt.

I’m not going to give a timeline, although that would be a hilarious exercise in masochism. Rather, I’m gonna given five basic tips on how not to approach a relationship with me. If you, like, just wanna freak ‘til the sun comes up, so long as you don’t have open sores feel free to disregard any and all of the following tips. These tips, incidentally, come from at least one experience with at least one woman in the past year. Mostly, they have a few iterations apiece. That fact in and of itself bespeaks the fact that I myself have a long way to go as well, but it’s much more fun to blame other people. Hell, I blame myself nearly every day on this website, let’s take some of that inner anger and blowtorch these beeyotches to Kingdom Come.

So, here we go. Five things you should never do if you want to date me:

1) Meet me.

Hey, I didn’t say this list would make sense. I just used the phrase “blowtorch these beeyotches”, what do you expect?

So here’s an interesting trend. Over the past 2 months or so, I’ve received roughly one email or instant message from a female reader who “just had to tell [me] how amazing [my] site is!” Sometimes they leave phone numbers. Pictures of panties. It’s all cool and fun, but meanwhile, here in friendly Boston, women look upon me as the look upon that dorky cousin no one actually wants to talk to during the holidays. I mean, they know I’m there, they’d just rather not deal with me unless our paths cross near the ‘nogg.

An exaggeration? You betcha, but it serves to illuminate an interesting point. When it comes to variations of “Take me, you big manly man you,” chances are I’ll get it from someone I’ve never met versus someone I actually see on a decently regular basis. In addition, between my absolutely terrible foray into online dating last year and those I’ve actually met in real life amongst my readership, I’ve come to the conclusion that my cyber self is a way hotter piece of ass than the flesh and blood person typing this right now. I’m not too sexy for my pixels, my pixels are too sexy for me.

I guess it makes sense in a way. Many websites, not just mine, show a “better” version of the writer than really exists. Why? Well, this site is very much derived from yours truly, but there’s hardly a strict one-to-one correlation. The weirdest trend has been how many articles of me tearing myself a new one have endeared me to the female readership. If those are actually endearing, it would stand to reason that the very flawed, “real” me would likewise be appealing, but so far, that hasn’t proven to be true.

In another words, if you wanna date me, stay outside a 200-mile radius. It’ll be better for both of us, trust me. But if you brave distance and my propensity to spew quotes from “The Two Towers” in regular conversation, make sure you don’t pull the following trick out of your bag:

2) Decide (only after I finally like you) that you just can’t handle any relationship right now because, well, “I just need to find me right now, Ryan.”

Man, I’m glad I don’t own a gun. After typing that sentence out, I felt like shooting something. Maybe a puppy. Who knows. Yea, sensitive area here. But hey, let’s delve in anyway, shall we?

People often say that everyone has a basic “type” that they date. For instance, my brother dated the same girl seemingly for four years. I’m not saying he dated one girl, I’m saying he dated a series of girls that, if I wasn’t wearing my glasses, were virtually indistinguishable. I figure he had some cookie cutter stashed in his dorm and could churn them out if one became defective. Other people date archetypes: artists, lawyers, tall guys, tattooed hotties, etc. I’ve never been attractive to a specific visual demographic per say, but looking back over the past year, I’d say I’ve nailed down the pursuit of “completely bewitching but emotionally unavailable sirens”.

It’s one of these amazing paradoxes, and I know it works both ways, but here goes: once you tell someone you are attracted to them, you yourself become almost inevitably less attractive to them. And yes, part of it is explained by the doctrine that I’ve touted here many a time: “Desire is defined by lack.” But somewhere along the line, desire has to take a backseat to affection (never mind “love”, we’re not talking that far down the line here). And I’m generally a guy who calls it like a see it. If I like a girl, I can’t wait to tell her. And that has historically, in the past 12 months, always been the completely wrong decision.

It’s easy enough to see in hindsight that I was dating one version of another of Jenny, my ex, who decided law school was more important than our relationship. Nothing wrong with wanting a career over a relationship. Not for me, but hey, sadly, it was about two and a half years too late for that discovery. Sure, she wanted to go to Harvard Law, but not because she was guaranteed to still date me. Rather, it was the highest ranked school on her list. OK, I’m stopping now, because I feel a vein growing in my forehead.

After that, you’d think the absolute last thing I’d do is get involved with someone with similarly self-centric attitudes. But no, I kinda did a series of leapfrogs, from lily pad to lily pad, variations on a common theme. “Oh, it’s just…I just need some space to figure me out,” they’d say. And space is great. But if you email me for a few weeks, talk to me on the phone every other night, and instant message me nightly, don’t THEN tell me you need “you” time. That just leaves me with a lot of imposed “me” time during which I invent scenarios in which something heavy falls on your ankle.

Check out Part 2 here.

Look, I Didn't Call You Fat, All I Said Was That It's Fat Tuesday

OK, so I have a new favorite place in Boston: The Pour House, across from the Hynes. $4 burgers? 22 ounce Bass Ales for less than $5? Are you kidding me? This is no joke, and my liver can attest that. When you have 5 tall, frosty mugs of barley-and-hops goodness, and then decide you need to go to another bar to continue the merriment, well, you know you’re in for a fun wake-up call the next day. Drinking ten beers on a Monday…well, it’s pretendous. Also a heckuva lot of fun. Someday I’ll write my “I remember when I could do this and then run a 10K, only now I need a week’s recovery time, and I’m only 28, and boy, mortality’s a severe beeyotch, ain’t it?” article, but that’s not for today.

Tomorrow, the site will feature the first “How NOT to Date Ryan McGee” article in the History of Man. Chock full of good tips gleaned from the past year of silly, soul-sucking weirdness with the opposite sex.

In the meantime, I leave with this ponderous…uh, ponderation: if someone drunk dials you, but you yourself are drunk, is the drunk-dial in and of itself negated? How much does intent count against actual execution? I ask this since I spent the better part of five minutes arguing this with someone on the phone last night, until I think it digressed into me just gurgling, saying, “You’re like, pretty”, and passing out.

So we didn’t actually come to a conclusion, is what I’m saying. Was that a drunk-dial, or simply two drunk-ass peeps that happen to be on the phone with each other? Any light that can be shed would be helpful. Just don’t shine it in my eyes, still a bit groggy over here.

Come What May

OK, this is getting a bit ridiculous.

No, I’m not talking about the low-carb craze, though that’s getting to be a bit much. (I’m pretty sure the grain industry is gathering up a lobbying force to rival Philip Morris in its heyday right about now.) Not talking about my current obsession with Britney Spears’ “Toxic”. (Sorry, but that’s a killer pop song.) And it’s not the hub-bub over gay marriage in this state. (Crikey, get over it. Give me two happy dads over a destructive hetero combo any day.)

Now, I’m talking about what Claire Danes might refer to as “My So-Called Dating Life”.

I’m of two minds about the whole endeavor, because it’s easier to straddle the fence on the issue rather than take a decisive stand. Rather be schitzo than hypocritical, if you get my drift. On one hand, if I have enough time to devote to the fact that this part of my life resembles nothing so much as the outtakes at the end of a Jackie Chan movie, it denotes that my life isn’t all that bad. I’m not going on about my lack of a job, or lack of medical insurance, or that fact that a Mob hit left me one leg less than last week.

And yet…there’s always that “and yet” which gets me back on the ol’ mental gravy train. And even if this “and yet” comes from a place of basic privilege, it still comes nonetheless. “And yet” tells me that while life is generally OK, it could be a lot better. Doesn’t mean that my life is meaningless as is, but that there’s something definitely lacking. Comes from that whole romantic strain in me. Wish I didn’t have it on some days, this whole “Ewan McGregor in ‘Moulin Rogue’” streak. Heart bursting with song, but no one there to listen. (And hey, maybe for the best. Those who have heard me break it down karaoke-style would probably attest to that.)

I fight that strain at times, since it’s nothing but pure feeling. Very little else there. Almost entirely sense with just a smidgen of sensibility. Much easier to deal with the more mundane, the more practical. Working on a less emotional approach to life, working on a less operatic attack on the world around me. Strong emotion can sometimes be your worst enemy.

And yet…

I can’t ever really buy that argument. Just can’t do it. Might work for some people, but not for me. Yes, such emotional histrionics get me into trouble, and yes, they’ve often caused me quite a bit of heartache and grief, but i don'’ ever want to NOT feel this much. I don’t want to not be moved by those things which send my heart soaring: a cool chord change in a song, a great sequence of a move, a great passage in a book, the soft whisperings in my ear from a girl for only me to hear. These are the things that help define me, define my happiness, define my essence.

I’ve been told for the past year, in many ways, shapes, and forms, that what I am is flawed. That I need to change. That I need to stop feeling so much. That I can’t go on living like this. And if you hear that enough, you start to believe it’s true. Little worms of lies that crawl into your brain and slowly drive you absolutely insane, and pretty soon, up is down and left is right and you start spouting off supposed “wisdom” that really is just you regurgitating things you’ve been told.

And yet…

To say I’m flawed is of course completely and utterly true. To say I need to change, adapt…well, I’ve been doing that all my life. Much more in the past few years. But I what I will not do, however, is accept my way of living as wrong. I will not accept that I have to conform to another standard simply to feel better. Because that simply won’t work. I can’t be like someone else anymore than they can be like me.

My unhappiness derives not so much from a personal unhappiness with who I am, but my inability in a lot of ways to find people who can accept this altogether flawed, but basically decent, person. It’s not that I feel I am unworthy of friendship, love, affection, etc, so much as I am not sure how I could make myself, in many ways, “better” than I am. And I hate myself for trying to figure out ways that I could have acted differently to keep Girl X, Y, Z around when, deep in me, I know that that impulse is tantamount to saying, “How could I have been less like myself to keep her around?”

This might all sound arrogant, and if you think so, that’s really fine, because I’m quite exhausted from defending myself on a daily basis. Defending myself here, to my friends, to potential girlfriends, hell, defending myself to myself. To feel as much as I do makes me. To be able to watch a movie or listen to a song and be moved to tears makes me. To write down what I feel is the most unfiltered way makes me. To be caught up in the theatricality of pro wrestling, to marvel at the special effects of “Lord of the Rings”, to sing poorly but passionately to make favorite songs…these all make me.

And generally, I like me, thank you very much.

I’m not perfect, but I don’t have to be. I can’t analyze every choice I make, every sentence that I write, every move that I make. I’d be paralyzed, stuck in a corner, huddled up, if that were truly the case. I make as many typos in life as I do on the site. It’s rife with what is usually unintentional error. Maybe that’s why I’m so damn sensitive about people publicly pointing them out on the site. It’s no different than someone pointing out some unconscious/unintentional “flaw” in real life. It’s not like I’m trying to make these mistakes, and it’s not as if I notice them and leave them as is. Life’s messy, and so am I.

To say I like me is not to say I am a finished, whole product. I’m an evolving entity, but evolving from a particular set of specific circumstances. I can’t simply molt and start anew. I can’t not be the way I am. Some people don’t like that way, and that’s OK, because really, I don’t care for most of them, either. It’s not xenophobia, it’s simply conservation of energy. I can’t expend the energy on others the way some other people can. I can barely get through my day without four cups of coffee as is. Lord knows how many cups I’d need if I actually bothered to care beyond myself.

Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about others, I just no longer have the time to judge, condemn, or attempt to fix them. I barely have the energy to even like certain people. But if you get that from me, and so long as you say don’t kick me in the groin, you and I are gonna be pretty OK. They are being the best person they know how to be, same as me. And none of us really know what we’re doing. It’s all about the best poker face, a lot of times. And no one’s usually showing his or her hands.

I’ve run into a high school friend of mine recently. We ended up on adjacent treadmills at the gym last week, and got talking a few days later at the same gym. He’s married, just moved to Boston with his wife, and they bought a 3 bedroom condo in Brookline. Both are lawyers. I told him how I felt a bit humbled. I mean, here he was, married, defined career, owning property. Told him I was feeling a bit astray. He looked at me, puzzled, and said, “We’re all astray, man.”

And it’s true. We’re taught that certain benchmarks denote a certain accomplishment, as if we’re all heading towards the same endgoal. And even if you subscribe to the notion that “married and owning property” is better than “single and renting”, it’s not as if these things give my friend a sense of being smarter or more along than myself. All rather refreshing, really. He seems very happy to be in that position, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that he’s smart enough to know that he doesn’t have all the answers.

I don’t look at being single as being an overwhelming negative thing, and I don’t feel as less of a person because of it. But I do know, as much as I can know anything, that there’s something better for me. It’s not that I’m not built to be alone so much as I know I would rather share my life with someone. How to meet that someone…well, haven’t figured out that bit yet. Thought a happy set of accidental circumstances had led me to her, but it turns out that wasn’t the case. Maybe that’s what so hard—having actually gotten a glimpse of what I could have had. To almost taste, almost touch, and then to have it taken away…not the most fun that you can go through, trust me on this one. They say it’s better to have loved and lost, and I’d like to find this “they” and beat them with a hammer.

She tried to convince me that I was at fault, that I was the reason it couldn’t really work. And for a few weeks, I believed it. Another in the long list of people pointing out my supposed shortcomings. Hey, fifty million Elvis fans can’t be wrong, maybe this anti-Ryan chorus had a point as well. And maybe they do. Who’s to say? I can hardly be accused of being an impartial judge here. I can’t know. I can only feel.

But it feels like I shouldn’t have to change who I fundamentally am. Change certain things? Sure. Adapt to what’s the come? Absolutely. I’m not arguing for a rigid, unbendable notion of me. That implies inner perfection, and Lord knows I don’t have that. But I’m sick to death of being accused of being at my core flawed. Sick of being told I feel too much as something negative. Yes, I am ruled more by sense than sensibility, but that feeling makes me what I am. It’s not some late ‘90’s, “get in touch with your inner self” type of awareness. I know myself to be a creature ruled not by my head, but by my heart. And God and my parents allowed me the chance to develop a bit of a mind to occasionally express these emotions in a decent verbal way, and for that I thank them, but my brain will always take a back seat to my heart.

And my heart might get me into trouble, but it never lies. And it’s been hurt, and hurt a lot, and sometimes gets knocked around more than Apollo Creed in “Rocky IV”, but it always gets back up. And it keeps beating, and keeps feeling, and so do I. And on some days, it’s hard not to have someone with whom to share this.

And yet…

I’d like to think that someday there will be. And on that day, I won’t get all the answers. I’ll just get a kindred heartbeat.

And we’ll go from there.

TGIF, Right?

Normally, most of you would be tuning in this Friday morning to hear another one of the Friday Ramblings columns, but not this week. It’s 1 am here on Thursday night/Friday morning and I’m fairly awake, due the rush of adrenaline one gets after tackling the Big Dig head on with your primary on and off ramps closed due to construction. (Shouldn't, like, the Big Dig be over? I mean, Bruce Springsteen played the Zakim Bridge. I saw people from Massport falling over themselves to cut ribbons opening the tunnels. And yet, the roads resemble no less than a police state, there’s only one lane of traffic for a lot of the underground portion, and really, will someone just freakin’ hold me already?)

I could of course just string 10-12 thoughts together, call it a night, get my content out, and keep the streak going, but I’m not going to, mostly due to the ramblings thoughts in my head, ironically enough. These aren’t witty/whimsical/out-of-left-field thoughts, though. Bigger, more important thoughts to be sure (if still fragmented). But not ramblings in the traditional Fridays-at-Ryan's sense. If you're itching for some, go fill out my "Miss Ryan-McGee Dot Com" Pageant Questionnaire. Lots of rambly goodness there. Plenty of time to enter; it's an ongoing project. Need inspiration? Check out what the first batch of contestants came up with. If you're not in the mood for that kind of non-sequitur loveliness, see a few more traditional ramblings.

I’m trying to work on this whole “knot-in-the-stomach” feel when I go too long without posting some form of content. Which is a long way of saying that I’m a bit of a junkie when it comes to the writing. Don’t really like to go a long time without actually doing it. And that all being said, I’m working hard to remove a sense of “obligation” per say from the whole experience. As of December, I was pretty much posting 20-25 entries a month, usually around 1,000 words apiece. That’s some serious verbiage.

But a few things have happened in the past two months. And not just the cheery stuff like my parents’ divorce or that one time that girl took my heart, pulled it from my chest, threw it to the ground, and then lit it on fire. No, the biggest change in the past few months has been the introduction of a “life” to my life. This whole “going out a few nights a week” concept is fairly new to me. The idea of not feeling bad about choosing friends over the newest episode of “Angel” is fairly new to me. The sense of actually belonging to this town once again is fairly new to me.

So I’ve tried to make some choices informed by these new experiences, while still getting my writing fix in as well. Usually, though, real life people will win out. All those months of prolific writing (and I say prolific not to brag, but to…oh, I don’t actually care what you think, “prolific” is appropriate, and I’m running with it) were in a way filling in the gaps where a life should have been. I was more into talking about life more than actually living it. And I’m hardly completely past the severe introspection thing. Way I see it, that’ll be a rather permanent fixture in my life, varying only by degree, and that dependent upon the particular scenario.

But I can’t feel bad about not continuing that output. Or posting a Ramblings column today. Yes, I’d rather write more than less, but as such, right now, it’s what I do when I can do. When I truly feel like I want to. I can’t throw something out here for your consumption simply because of an arbitrary time limit between posts. Won’t work for me, won’t work for you.

I mean, sure I could ramble about a lot of things instead of the funny stuff. About how I’m working on figuring out why the female species’ attraction to me is inversely proportional to their physical proximity to me. About how for the life of me I can’t figure out where to start sending my writing samples to get published. About how I'm sick of consistently feeling like I have to defend or validate myself. About how the only way I can deal with a vast amount of my day is blocking out everything but the 10% I actually value in this world.

But those are all topics for another time. Topics I’ll write about. Sooner than later. I don’t feel I owe any of you content per say, but I do owe you a debt of thanks for each time you bother to see what’s in my head. You’re part of the 10%, I promise. You, my family, Eva Mendes, and a few others. I’ll get to all of these things soon enough.

But not tonite. Have a good weekend, everyone.

The Go-Go's Were Dead Wrong

I’ll probably get slapped for saying this, but I’ve been slapped for far worse: I hate vacations.

I should of course qualify that statement: I hate vacations that consist of simply “time off from work”. Because then, what vacations function as is a good ol’ fashioned “catch up on sleep” which is all well and good, but after 5 days, you start to go a little stir crazy.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure: I did originally have some plans this weekend, but they fell apart around a month ago, and I already had the vacation time locked off, so I found myself through no real fault of my own stuck with a 5-day reprieve from the Land O’ Cubicles. Couldn’t re-assign the time, and really, didn’t have any inclination to do so: it’d been three months without any significant time off and I was looking forward to it.

Course, I forgot: I hate vacations.

Let’s analyze two ways in which I despise having time on my hands. Strap yourself in, this should be a fun ride.

Reason #1) I shouldn’t be allowed a free hour, nevermind 120 consecutive ones.

I’m sure they invented depressants for people such as myself, but the bottom line is, I just think too darn much, as exemplified by the fact I just published a 110,000 word tome of last year’s writing, and that only accounts for 1/3rd of what I actually wrote. Early 1980's Stephen King wasn’t that prolific. Shoulda called the book “Blog and Peace”, or “Les Blogerables”. And now I’ve had both living grandparents call and give me the “I’m sure if I understood a word of this, I’d think it was great. And what’s this part about you bragging that you were getting laid on February 10th? Ryan Thomas!”

(Ack. The middle name. You know you're in trouble when elder relatives break out the middle name. It's the familial version of being read your Miranda rights.)

So I think a lot. Usually, this poses no problem, in that my daily regiment allows me to focus such activities into ways that are theoretically beneficial to the common good. Except for the part where I groove to the Black Eyes Peas on the treadmill. That helps nothing but my waistline and my libido. Good lord, that girl is smoking. And yes, it’s a week since, and I still haven’t gotten over it. Chalk it up to the fact that February 10, 2003, seems like the exception, not the rule. And remind me not to publish this entry for the 2005 version of the blog book. Sorry, Nana.

When you’ve got five days largely to yourself, and you’ve got a hyperactive brain, you’re consistently using your cerebellum to unproductive ends. You make up scenarios, you replay bad memories, you think of all the things you should be doing if you could only be bothered to get out of your pajamas. But instead, you plop in the next DVD in the “Buffy” Season 5 collection, even though you know how it’s all gonna end, because the options are so limitless that it’s severely limiting.

In college, there were roughly a dozen theatres of different shapes and sizes. Everything from a basement room to a fully-automated professional stage. I lit pretty much every stage there was to light there in my not-so-brief time. Budding light designers would always ask me what space they should try to light first. They were often surprised when I told them the Agassiz Theatre, which was the second largest space on campus. The thing about this space was the fact that there were only a limited number of places to hang lights. Only a few basic type of lighting arrangement that would make sense. The variables, as such, were few. And this, I felt, made a newbie designer’s job as easy as can be. Still difficult, to be sure, but unlike those spaces where your choices were literally limitless, easier.

Its’ really easy to make choices in our daily lives without even thinking about them, because so few are really choices per say. More “best options available”. To go to work is not a choice. To wake up at 7 or 7:30 am, however, is. To take the Red Line to the Orange Line as opposes to the Green Line is an option more than choice. I can’t choose to go to work anymore than I can choose to pay my rent or my phone bill or my student loans. But I can choose to call that girl, make plans with these friends, send out a writing sample to an editor who doesn’t know my name. And those choices can be more than slightly unnerving.

When compound these potential choices with my brain and this much free time, it’s even harder. Obligation; that I can handle. It's deciding what will make me, well, me; that's a bit harder to grasp.

Reason #2) I’ve got this whole “debt” thing that “cramps” my “style”.

People will get on my case tomorrow at work when I tell them that I spent five days by and large doing nothing. They’ll say it was a waste, that I should have gone somewhere, that I should have done more things.

Which is all fine and good except I have no money.

OK, I have money, but I did this incredibly new technique called a “budget” and found out…wait, you’ve heard of it too? No way! I thought I was the only one who knew about this…I mean, I heard about it on the Internet and…wait, around forever? What do you mean?

Oh. That’s humbling.

So, point of the matter is, yes, I could have dipped into some savings, could have given out those credit card numbers to Priceline or Orbitz, and had myself a merry ol’ adventure. And the thought was there and tempting and maybe in a few weeks I’ll give and look at my willpower this time around and kick a kitten. Who knows?

It’s an interesting experience, this whole “living in perpetual debt”. You can usually accept the fact that you owe someone you don’t know a significant portion of your future earnings, but every once in a while, you snap and rail against interest rates, and impulse buys, and pull at your hair muttering things like, “Did I really need a higher education?” And you either say “Screw it, I’m in debt so debt that another $400 can’t possibly hurt”, which has been my basic mode of operation, or you say, “Hrm. Maybe there’s a pattern here.” Took me until just a few weeks ago to recover financially from the one-two-three punch of Nashville/New York/Christmas, and while someplace warm, tropical, and drinks-served-in-coconuts laden sounds loverly, my Visa statement next month might send a bit of a chill back down my spine.

It’s always a tricky balance, working that whole “save money” thing versus the “ok, you have some fundage finally, but you’ve spent the last month alone in your house without the electricity on eating soup directly from the can”. Lately, I’ve been going out on a regular basis for the first time since, oh, ever. But I can’t go out all the time, which is frustrating, but maybe someday I won’t worry about each $40 withdrawal from the ATM. Sounds like I’m whining, cuz, well, I am. Not like I have a terminal illness or nuttin’, but it’s a nice little pit in the stomach nonetheless.

That money, that $40 or whatever it may be, is buying me lasting memories with coworkers and their friends. And yes, money spent towards trips could be spent in a similar fashion, it’s true. But there’s no place I’d rather be lately than with these people in the beginnings of whatever this part of my life is. It’s been one giant shake of the “Ryan Life As Etch A Sketch” lately. The first lines are being drawn back in, one day at a time, one night at a time, one bar at a time, one drink at a time, one secret at a time, one laugh at a time.

Right here in Boston. I didn’t have to go very far to find what I was looking for. Just had to adjust the focus a touch. Happens to all of us, from time to time. Looking at things without seeing them, until suddenly they are drawn into sharp relief. And hey, I could be wrong about all this. After all, look at my near monthly declarations of sudden insight. Smoke and mirrors. This might be the same.

But it might be different.

In either case, we’re all in the funhouse, in the end.

Miss Ryan-McGee Dot Com, Round 1

Well, Valentine’s Day has come and gone. Me, myself, and I spent it watching wrestling DVDs, trying once again to kill Insane Pizza Boy in “Vice City” (I’m not made to play these “invest 200 hours in beating the game” games, honestly), watching some “Buffy”, and catching my homegirl Drew Barrymore on SNL with the roommate. All in all, not a bad way to spend the day.

I also was compiling the replies to the “Miss Ryan-McGee Dot Com” Contest. I’ve received seven entries so far, which honestly is about seven more than I expected. But rock on, I’m feelin’ the love, the way I do from that new Black Eyed Peas song. (That girl is Carmen Electra-Lite, and can’t sing, but Lord she’s hot in that new video. But I digress.) You people with your “dates” on V Day, your “girlfriends” or “boyfriends”, you who have that whole “stable monogamy” thing, that “I can wake up next to the person I love all the time” thing, and…OK, I’m gonna stop now, cuz suddenly my counter-argument of “But I have hot JPEGS” isn’t working as well as I thought it might.

So, if you are now at home, or at work, or in prison, crying because you think you’ve missed the deadline, fear not. It’s an ongoing process. Just go here, fill out the survey, and hit me with your best shot. Or hit me baby one more time. Or hit ‘em up style (Oops!). All up to you.

So it’s only fitting that I publish these first seven intrepid women on President’s Day. These brave pioneers all have something in common with our forefathers. And that’s the fact that they all love Lynard Skynard.

OK, so maybe not. But they are trailblazers all the same. I’ll post these in the chronological order in which I received them. Remember, there are no winners or losers in all of this. Well, except me. I convinced seven hotties to vie for my attention. That utterly rules.

Without further adieu:

Name:

Shannon

Location (City, Town, Bit of Grass on Someone’s Lawn, etc):

Somerville, MA

Super Sexy Spy Code Name (c’mon, you know you have one):

Natasha

URL (if applicable):

http://www.bitter-girl.com

In your opinion, why are you the most qualified to be “Miss Ryan-McGee Dot Com”?

You even have to ask that? I'm fabulous. Point, set and match.

This position comes with great power and responsibility. It¹s sort of like being Spider-Man, that way. Would you use your newfound status for good or evil? Please cite examples where possible.

Evil, of course. I'm planning to use my pageant sash to wrap around the
stacks of cold beers men will buy me once they learn I'm Miss Ryan-McGee Dot
Com. A primitive beer cozy, of sorts.

I'm thinking of a number between 4 and 5. What is it?

45.

Most pageant winners do a lot of work with charity organizations. So let me ask you this: do you like beer?

Yes. Mmm-hmm. See answer above.

True or false: Bald is a sexy look. (Hint: It’s true.)

True. But you have to have some yummy scratchy facial hair to make up for it. Just ask my boyfriend.

Do you “have it going on”, are you “all that and a bag of chips”, or have you been known to “shake it like a Polaroid picture”? List all that apply, with anecdotal references if possible.

Yes. I once had an entire barful of Germans buy me a huge row of shots after my karaoke version of "Love Shack." And *I* was singing the Fred Schneider part!

OK, we agree to go out on a date. Unless it's not a date. Heck, I can never tell, but let's call it a date anyway. It's what I'm gonna tell my co-workers tomorrow in any case. But it has to be a double-date, with any two historical figures of any era. Who do you invite to come along and what do we four do? Money’s no object.

Eleanor of Aquitaine and Catherine the Great. And then we triple-team you into submission. (Oh wait. We have to leave the house? Then I suppose we go out for a drink first).

***

Name:

Lizard

Location (City, Town, Bit of Grass on Someone’s Lawn, etc):

Queens

Super Sexy Spy Code Name (c’mon, you know you have one):

What, "Lizard" isn't sexy enough for you? Fine. My porn name is apparently "DJ Phoenix."

URL (if applicable):

Mine? Don't have one. But I'll borrow "www.seanbaby.com" as my favorite backup.

In your opinion, why are you the most qualified to be “Miss Ryan-McGee Dot Com”?

Because I've always got your best interests at heart. See the question about double-dating, below.

This position comes with great power and responsibility. It’s sort of like being Spider-Man, that way. Would you use your newfound status for good or evil? Please cite examples where possible.

Good? Evil? Feh. Clearly, I would use my newfound status for awesome.

I’m thinking of a number between 4 and 5. What is it?

6. I know you too well, McGee.

Most pageant winners do a lot of work with charity organizations. So let me ask you this: do you like beer?

Hell yes. Beer made by charity organizations is a plus.

True or false: Bald is a sexy look. (Hint: It’s true.)

Check my recent dating past: True.

Do you “have it going on”, are you “all that and a bag of chips”, or have you been known to “shake it like a Polaroid picture”? List all that apply, with anecdotal references if possible.

No, no, and . . . no. I have something going on, but I'm pretty sure it's not "it;" I am all that but I ate the chips while I was waiting; and I do shake it, but not in the manner of developing film. Sorry, dude.

OK, we agree to go out on a date. Unless it's not a date. Heck, I can never tell, but let's call it a date anyway. It's what I'm gonna tell my co-workers tomorrow in any case. But it has to be a double-date, with any two historical figures of any era. Who do you invite to come along and what do we four do? Money’s no object.

David Bowie for me. Jennifer Garner for you. I don't think we'd have any trouble coming up with activities, but "dancing our asses off" would probably be involved.

***

Name:

Jeanna Emert

Location (City, Town, Bit of Grass on Someone's Lawn, etc):

Vince Gill (works perfectly!)

Super Sexy Spy Code Name (c'mon, you know you have one):

Velvet J, if you're nasty

URL (if applicable):

U R A Q-T!

In your opinion, why are you the most qualified to be "Miss Ryan-McGee Dot Com"?

I like wrestling! (Do with that what you will).

This position comes with great power and responsibility. It's sort of like being Spider-Man, that way. Would you use your newfound status for good or evil? Please cite examples where possible.

Evil, definitely. Good is always less sexy than evil. Who really wants to jump Clark Kent? No one. Do Bikers for Jesus get the chicks? No. John Kerry? Boring.

I'm thinking of a number between 4 and 5. What is it?

In one night?? Oh, Ryan, really! Let's try to keep it to three, k?

Most pageant winners do a lot of work with charity organizations. So let me ask you this: do you like beer?

Baby doll, you know I'm easy. No beer required.

True or false: Bald is a sexy look. (Hint: It's true.)

Um............can I use my lifeline on this one, Regis? (Kidding! You know I like to play with your head.)

Do you "have it going on", are you "all that and a bag of chips", or have you been known to "shake it like a Polaroid picture"? List all that apply, with anecdotal references if possible.

Did I mention the stripper pole in my new apartment?

OK, we agree to go out on a date. Unless it's not a date. Heck, I can never tell, but let's call it a date anyway. It's what I'm gonna tell my co-workers tomorrow in any case. But it has to be a double-date, with any two historical figures of any era. Who do you invite to come along and what do we four do? Money's no object.

Well, since we don't really go out on "dates" (unless by "date" you mean "six or eight hours of sexual tension over pizza followed by sweaty monkey sex") I'd say we'd have to do our usual. Invite your brother’s friend Gina and Katherine Moennig ("Shane" from "The L Word") up to our suite at the Ritz, take a little Cristal bath, and then emulate the activities shown on the Discovery Channel. Since there's so much of you, and we're all rather short, we'd definitely have to tag-team. (Flattery alert!) However, being the selfish hussy that I am, I'd have to insist that there be a little strip-teasing and lap-dancing and (deleted because my mother might read this, but oh lord, that IS interesting) of the lesbian variety before we really got down to business.

***

Name:

Livia Liburdi

Location (City, Town, Bit of Grass on Someone’s Lawn, etc):

Parents house in CT

Super Sexy Spy Code Name (c’mon, you know you have one):

Naomi—figure it out

URL (if applicable):

www.imaslampig.com

In your opinion, why are you the most qualified to be “Miss Ryan-McGee Dot Com”?

I’ve always wanted a hyphenated name.

This position comes with great power and responsibility. It’s sort of like being Spiderman, that way. Would you use your newfound status for good or evil? Please cite examples where possible.

I would use my powers for evil. I’ve always wanted power, and no one gives me any responsibility. Power would be fun, because I could tell people what to do and when to do it.

I’m thinking of a number between 4 and 5. What is it?

27?

Most pageant winners do a lot of work with charity organizations. So let me ask you this: do you like beer?

I’m really not a beer girl. I’m high class with the vodka.

True or false: Bald is a sexy look. (Hint: It’s true.)

I LOVE Vin Diesel and Jason Taylor. Hello!! SEEEEEXXXXXXY!!

Do you “have it going on”, are you “all that and a bag of chips”, or have you been known to “shake it like a Polaroid picture”? List all that apply.

I’ve got it going on, I can shake it like a Polaroid picture, like a salt shaker, and I can Get Low. I’m very overqualified in this subject.

OK, we agree to go out on a date. Unless it's not a date. Heck, I can never tell, but let's call it a date anyway. It's what I'm gonna tell my co-workers tomorrow in any case. But it has to be a double-date, with any two historical figures of any era. Who do you invite to come along and what do we four do? Money’s no object.

So you, me, Chris Farley, and Marilyn Monroe fly to Vegas. Marilyn knows everyone, so I’m sure we’d become VIP everywhere. VIP status is key. Anywhere we go, it’s best to be VIP. Maybe dinner, I’d say a show but looks like one of those tiger guys has been eaten, so that’s out. Chris will entertain us by just being Chris. And Marilyn can sing to you. Plus we’d be in Vegas, warm weather equals less clothes and free alcohol for all. This could be fun!

***

Name:

Michelle Pelletier

Location (City, Town, Bit of Grass on Someone's Lawn, etc):

The Westside, the L.B.C.

Super Sexy Spy Code Name (c'mon, you know you have one):

Hots

URL (if applicable):

Not even I can share that with you, Ryan.

In your opinion, why are you the most qualified to be "Miss Ryan-McGee Dot
Com"?

See the picture attached ... it speaks for itself.

This position comes with great power and responsibility. It's sort of like being Spider-Man, that way. Would you use your newfound status for good or evil? Please cite examples where possible.

I would use it for good at times but primarily for evil - I have to admit. Let's face it when do people really use their power and responsibility for good anyway...where's the fun in that?

I'm thinking of a number between 4 and 5. What is it?

4.5, duh.

Most pageant winners do a lot of work with charity organizations. So let me
ask you this: do you like beer?

I love beer! Ah if I could only drink more of it... I wish I had one right now.... I have learned if you skip the snacks at happy hour you can drink more beer and get more drunk... kill two birds with one stone I say...and have you ever had FAT TIRE? THE best...

True or false: Bald is a sexy look. (Hint: It's true.)

I'm going with True. I hear bald men are better lovers and you can't knock what you haven't tried.

Do you "have it going on", are you "all that and a bag of chips", or have you been known to "shake it like a Polaroid picture"? List all that apply, with anecdotal references if possible.

I do "shake it like a Polaroid picture"
I have caused people to "take their shirts off and spin them around like a helicopter"
"Forshizal My nizal"
I'm "off the chain"/"off the hook"
"You are the star of my universe"
"Am I in heaven? Because I just saw an angel!"
"Is your dad a terrorist? Because you are the Bomb Baby"
"If beauty was a drop of water, then you are the ocean."
"I know that milk does a body good, but baby how much have you been drinking?"
"If beauty was time then your name must be eternity."
"You're so sweet that I'm starting to get a toothache"
"Is your dad in prison? Because he must have stolen the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes."
"Is that a mirror in your pocket? Because I can see myself in your pants."
"Are your legs tired? Because you have been running through my mind all night."

You are the…
salsa on my chip
icing on my cake
sunshine on my shoulders
light at the end of my tunnel
carnation on my lapel
sparkle of my eye
lemon in my tea
tickle of my fancy
apple of my eye
shine on my shoes
crease of my pants
skip in my step
groove in my beat
scratch of my itch
tongue of my kiss
beat of my heart
20" rims of my ride
pep in my fuel
blossom of my flower
eruption of my volcano

OK, we agree to go out on a date. Unless it's not a date. Heck, I can never tell, but let's call it a date anyway. It's what I'm gonna tell my co-workers tomorrow in any case. But it has to be a double-date, with any two historical figures of any era. Who do you invite to come along and what do we four do? Money's no object.

Do Thelma and Louise count as historical figures?

I'd say yes but I will go with Jesus and Mary just to be safe. I figure we take a jet to Venice and meet up with Jesus and Mary and we all go on a Gondola ride in the canals... we will only need to bring water because Jesus can turn it all into wine :0) and then having Mary there will be kinda like a chaperone and will ensure that our date is G-rated. However, depending on how the ride goes - we may decide to ditch Jesus and Mary on the banks, go to the nearest saloon, kick back some beers and hit the dance floor.

***

Name:

Cynthia

Location (City, Town, Bit of Grass on Someone’s Lawn, etc):

Pullman, WA

Super Sexy Spy Code Name (c’mon, you know you have one):

Cynja the Ninja

URL (if applicable):

www.cynsim.com

In your opinion, why are you the most qualified to be “Miss Ryan-McGee Dot Com”?

First and most importantly, Ryan McGee has already stated that he would do me and I have proof in my comment box. Thus he already thinks I'm attractive, and that's all that matters anyway. Of course he probably says that to all the ladies, but I'm the only one who is willing to put that statement up on her title bar.

This position comes with great power and responsibility. It’s sort of like being Spider-Man, that way. Would you use your newfound status for good or evil? Please cite examples where possible.

Evil. I will demand my very own Miss Ryan McGee baby tee and model it for the express purpose of attracting male visitors to Mr. McGee's website. I will also take said males and entrance them with my ninja powers. After that, I will induct them into my army of besotted males and take over the world!

I’m thinking of a number between 4 and 5. What is it?

4.7

Most pageant winners do a lot of work with charity organizations. So let me ask you this: do you like beer?

I don't! I like hard liquor.

True or false: Bald is a sexy look. (Hint: It's true.)

The Matrix made bald sexy.

Do you “have it going on”, are you “all that and a bag of chips”, or have you been known to “shake it like a Polaroid picture”? List all that apply, with anecdotal references if possible.

I shake it like a Polaroid picture every time I hit the dance floor. Or at home, alone. With the cam on. There's evidence somewhere.

OK, we agree to go out on a date. Unless it's not a date. Heck, I can never tell, but let's call it a date anyway. It's what I'm gonna tell my co-workers tomorrow in any case. But it has to be a double-date, with any two historical figures of any era. Who do you invite to come along and what do we four do? Money’s no object.

First of all, if I go out on a date with you, it's only going to be you and me. Sorry if you wanted to meet some fascinating historical figure, but if you are going to keep up with me, you don't want any distractions. Naturally we will go dancing, to see how well you fare on the dance floor. After that, if the chemistry is there, we might make out. If there isn't, we'll work on making some chemistry. Then we'll make out. After that, we should find something interesting to do, like go to a party or jump out of a plane ( I always wanted to do that). If no parties or planes are available, then we'll wander until I find something exciting to do. Like Cancun. Let's do Cancun.

But let's be honest, you aren't taking me to Cancun or to a party, so let's eat a wee bit of food and go dance the night away. I'll teach you some new moves, I promise.

***

Name:

TLC

Location (City, Town, Bit of Grass on Someone’s Lawn, etc):

Chicago, IL ["312 Representin"]

Super Sexy Spy Code Name (c’mon, you know you have one):

The Diet Coke of Evil. And the super secret spy code word is "monkey."

In your opinion, why are you the most qualified to be “Miss Ryan-McGee Dot Com”?

I'm one of Ryan's only groupies. I can stump many people about 80's and 90's songs. I'm equally comfortable sitting on my futon watching "Buffy" or Monster Garage re-runs and going out to dive bars with a bunch of my friends and making fun of trixies. I scored a 19% on a purity test and a 68% on an "are you a geek" test. I have no problems supporting whole-heartedly my favorite teams, yet also be able to make fun of them. And I'm cute.

This position comes with great power and responsibility. It’s sort of like being Spiderman, that way. Would you use your newfound status for good or evil? Please cite examples where possible.

Probably evil, because it's what I'm better at. But I'm a good evil. Does that count? My friend and I were once declared "2 cupcakes baked by the devil" by the local bartenders. I swear, we didn't do anything. Except for kiss several people. Have a couple of my friends grab our boobs. Make out with a gay man. Oh, and shake a tambourine on top of the bar for all it's worth.

I’m thinking of a number between 4 and 5. What is it?

4.375

Most pageant winners do a lot of work with charity organizations. So let me ask you this: do you like beer?

Yes. And I'm also adept at holding it between my breasts.

True or false: Bald is a sexy look. (Hint: It’s true.)

False. No true. Aaaaaaaah. *ahem* I think I'm going to go with "true" on this one, Alex.

Do you “have it going on”, are you “all that and a bag of chips”, or have you been known to “shake it like a Polaroid picture”? List all that apply.

I have enough junk in my trunk to shake it all day like a Polaroid picture and not even realize it. It's what develops that's the problem. As for the other 2 questions, do I really have to answer that? I know I'm all that and 2 circle snaps. C'mon, I collect sharp objects, old literature, watch all types of sports and have a fascination with cars and motorcycles. And that's just the beginning…

OK, we agree to go out on a date. Unless it's not a date. Heck, I can never tell, but let's call it a date anyway. It's what I'm gonna tell my co-workers tomorrow in any case. But it has to be a double-date, with any two historical figures of any era. Who do you invite to come along and what do we four do? Money’s no object.

Kurt Vonnegut and Jeannette Winterson. We go to Les Deux Magots (a café in Paris) and sit in a back corner and drink beer and absinthe. We have deep philosophical conversations about the meaning of life (with tangents into Monty Python skits and songs) that quickly denigrate into raunchy comparisons about who's had the wildest time and who has the most fucked-up dreams. Ryan finds out that he can out-Irish car bomb Vonnegut. I discover that Jack Daniels isn't always my friend yet still manage to convince Winterson I'm not a lesbian. We all end up stuffed in the back of a taxi whose driver can't understand where we're going, so we end up 30 minutes later outside of the hotel that was 10 minutes away. Many rude gestures and expletives are made at people out of the taxi windows. We all pile giggling into the elevator, while trying not to notice that the entire hotel staff is staring at us. I'm in awe that Vonnegut is giggling. In our hotel suite, Jeannette and I end up dancing in the windows in our Wellingtons and high heels, respectively. The guys trade bad cultural references while trying to decide whether or not to order a) room service, b) champagne or c) porn. Then it becomes a "choose your own ending" story.

***

I'm a lucky guy, what can I say?

Three snaps up for all these women. Hopefully you readers had as much fun as I did seeing what they put together.

Stuck in the (B)Rambles

Well, it’s Thursday night as I’m compiling the thoughts and ramblings for the week. It’s also the start of a mini-vacation for yours truly, as I’m off work until next Wednesday. I had planned on a safari expedition in the Sahara, but then I looked up where that is, and it’s like, really not close to Boston in the slightest. It’s at least a two-hour drive away, by my estimates.

So instead, I’m here, rockin’ the vacation in high style---plaid pajamas pants and macaroni and cheese. Someone get “Cribs” over here, stat. I’m living like a rock superstar. Big house, five cars. The whole nizzle. I’m dealing with a home heating system that has the temperament of a really snobbish cat: it’ll work, but only when it feels like it. Highly frustrating to say the least.

But that’s OK, cuz I’m on vacation. Time to catch up on all of those things I’ve been meaning to do but haven’t had the time. Read a bit more. Get my oil changed. Run guns across the border. Try a new recipe. Dissect a yak. You know, those typical things.

Between the Grammys breakdown and my little contest this week, I’ve pretty much tapped my well of “completely random statements” for the week, but I managed to squeeze a few more drops of non-sequitur goodness. Who loves ya, baby? That’s right, Big Poppa RyGuy. On with the show:

***

This may be the coolest information in the History of Cinema. Say it with me: ZABKA! Put the Oscar in a body bag! YEAAAH!

My vote for the most unpopular restaurant for Valentine’s Day: "Illegal Seafoods".

Weirdest voice mail received during the Grammys: “Hi, Ryan. You don’t have to call me back, but I think Sting was wearing a skirt, and I figured if anyone would know, it would be you.” Um. What? Since when am I a male skirt expert? Someone hold me.

Oh great. NOW they start one. Six years too late to do me any good. Sheesh.

Good sign I wasn’t going to snog any of the girls I was out with on Wednesday night is when my co-worker volunteered the following bit of opinion to the group: “Yea, I could never shag Ryan. He’s got too much neck hair.” Just shoot me.

Same girl, one hour later: “And another thing…he TALKS all the time. And I can’t be there, you know, and him yap, yap, yapping the whole time!” I’m all for honest drunks, but man, this was ridiculous.

In addition, you know people at work are reading your website when, while out, they will say or do something and then look at you and say, “You’re not gonna write about that, right?”

Speaking of weird girl scenarios, I actually ran into my one and only match.com date the other night in Kenmore Square. This was the girl who, during our first date, told me she was still living with her ex-fiancée and already had a bed buddy. Whenever I think of rejoining that service, I think of her, and then just go download more porn.

It’s my firm belief that just about anything can be improved with the addition of lasers. Blenders, love seats, shower curtains, Jessica Simpson…anything, really. (MTV needs to get on this. If Jessica were equipped with lasers, I just might start watching that show.)

Speaking of lasers and Jessica Simpson, she might be one of the worst candidates for one of those laser shows at the planetarium. I mean, “Laser Pink Floyd” works, but “Laser Simpson”? Sorta like “Laser Norah Jones”. Just not that appealing to me.

Speaking of Norah Jones---her little dance in the video for “Sunrise” is officially the Cutest Thing I Have Ever Seen. If a girl did that for me in person, I might have to marry them.

That being said, I’d like to offer a little prayer to God that I never hear that, or any Norah Jones song, after 9 pm while driving in my car, in that I might instantly fall asleep and die in a fiery pit of destruction after swerving into a tree.

My favorite part of “Cribs” is always when they go into the bedroom and say, “This is where the magic happens.” For once, I’d like to see someone say that when they’re like, in the garage. Just for a change of pace. That, or have them be in the bedroom and say, “Here’s where the ‘three minutes of awkward foreplay followed by 83 seconds of meaningless humping following immediately by his lazy ass falling asleep’ happens.”

Well, if you need proof on this Valentine’s Day Eve that love can’t last, just go here.

President Bush has been seeking to quell rumors that he may not have fulfilled his military service obligations. As proof, the White House has provided pay records, dental records, and a handwritten note from his mother saying that he beat her once in “Risk”.

According to AP reports, “Courtney Love took to the airwaves on the nationally syndicated "Howard Stern Show" this morning Thursday to defend her spate of erratic behavior”. She said, and I quote, “Look, I’m freaking nuts. There’s not much to explain. Also, your head looks tasty. Let me eat it.”

Alright, so lemmee get this straight---the FCC is up in arms over the Nipplegate controversy, but they are doing nothing about the fact that “Yes, Dear” is still on the air?

Bands I should have added to the “Artists Who Consistently Put Out The Same Song While Hoping No One Notices” Hall of Fame: Rage Against the Machine, Nickelback, and Chubby Checker. C'mon, the guy sang 400 songs, all of them with the word "twist" in the title. If he covered Nickleback, he'd probably sing, "This is how/You remind me/Of how I used to twist"...

Best Case Against Reality Television: Oh Jesus. I just saw Andy Dick and Trischelle from “The Real World” making out on “The Surreal Life”. Yea. Um, that’s great. Thanks, WB. I wasn’t needing my libido for the rest of my life anyways, thanks for scaring it to death. I need a hug.

OK, that kiss has fried my brain. Gotta stop. Do a little regression therapy. Seee you all soon.

Valen-Who? Valen-What?

OK, well, most people seem to be spending a lot of energy this week on Valentine’s Day. Either they are busily preparing themselves for a (hopefully) romantic evening, or they are railing against the overly commercial “holiday” which only serves to remind them that being single sucks. The former group has been pricing flowers, making dinner reservations, arranging for the string quarter, importing African tap-dancing lemurs, and such. The latter group has been drinking heavily since last week.

I’m here to break off from both of these parties and use my energy in a more productive way. Sure, there’s always the tactic of “apathy”, but apathy really takes more work than it should during times like these. It takes a lot of effort to not care, and really, in the end, you’re only fooling yourself. Dr. Phil knows what horrors look beneath the surface. Trust me. Creepy weirdo doctor guy. Gives me the willies.

I’ve been busy trying to convince myself that I am not disheartened, but disinterested, over Valentine’s Day. Well, that’s to some extent true---I’m not curled up in a corner with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s weeping over my lack of date-dom on Saturday night, but I’d be lying if the prospect of watching “Buffy Season 5” all night long seems more appealing than having a date. Oh well, c’est la vie and all that French stuff.

So simply doing nothing isn’t working, but what to do? How to channel this energy? How best to expend inner vigor? There’s only so many Seabreezes in the world.

So, I’ve come up with what I hope is a simple and elegant solution. One that will occupy my energy for this week, and hopefully the next too. Take that, ye people making hard-to-get reservations! That torte won’t last you ‘til next Wednesday, and besides, she’s already cheating on you with your roommate.

(OK, that was my bitter voice. I apologize for that. Moving on.)

So here’s the plan. The solution. The zenith of all that which hath ere befallen.

I’m holding the first Annual “Ms. Ryan-McGee Dot Com” Pageant.

Here’s the way it works: Below you’ll find a questionnaire. Simply paste the questionnaire into your email, answer the questions, and boom, send it back to me. I’ll be posting any and all contestants sometime next week on the site.

Here’s the FAQ:

Have you lost your freakin’ mind, you attention hussy?

Well, I’m not Mike D. of the Beastie Boys, so maybe I’m losing my mind this time, this time, I’m losing my mind. But it’s got nothing to do with this contest. I’ve asked a few people if they thought this was a fun idea, and unless they severely fear my wrath and were lying, they were genuinely amused by the concept. Except my mom, who wishes I’d step away from the computer and actually meet a real live flesh-and-blood girl.

How will you pick a winner? You just want topless photos, don’t you, you pig?

Well, I wouldn’t mind topless photos. I’m like, a guy. But I won’t post any of them.

There will be no winner, in short. That’s not the point of this at all. The points are many: I get the minor ego boost of having women “vie” for me, readers with blogs can get some linkage going there way, you as “contestants” get to exercise some creativity, and hopefully in the end it’ll be something fun and different for the readership.

And if you don’t like it, then the terrorists have already won.

So photos? Yes, no?

You got one, and you want me to post it with your entry, rock on. If not, no biggie. Pictures of yourself with a sign professing your lust are not required, but send them anyways. If you pull a Janet Jackson, I may have to press charges. Unless you’re hot.

I’m a guy and want in. Can I submit an entry, you heterosexist pig?

Sure, why not? I’m an equal opportunity objectifier.

When will you post the entries?

Hard to say. Depends on response. I’m thinking next week, but since I came up with this idea about 2 hours ago overall, there isn’t much foresight involved here. Maybe never. Maybe I’ll just create a slide show in my apartment, and stay in all day, watching it in my Hello Dolly bathroom while nursing a mug of cocoa and tequila. Who am I to predict the future?

Can I submit my friends to this contest, preferably without their knowledge and/or consent?

Absolutely. The more girls that someday Google their own names, find this page in their results, furrow their brow, click the link, and then scream out in abject terror, the better.

What questions didn’t make the cut?

Oh, too many to mention. Most of them were on par with, “"Tell me your favorite article of clothing, and the specific place on my floor that it would end up." But none of those are in the final survey, thank you muchly.

Wouldn’t simply asking a girl on a date this Saturday be easier than all this effort?

If you have to ask that question, you haven’t been following my dating life very closely, have you?

***

OK, so that should take care of most of your questions. This should be interesting. Or “soul-deadening”. Either way, ya know.

The Official “Ms. Ryan-McGee Dot Com” Questionnaire

Please answer each question to the best of your ability. If you don’t know the answer to a question, just write “Vince Gill”.

Name: ____________________
Location (City, Town, Bit of Grass on Someone’s Lawn, etc): __________________
Super Sexy Spy Code Name (c’mon, you know you have one): _____________________
URL (if applicable): ________________________

In your opinion, why are you the most qualified to be “Miss Ryan-McGee Dot Com”?

This position comes with great power and responsibility. It’s sort of like being Spider-Man, that way. Would you use your newfound status for good or evil? Please cite examples where possible.

I’m thinking of a number between 4 and 5. What is it?

Most pageant winners do a lot of work with charity organizations. So let me ask you this: do you like beer?

True or false: Bald is a sexy look. (Hint: It’s true.)

Do you “have it going on”, are you “all that and a bag of chips”, or have you been known to “shake it like a Polaroid picture”? List all that apply, with anecdotal references if possible.

OK, we agree to go out on a date. Unless it's not a date. Heck, I can never tell, but let's call it a date anyways. It's what I'm gonna tell my co-workers tommorow in any case. But it has to be a double-date, with any two historical figures of any era. Who do you invite to come along and what do we four do? Money’s no object.

Thank you for completing this survey! Please email Ryan, along with any visual aids you deem necessary, at your earliest convenience. Management will process these applications as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

The Help Ryan Get a Life And Quickly Foundation

2004 Grammys Review

OK, so here's the deal.

I'll be updating as much as I can throughout the night---I'll be typing away during commercial breaks, since my computer is not in my living room.

I'm not too worried about typos until the whole thing's over, at which point I'll edit as much as I can, but for the meantime, I'm going for speed more than accuracy. In that way, it's a lot like a typical date for me.

I’m starting here, at 5:30 pm, making Pizzeria Uno’s Pizza Skins at home. According to the box, I need to cook these bad boys for 45 minutes before I enjoy them. It’s also clearly marked, in about a dozen places on the box, to make sure these are not below 165 degrees upon consumption. OK, when I go the actual restaurant, I get these things in 10 minutes, without the warnings consistent with when you eat blowfish. So, should I be “extremely impressed” or “scared for my existence” at this time difference? Does Pizzeria Uno’s have nuclear-powered stoves or something? Are they wielding cookery of mass destruction? Someone, quick, get Ridge on this.

Also, for the record, I've got "between 8:23 pm and 8:46 pm" in the office pool for "first really weird use of the phrase 'shake it like a Polaroid picture', most likely by someone like Pat Boone".

The fun starts at 7. Well, Joan Rivers starts at 7. So maybe the fun starts at 8. Then again, given the extremely long delay between the actual awards and the broadcast, who knows when they will start. I've got Pop Rocks and Pixie Sticks for us all, though. Don't worry, it'll be OK. So long as like, Prince doesn't perform or something.

*reads list of artists who are performing*

Ok, screw it. We're all in a lot of trouble.

(Update: Yea, in serious trouble. All done though for now. Whew. We made it.)

***

6:07 pm: Whoa, The Rivers are already broadcasting on E! This is way too early to be there. My guess is that Joan’s been there since like, 10 am and didn’t notice there wasn’t a camera. She’s just been talking for the past 8 hours to Harvey the Rabbit, and the crew got there, felt bad for her, and started early.

6:08 pm: Melissa Rivers may have the greatest “I Can’t Believe This Is My Mother” face ever.

6:09 pm: OK, Joan Rivers is breaking down the list of people she’s looking forward to seeing, including Cher, Barbara Streisand, OutKast, and Johnny Cash. Melissa reminds her mother that Cash is dead. I’m praying that this isn’t a comedy skit and in fact Joan just being Joan, but the scary thing is, you never can tell.

6:11 pm: Wow. That didn’t take long. Melissa dropped the “Polaroid picture” line already. There goes $20 of my hard-earned cash. Back to turning tricks for me down by the docks.

6:13 pm: I gotta go with "cameraman for these Rivers segments" for my pick for "worst job on network television". I wonder if this person's on drugs now. If not, where can I send some to put him/her out of there misery?

6:16 pm: Yesterday, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, and Missy Elliot announced they were going on tour together. My suggestions for the tour name: "Fallin' Crazy in Love for a One Minute Man" or "A Woman's Worth: $75 plus $5.95 Handling Charge Through Ticketmaster".

6:20 pm: OK, every time that I go back to the TV, E! is cutting to commercial, because Joan is absolutely insane. She kept mentioning her Mercedes Benz over and over again, saying it each time louder and louder, until finally bellowing at someone off camera, "Oh, who cares if the Nazis make it?" I can't even make this stuff up, people.

6:21 pm: Somewhere on the red carpet, someone's just showed up with Joan's meds. And Melissa's crying in a corner, stroking her hair uncontrollably, saying, "There's no place like home...no place like home...cuz that's where Mommy lives, and I'll never use wire hangers again, I promise." At least, that's what I assume is going on right now.

6:28 pm: Joan’s interviewing Evanescence. Camera pans to the group, and they look terrified of Joan. Man, that's gotta be a blow to their Goth fan base. Hard to seem mysterious and evil when your leaders are afraid of Joan Rivers.

6:31 pm: I just figured out Joan’s dress. Imagine if Big Bird had sex with a single-serve of old-school Jiffy Pop. Voila. That jacket.

6:35 pm: Joan’s interviewing Fountains of Wayne. Seriously, did Melissa just skip town or something? Where did she go? Maybe she bought a rifle and is looking for the nearest book depository?

6:37 pm: OK, turning down the volume now, gonna make up my own dialogue. Ha, she’s asking them about the cultural implications of sheet metal. That Joan. What a silly lady.

6:41 pm: Joan just asked Eugene Levy what he’s doing there, just as the E! graphic announces his nomination for “Best Song from a Film”. Just classic. Joan, read your freakin’ teleprompter! Is it too much to ask for a little research here?

6:43 pm: I’m thinking Eugene and Al Franken would make a kick-ass WWE tag team. They could pull that whole “switch up the partners without the ref knowing it” better than the Basham Brothers.

6:47 pm: I would be no small amount of money that Joan hasn’t a clue who Paulina Rubio is. Maybe Joan thinks she’s a Nazi. Hey, why not?

6:48 pm: This whole “hit Mute and invent dialogue” thing is working wonders with Ms. Rubio. Wow, she’s a saucy minx, I’ll tell ya. Well, I would, but she’s making me blush, and I don’t want the FCC cracking down and putting my blog on a time delay.

6:51 pm: Here's $10, I'm giving it to the first person who sweeps Joan's leg, Cobra Kai-style.

6:55 pm: OK, obviously that whole ban on cloning didn't really happen, since, so near as I can tell, four of Hugh Hefner's seven girlfriends are Paris Hilton. And none of them actually talked on camera. Enough to make C+C Music Factory go, "Hmmmm." As opposed to what they normally say these days, which is, "Would you like to super size that order?"

6:58 pm: Hey, look, it's Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. What? Oh, that's Matchbox 20! Holy crap they are short. Or that guy interviewing them is monstrous. Or standing on a box. Or standing on Melissa. (Seriously, someone call LAPD and find her.)

7:00 pm: So what's it say when Joan can stand next to Bootsy Collins and Buckethead and not look the least bit out of place?

7:01 pm: Quote of the Night so far, courtesy of Bootsy: "You gotta give the funk to get the funk." Is he talking about music or VD?

7:04 pm: Whew, we have a Melissa sighting! I'm oddly relieved. She's talking with the guy who put together all the gift bags for this year's Grammys presenters.

7:05 pm: Some of the contents of the bag: universal remote, walking shoes, blenders, treasure map, the head of a Komodo dragon, and their very own illegal immigrant laborer.

7:06 pm: Oh hell, Joan just cut off her daughter to talk to Kelly Clarkson. I think I see Justin Guarini too...in a tux serving people shrimp scampi.

7:11 pm: In my "mute" dialogue, Dave Matthews is asking Joan to take a hit off of his gravity bong. You then hear Melissa from off-camera scream, "Kill the harpy! Chop off her head! Down with the she-devil!"

7:13 pm: Patti Labelle's graciously stepped up and filled the "Aretha Franklin Shock and Awe Cleavage" duty for this year. Mazel tov, Patti.

7:15 pm: OK, I'm heterosexual. Just clarifying that up front. That being said, Sting's one hot piece of ass. Seriously, the brother looks like he's in his "Dream of the Blue Turtles" phase again, and that was something like 20 years ago. Amazing. He's at least 75 years old, by my account, and yet, well, there you have it. He ages like Aragorn. Or Dick Clark. Or Dick Clark if he were heir to the throne of Gondor. (OK, I'm stopping, promise.) He's the hottest person to appear on camera yet. Well, like, besides Buckethead.

7:18 pm: My friend just instant messaged me: "You would so rock a skirt." Well, perhaps, but if I walk in the wrong neighborhood, I might be pummeled with rocks for rockin' a skirt. Just sayin'.

7:21 pm: OK, Joan's with the Osbournes. Two things. One, by now, someone should have told Joan to let the guest speak into the microphone if we actually want to hear them. Secondly, the entire family has that "Our Best, Most Lucrative Years Are Behind Us Already" face on. That's almost sad, if they weren't say a gazillion dollars richer than me already. They are on the red carpet, and I'm in flanel pajamas. And no, I'm not the least bit bitter.

7:27 pm: JC Chasez is being interviewed by Joan, fresh off being kicked out of the Pro Bowl halftime show. The NFL kicked him off in light of the furor over the JJ Nipplegate, but really, couldn't they have justified his removal by saying, "Um, we realized we had booked JC, and that was really, really dumb. Thank God Janet's a ho otherwise we woulda been screwed."

7:31 pm: Looks like Homeland Security's slipped up again: who let the dude from Creed in?

7:35 pm: OH THANK GOD. The Sherab Ling Monastery won for best traditional world music album. Said Tenam Lama: "We're just very thankful Norah Jones wasn't up for any awards this year, that award-hogging hussy."

7:38 pm: Pharrell Williams: "Brooke Burke, I just wanna squeeze yo' waist!" Heh. I'm stealing that line when I go out bar hopping this week. I'm even gonna call them Brooke Burke. It'll help counteract my inability to remember names.

7:41 pm: Somewhere near the red carpet, Melissa Rivers is continuing her investigation into the contents of the Grammys bags, unaware that she's been off-air for close to 40 minutes.

7:42 pm: Good lord, the show hasn't even started yet, and I already hate music. I picked a bad week to quit using speed.

7:47 pm: I just saw a picture of Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson talking. That "thud" you just heard is our species' collective intelligence sinking like a stone. I think I need to sit down. Oh wait, I am sitting down.

7:49 pm: I can't even begin to imagine what transpired at the Hilton/Simpson summit. "I like breathing." "Oh my god, me TOO!" "I'm hot. "Oh my god, ME TOO!" Quick, someone, come over and take away my steak knives.

7:54 pm: OK, I'm not Kyan from "Queer Eye", but even I know Paula Abdul's highlight job is terrible.

7:58 pm: I'm having visions of Andre 300 shakin' Joan like a Polaroid picture until he shakes all the Botox out of her and she melts like the Wicked Witch of the West. Hey, I'm just being honest.

8:00 pm: Whew, the show's finally started. And look, the Mars Rover landed. Oh wait, that's just Prince's set. Nevermind.

8:02 pm: So lemmee get this straight: the producers figured the best way to start off a show honoring the last year in music is to have a medley of pre-1985 Prince hits? Huh?

8:03 pm: Why is Beyonce up there? Maybe she's about to win a Grammy. let's see how many times the "artist performs, then instantly wins a Grammy" phenomenon happens.

8:04 pm: This is all a bit like watching Ike and Tina, only in this case, Tina could whup Ike whenever she felt like it. Seriously, Prince is so short, he could be in Matchbox 20.

8:06 pm: OK, wouldn't it be shorter for the Grammys to tell us who isn't there? This is ridiculous. Although, as my friend just pointed out, "At least we know Richard Marx is still alive." So that's a plus, I guess.

8:08 pm: Quentin Tarantino: "That performance was THE BOMB." Quentin's next movie? "Kill the Scriptwriters: Volume One".

8:10 pm: Wow, shocker. Beyonce won a Grammy. Wow. I'm stunned. *yawn*

8:13 pm: OK, so we have a Dave Matthews/Vince Gill/Pharrell Williams/Sting supergroup covering "I Saw Her Standing There". Wonder if this supergroup idea will be a theme. I'm nominating George Clinton, Yo Yo Ma, and Lance Bass to do "I Am The Walrus" right here and now.

8:18 pm: Queen Latifah introduced Xtina Aguilera. Heh. I'd bet my income they don't let her sing "Dirrty".

8:20 pm: Quick! Wadrobe! A badger up and died on her head! What? That's her new hairdo? Oh. Um. Nevermind. I mean, yes, I heard the song. She's beautiful in every single way. My words can't bring her down. Yea, got it. But...OK, fine. Mouth shut.

8:22 pm: OK, so it seems like she made a bet with someone backstage: "What? I SO CAN sing 874 notes per bar! Bring it? Oh, it's already been broughten!" This is terrible.

8:25 pm: I'm not sure if Xtina or the smoke machine is taking center stage right now. To quote Mystery Science Theatre 3000: "You know, the movie 'The Fog' didn't have this much fog."

8:26 pm: The award's now for "Best Pop Duo or Group". Hrm. This throws a monkey wrench into my theory. However, I'm confidant Xtina can pull off the victory. I have history on my side. (Oops, No Doubt. Nevermind. History's a total skank.)

8:28 pm: Here's Beck, introducing The White Stripes. Ya know, when my band makes its first really big national appearance, I'm gonna make sure I don't get my sound compared to "dead cell phones and oil cans."

8:30 pm: Meg White is Sofia Coppola-hot. She doesn't immediately strike you as hot, but then you realize she is, and then you realize she might actually kill you in bed.

8:32 pm: OK, Jack White's a guitar god. He's shredding that instrument. You can feel CBS trying to keep up, and that it can't. Finally, something good.

8:34 pm: OH NO! Joe Perry's BLIND! What? Oh, just stylish sunglasses. What about the cane? Stylish too? Oh. Rock stars are weird.

8:37 pm: That was weird. Outkast wins Best Rap Album, then the cameras can't find the goup, then only Andre comes up, says, "Thank you," and gets the hell off the stage. I wonder if Big Boi was responsible for that big Xtina Cloud of Doom. Hmm...

8:48 pm: Oh, you know they did a clothing check on the two female introducers for Justin's Grammy win. You know it. You won't say it, but I will. Like Kevin Spacey in "American Beauty", I rule.

8:50 pm: The girl from Evanescence just did this great, instinctive "arm across her chest" move when Justin came near her. Poor Justin. Actually, not poor Justin. Janet's at home, and he's up winning a Grammy. Lucky Justin.

8:55 pm: OK, Patti, it's great that you know Luther Vandross and all, but this segment isn't about you, you attention hussy. It's about him.

8:56 pm: Whoa. Did Alicia Keys go to the same hair stylist as Xtina?

8:58 pm: Damn all these tasteful production numbers. I can't make fun of these. I require explosions and hos and, if possible, exploding hos. All of these can I work with.

9:01: Patti Labelle: "Here's Celine 'Talented' Dion." Huh. Funny. Thought her middle name was "Canadian Hellspawn, Put Upon This Earth To Spread Hate and Malice."

9:02 pm: Apparently the sound guys were thrown too, since we get about a minute of what sounds like the air traffic control tower at Logan Airport.

9:05 pm: Best part of the segment: camera pans to the crowd after the Luther tribute, and everyone is clapping, except Prince. Dude. Feel lucky they even remembered who you were, you ungrateful git. The man had a stroke. It wouldn't kill you, O "Artist Formerly Known as Relevant".

9:10 pm: Sting's playing "Roxanne" for the 456,000,000th time. I'm hoping he completely loses it halfway through, stops the band, says, "I'm never playing this song again," and then rips into "Straight Outta Compton". That would completely rule.

9:12 pm: Well, it's now the Sean Paul-augmented version of "Roxanne", better known as the "No One Ever Asked For This Version, and Really, Is Humanity Really and Truly Better For It, I Think Not" Megamix.

9:14 pm: Sting has this great, angry, "Why are you still singing, your part of the song is over" look going towards Sean Paul.

9:16 pm: Huh. What's up with the Phone Sex lady doing the intros for the "Best Female Pop" category? Um, not that I know what that would sound like.

9:18 pm: Xtina stands. She giggles. She jiggles. And, somewhere, the FCC nearly has a heart attack.

9:19 pm: Xtina thanks songwriter Linda Perry. The camera shows Ms. Perry. Horrified by what it sees, CBS instantly goes back to Xtina. Good to know it's about the music and not the looks. Sheesh.

9:23 pm: Sarah Jessica Parker: "We're not even halfway through the show!" For the love of God, don't remind me.

9:24 pm: Justin's now onstage, at an electric piano, playing "Senorita". Hmmm. Has there been a dance number yet? Or any full body shots yet? Nope, don't think so. The FCC and the Grammys would like to remind all Americans that genitals don't exist and that babies come from storks.

9:27 pm: OK, I missed the trumpeter's name, but he's great. I'm seeing a trend tonight---musicians who don't normally play together uniting under a common threead of musicality. And no matter what comes between us, we'll always have music. (That and Justin Timberlake's mom's enormous breasts which CBS is showing every 8.4 seconds. Man, this ain't right.)

9:29 pm: And lo, that theory is smashed to bits as the Beatles and their widows accept the President's Medal individually. Oh well. It was nice for about 87 minutes, I suppose.

9:33 pm: "Coming up next: The Black Eyed Peas eat a baby live onstage!" OK, they didn't say that, but I'd rather see that than a performance of "Where is the Love?"

9:38 pm: Well, I don't see any babies, so I guess we're gonna hear the song. And whoa, who's the freaky "Matrix"-esque dude in the group? He's giving me the creeps. Someone tell him the Oracle is calling and get him off my TV.

9:40 pm: My friend just said, "OK, I don't know where the love is, but I know where the 'Mute' button is." They all seem nice enough, I just don't like this song. Oh well. To each his/her own. And my own wants a beer right about now.

9:45 pm: I gotta say, “Dark Side of the Moon” is one of the most perfectly recorded albums ever. Each time I listen to it on a pair of headphones, I hear something new. I gotta say all this because I don't know a thing about country music and so have nothing to actually say about the Best Country Female Artist category.

9:52 pm: Cuba Gooding Jr. : "Good evening. First off: I'm really, really sorry about 'Boat Trip'." Well, that's what he SHOULD have said.

9:53 pm: Props to Beyonce for sucking it up and having the "performance involving an elaborate set, cast, and costumes that really have nothing to do with the song and aren't utilized and instead serve to show how wasted money can be" of this year. You're a team player, Beyonce.

9:55 pm: So what was the audition like to be an extra in this bit? "So, do I get to dance?" "Um, no." "Move?" "Not really." "Breathe?" "We're hoping to minimize that as much as possible as well."

9:56 pm: I'm betting somewhere in America right now, the other members of "Destiny's Child" are saying to themselves, "Oh, f#ck."

9:57 pm: Fear Beyonce, ladies and gentleman. Not only can she sing, write, and produce, but she can control the thoughts and actions of animals. Let's just cede her land right now and print money with her picture on it. Resistance is futile.

10:00 pm: Well, Evanescence's streak of luck just ended, with their winning of the "Best New Artist" award. 50 Cent proved he's not the in the club, he's just in a bad mood. Maybe 50 will shoot Evanescence. That would be OK, since that would be violence, not nudity, so the FCC shouldn't mind. Nope, he didn't shoot them, just sorta moseyed on through. Bye, Evanescense. Enjoy your work. Here's Men at Work's home number: ask them what happens now. But I don't think you're gonna like it.

10:07 pm: Hey, when did Malcolm Jamal-Warner join Earth, Wind and Fire?

10:09 pm: I don't know about you, but I'm guessing that, to this day, "Water" is pissed that he was kicked out of the group.

10:11 pm: OK, whatever Samuel L. Jackson is on, order me a case. I'm gonna need his energy to make it through this show.

10:15 pm: Props to Robert Randolph for having his name on his guitar, since I'm sure I'm one of millions who didn't know who the hell he was.

10:17 pm: Whoa, anyone else think George Clinton was gonna up and die climbing those stairs? The Church of the Funk almost ended on national television. He nearly turned this carotid artery out.

10:21 pm: Who wants the funk? Not the white people in the front row, who want nothing else except for the scary old guy to back off, and like, now.

10:30 pm: OK, just took a cortisone shot, think I can make it through the next hour. I'm feeling a bit like Frodo on Mt. Doom. I can't remember the taste of strawberriess, or the sound of water, or the feel of grass. There's nothing between me and the wheel of fire. And yea, I just saw "Return of the King" again yesterday, why do you ask?

10:36 pm: Coldplay just endorsed John Kerry. Somewhere on the campaign trail, after being told of the endorsement, John Kerry just asked, "What the f@ck is a cold play?"

10:41 pm: Oh lookie, Sarah McLachlan. Or as I like to call her, "The Best Ammo 'People Who Think Artists Only Create Good Art When Miserable' Have". Oh, you hateful aliens who kidnapped her after "Fumbling Towards Ectasy", please return her. This replacement version is terrible.

10:54 pm: OK, when I die, I'm not sure I want applause. And yes, I know the applause is a sign of respect, but it's still a little weird. At my funeral, I want many things. Just not applause. Things say, such as, I dunno, a parade of women, who each come before my coffin and declare, with tears in their eyes, that they'll never again meet half the lovin' hunk of man that I was as long as they shall walk upon the earth. You know, for instance.

10:58 pm: I don't wanna make light of the Zevon tribute, but here's clearly a case where he meant more inside the industry than outside. Don't mean to demean the choice, I'm just saying that's how it came across. But it's their show, they'll do what they want to, I suppose. Tastefully done, though i could feel the crowd try to care about a man whom many had maybe never even heard of until he died. A shame, but there you have it.

11:11 pm: My favorite part of the show, "Neil Portnow Gets His Britches in a Twist About Digital Music". He tries to make us feel bad for not buying a $19 CD through the worst PSA ever. It features a real fun, energetic, crowded party. Then, it shows how a girl, alone in her room, through the downloading of music, shuts down the party. Um. Yea. That'll teach all those kids who sit at home because they're not cool to not download music. What the hell? If I was a nerd, who wasn't cool, but knew a lot about computers, I would think that more downloading would in fact ensure that the cool kids were miserable too. That's it, I'm reloading Kazaa onto my computer and shutting down an all-night rave on Landsdowne. Thank you, Neil Portnow, for giving me the strength and resolve to fight the good fight.

11:14 pm: Let's all take a collective breath and forget we all just realized that Carole King is wearing a strapless bra. We'll be a better nation for it.

11:16 pm: Actually, quit praying. Richard Marx just won a freakin' Grammy. The apocalypse is nigh. Abandon all hope. Wherever you go, whatever you do, Mephistopheles will be right there waiting for you.

11:18 pm: OK, I don't know Richard Marx all that well, so I can't read the look in his eye. He's either gonna pull a Gollum and smash Luther's agent over the head with a Grammy, declaring both trophies his precious, or he's about to come out as Luther's lover.

11:21 pm: Sweet, "Hey Ya!" You know, if Native American women looked that good in the day, the Pilgrims woulda reconsidered that whole "take over their land" business, I imagine.

11:24 pm: Hey, lookie, a marching band. This reminds me a bit of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk", only I don't think Lindsey Buckingham could pull off Andre 3000's current outfit. Christie McVie could, though, I'd wager.

11:28 pm: I dunno, I mean, I like "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" and such; I'm just not sure it's Album of the Year. I'm just saying that the Sherab Ling Monastery got rooked, that's all.

11:31 pm: It's over. It's really, really over. Right? Please? *collapses*

Postscript: Too tired to do any more work on this tonite. I have this, like, "job" in the morning that helps "pay" for things such as "rent" and "food". Hopefully, though, you can enjoy this nonetheless for now. Cheers and such. Would love to get any and all thoughts on the show below.

Ramblin' Man

I’ve gotten a disproportionate number of encouraging emails and instant messages, so I just wanna start off the Friday column by giving my thanks to those who sent unsolicited words of kindness. And underwear. That was cool too.

I’ve been talking to a few people about the whole “swag” thing, but really, I think they only thing sadder than having a thong with my name on it would be if nobody bought one. Not sure why, but the thought of that makes me sad. I’m talking “when I watch ‘A Walk To Remember’” sad, that irrational, inconsolable grief that comes along once in a blue moon. Or when Starz shows it for the 15th time this month.

Also, as one reader pointed out, “ ‘Wading in the velvet sea’ takes on a whole new meaning when it's on underwear…” As the Sports Guy would say: these are my readers.

No swag for now, thank you. Barely can handle book sales, never mind Thermos mugs with my face on them. Or the Ryan action doll, with a pull-string that spouts various signature phrases, such as “This reminds of that time on ‘Buffy’…”, “Well, it can’t get any weirder, I suppose…”, and “I think this girl is the one…no, really. Hey, why are you laughing?” Nothing like that. No Ryan McGee-sponsored Boneless Buffalo Wings. No “Patron Saint of How Did All These Glasses Get Into So Many Nooks Of The Apartment” named after me.

Just a site with a lot of words and the occasional picture copied from the AP wire. And, every Friday, the thoughts and concerns of the past week assembled and presented like a blog-based party platter. Watch out for the dip: I made it from scratch, and haven't perfected the recipe yet.

(For those of you coming late to the rambling game, yes, these are homages to Bill Simmons from ESPN Page 2. Also, speaking of Page 2, bring back Stacey Pressman, Page 2! A lonely online nation turns to you. OK, I turn my lonely eyes to you. She rocks. Bring her back.)

***

I know now while they call the new Real World/Road Rules Challenge show “The Inferno”. After 15 minutes of watching it, I wanted to set myself on fire.

I work along the main road through which the Patriots had their victory parade on Tuesday. Afterwards, as fans walked back from the ensuing rally, they had two faces. The “Dear Lord, What Will Now Distract Me From My Meaningless Existence In This Earthly Realm” and the “Dude, You Look Like a Cousin I Once Kissed”.

Interesting connection between the Patriots’ Super Bowl victory seasons: we found out two years ago that the NFL has a “tuck” rule, and this year found out the FCC has a “nip” rule.

IM of the Week: So I get an instant message Tuesday from a reader in Chicago. Turns out there are a bunch of students out in DePaul Law who are daily readers. Jokingly, I ask how big the DePaul Ryan McGee Harem is. She replies, “Ha! That’s a much better name for our group than the current one: ‘Bitches, Blunts, and Subpoenas’.”

Last weekend saw three major movie releases: “The Big Bounce”, “You Got Served”, and “The Perfect Score”. I don’t even have a joke here. Good Lord. Nothing funnier than that “I’m the Dell Dude’s Wanna-Be Badass Cousin” telling B2K that they “got served”. That’s comic gold right there.

Speaking of “You Got Served”, is it a federally mandated law to have Steve Harvey in every movie that features a predominantly black cast? Is that part of The Patriot Act II? I'm happy he's getting work and all, but man, there have to be a few other actors who could use a job. The man's a machine. I don't think he sleeps. Maybe he's a cyborg, about to launch his missles on the East Coast. Hey, you never know.

And speaking of “The Perfect Score”, how does Scarlett Johansson go from “Ghost World”, to “Lost in Translation”, to “Girl With a Pearl Earring”, to this piece of crap movie? Shouldn’t this movie have come about 6 years later in her career, replete with full frontal nudity? I mean, I haven’t seen a fall this swift since the band Boston’s second album.

Speaking of Boston, is there a “better song on a crappier album” than “Amanda” on “Third Stage”? Seriously. That song alone is almost worth the $12 I spent on the disc, and the rest of the album only is played if I need to drain blood from my ears on command.

(And yes, I know Scarlett made “The Perfect Score” before the others, but man, shouldn’t contracts have a veto clause if suddenly, you get hot after the fact? C’mon, we can CGI anyone into a movie these days. Just invoke the veto clause, and boom, Jar Jar takes over in your place, and no one’s the wiser.)

I can’t decide if Paris Hilton’s whole “head cocked, eyes half-opened” look in every picture says, “You want me but you can’t have me” or “I can’t believe no one knows I’m a transsexual.”

I know it's a best late, but my favorite three singles from 2003: "Hey Ya!" by Outkast, "Stacy's Mom" by Fountains of Wayne, and "Whe I'm Gone" by 3 Doors Down. Speaking of Fountain, I picked up their CD last night as an impulse buy when picking up the "Lost in Translation" DVD, and if I had just heard this song Tuesday, I coulda saved myself the whole "life through Coldplay" endeavor and simply linked to those lyrics. Just amazing. Might be my new favorite song.

People have been apparently clamoring for Janet and Justin’s removal from the upcoming Grammys. In a related note, people need to get a freaking life.

CBS is instituting a new delay for the Grammys broadcast after the Super Bowl halftime “debacle”. A press release states: “"The precise length of the new delay has yet to be determined.” So, we’re looking at anywhere between “10 seconds” to “only after Powell approves it for his kids”. At what temperature does a television burn?

The Massachusetts Supreme Court this week voted that a “civil union” was in fact not good enough to support their previous ruling that paved the way for legal, gay marriage. Many people were up in arms over the announcement, and then went home to ignore their kids and not have sex.

Honestly, we’re worrying about nipples and dictating who can publicly and legally declare their love for one another. At some point we just need to step back, take a deep breath, and all work together to figure out the lyrics to Snow’s “Informer”. Let’s unite, people.

During the past week, the Georgia state superintendent tried to remove the word “evolution” from the curriculum, replacing it with “biological changes over time”. WWE star Triple H threatened to never defend the World Heavyweight Championship title again in Georgia, stating, “If the state of Georgia won’t put over my faction, I will never wrestle again in that backwoods, hick state.” In a related story, about three of you got that joke, but it’s making me giggle, so there you have it.

In another wrestling-related incident: during the Royal Rumble two weeks ago, my brother came over with his girlfriend. She was terribly bored at first, but really got into it by the end. She would get audibly upset when certainly people were eliminated. I thought this was pretty cool, her getting into it. And then, at one point, she follows a sigh of disbelief with, “He had really cool pants, he CAN’T be eliminated!” My excitement sorta dwindled after that.

(One last wrestling bit: if you like any of the writing here, and remotely like wrestling, you'll read everything by this guy. He's just genius. I usually only watch "Smackdown" so I can get his jokes fully.)

I’m voting Dido into the “Artists Who Consistently Put Out The Same Song While Hoping No One Notices” Hall of Fame, joining inaugural bands Clearance Clearwater Revival, The Gin Blossoms and Staind. (Please, help me vote some more in, I’m all ears.)

OK, if Clay Aiken’s invisible, he still needs to figure out a way to watch you in your room, right. I mean, what if all the doors and windows are locked? He still possesses physical form, just hidden, yes? He has to abide by some basic laws of nature. Or learn how to pick locks. And yes, I’ve thought about this too much.

Is Jack White the ying to Ben Affleck’s yang on the tanning spectrum? Just curious.

Someone found my site this week via the search “smeagol and valentines day and gollum”. Apparently, we’ve had it wrong all along—you’re supposed to carry dead rabbits in your mouth to your sweetie pie. Then again, both Smeagol and your girl think rings are the precioussssssss.

This is what my hostess for a weekend get-together gave me as a checklist to bring to her apartment: “memory card for PS2/beer/grappling hook/$10,000 in small, unmarked, non-sequential bills/night vision goggles/a flamethrower/a topographical map of Mozambique/superman issue #386”. I’m still wondering if my reaction should be “awe” or “call the cops”.

Nominees for Best Male Pop Vocal this Sunday: George Harrison, Warren Zevon, Sting, Michael McDonald, and Justin Timberlake. And the Grammys wonder why they are no longer relevant. Holy crap. I mean, I applaud the out-of-the-box picks here and all, but why not just go all the way and nominate Zamfir while we’re at it?

I’m waiting for the flip side to the “It’s Good To Be…” Series on VH1. I propose we call it “It Completely Sucks Ass To Be…” as the working title. We can feature Vanilla Ice and Britney Spears’ ex-husband in the inaugural episode. Preferably with Vanilla beating that guy with a bat while Chris Kattan is nearby screaming, “VANILLA! NOOOO!”

***

Coming Monday: My minute-by-minute Grammys dairy. To see what happened last year, go here.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Rush of 2004 to The Head, Part 2

Continued from here...

I came here with a load
And it feels so much lighter
Now I met you
And honey you should know
That I could never go on without you
“Green Eyes”

But the thing is, annoyingly, that you can in fact go on without her.

That shouldn’t be a disappointment, and yet, in some ways, it is. Almost as if that strips away any and all depth of emotional experience. Almost as if what you felt was a lie. Almost as if it never really mattered.

I don’t think that’s quite true, although it’s interesting, to say the least, to look back on those times were you were so absolutely sure of what you felt, and with whom you were. I mean, there was no question, right? No doubt. A very Gwen Stefani-esque existence going on there. And, on top of that, most of us have been in this place multiple times.

So, does the repetitive nature of these experiences invalidate them? Does our inability to ever perceive the ultimate outcome taint these? Well, on bad days, it sure can. Like I mentioned earlier, I’m having a really hard time re-trusting my instincts. I’m also in a bit of “oh what’s the point” mixed with a little “man, this should be easier now, but it’s not” with a bit of “I should just stay at home and beat SSX Tricky and avoid humanity” sprinkled on top.

Because the load is heavier now. Harder to bear. She made it feel as light as a feather. But here I am, Atlas-like once more. Not forever, though. Jesum, I hope to hell that’s true.

Come on in, I’ve gotta tell you what a state I’m in
I’ve gotta tell you in my loudest tones
That I started looking for a warning sign
“Warning Sign”

Course, the first thing to do is get a bit of perspective.

I mean, after all, I’ve been writing dutifully over the past year, which means that the inward eye hath been fixed even more so than usual. I’ve gone from the sublime to the ridiculous to the “we’re on a date and she tells me she still is living with her ex-fiancée” and back again, so I should have a firm grasp on a few basic tenets that I can employ towards the betterment of my existence.

But mostly, I got a big ol’ bucket o’ nuttin’.

Maybe there’s a fatalism involved. I don’t necessarily make these things happen, but I perhaps allow them to happen. Might sound like the same thing, but I don’t think so. I tend to put myself in positions in which someone can do something to me that will result in a mental migraine. All 20/20 in hindsight, but when I’m going through these motions, I tend to not see the incoming train as I walk on the tracks.

Now, I’m not absolving myself from any culpability. Lord knows that. I screw up all the time. That’s never going to truly stop. But these situations, these “so bizarre they were rejected as plots on ‘Passions’” situations, these I can perhaps avoid. Maybe listen to a few internal warning signs. Maybe respond to the tingling Spider-sense with more than a “Oh, but this time, it’ll be OK.”

Doesn’t mean I’ll stop dead in my tracks anytime something’s a bit amiss, but maybe I can protect myself, and after that, others, from repeating past mistakes. That’s not really a perspective so much as a hopeful plan, but that’s the best most of us can hope for.

Night turns to day
And I still have these questions
Bridges will break
Should I go forwards or backwards
Night turns to day
And I still get no answers
“A Whisper”

The problem with the plan, of course, is that it involves me in its central axis, and that’s always bad juju.

It’s some form of Murphy’s Law, I feel. Let’s call it McGee’s Law, because then it’s got my name in it, and that’s never a bad thing in my book. The Law goes something like this: In instances where I should think about my actions, I simply act. When I simply act, inevitably I am burned by my lack of initial thought.

2004’s a lot of that “second verse, same as the first” ditty. I don’t buy into a lot of the resolutions aspect to New Year’s, but I do appreciate a clean slate, albeit one socially and arbitrarily imposed by our forefathers. And by all accounts, the end of 2003 ended with the spectacular, four-star implosion of my nuclear family, so really, I was so ready for that year to be over anyways.

Here’s the annoying thing about social applicability, though: it doesn’t truly exist. You can try to prove a social truth over a statistically viable number of people, but on a one to one basis, there are never really many lessons that you can take from one failed relationship to another. (Or a successful one, for that matter.) It’s not “Groundhog Day”, where you can finally “solve” someone through the consistent refining of technique. You start with a clean slate, and beyond “don’t call her fat”, there aren’t a whole lot of rules you can unequivocally fall back on.

One girl appreciated it when you hold the door open for her…the next calls you patriarchal scum. One girl loves to stay in; the other wants to go out five nights a week. One loves gifts; the other insists that you never buy her anything. Neither person in these binaries are, in my mind, weighted “more” or “less” than their counterpart…it’s just different strokes for them different folks. Lord knows my ideal is not your ideal, and I’m hardly anyone’s ideal.

But I’m someone’s ideal. And I’ve gone forwards and backwards to find this person, burned a lot of bridges, and I still am not closer to finding answers. Or her. Thought the journey was over, in some ways. But night turned to day, and the journey just started anew.

So meet me by the bridge, meet me by the lane
When am I going to see that pretty face again
Meet me on the road, meet me where I said
Blame it all upon
A rush of blood to the head
“A Rush of Blood to the Head”

One foot in front of the other. Step by step. Keep on moving.

That’s what we do. We can’t just zone out, unless you’re a trust fund baby without student loans and car payments and rent to keep you going from day to day. We can’t just stop, those of us who put a premium on personal happiness derived from personal relationships. Not from work, income, fame, or Golden Tee score, but rather from our ability to make someone else happy, and, concurrently, to be made happy by those people.

The last year’s certainly been a doozy, and one in which it often has felt like I’ve been held upside long enough to have all that blood rush to my head. It was all very “Godfather Part 3”: just when I was out, it pulled me back in. Easy enough to be despondent and “f#ck it all” and the like, and Lord knows I indulge that impulse, but at a certain point, you just stop thinking and start moving.

Moving towards what, you’re not sure. But away from the past. That much is sure. The trick is to get distance, without losing sight, of those events. Often I’d wish I could simply erase the last year of my life, but in honesty, I’d probably just relive it. I’d find a way. I’m cool like that.

So I move on, and most likely move onto new problems. I’m not going to avoid that, unfortunately. But standing still…that’s even worse.

You can say what you mean
But it won’t change a thing
I’m sick of the secrets
Stood on the edge, tied to a noose
You came along and you cut me loose
“Amsterdam”

So, we’re here, moving on, from the debris of failed relationship, failed marriages, insanely bizarre dates, and the implosion of what was a promising new relationship. Here at 28, in a city I’ve been in for close to a decade. Here in a bitter winter with most of what I knew 12 months ago pulled out from under me. Left lying on the floor after the removal of that psychological rug.

All of this added up to zero.

I mean, my life isn’t worthless. That’s not what I mean when I say my life has seemingly added up to zero. But there’s very little I can unequivocally say is truly is exactly how I want it, either. Depending on what day you catch me, this is either a huge bonus or a huge detriment. On my bad days, it makes me feel like my life’s been in neutral, that I’ve been rolling along, not doing, not seizing, not attempting, not reaching.

But on my better days, I know that’s not exactly true. I’m not the best at making things happen for myself, but my state in life is hardly due to me not trying. Or even me trying and failing. I’ve failed as much as I’ve been failed. Both of these are further broken down into things I could have controlled and things well beyond my control. And this last year, well, I’m a bit biased, but I think I’ve been put through the ringer more often that anybody really deserves.

Two steps forward, two steps back. One step forward, three steps back. Two forward, one back. Consistent motion, but towards what, who knows? Maybe the implosion of so much around me is what has finally cut the noose of compliance and inertia. Maybe the book is the first real step away from that. Again, I don’t know towards what, but if I did know, I guess my life would be a little less fun.

My life is like my writing. I can’t rewrite my life, and I generally refuse to rewrite what I put out here. Maybe the sentence structure could be cleaner, maybe the word choice improved, but I go off what I feel and think at that moment. It’s messy and mistake-filled but undeniably mine. And occasionally, it’s pretty darn good. It’s knocked me upside the head, shaken me up, but hasn’t beaten me just yet. The battle between thinking and feeling will never really end, and the work to trust myself to balance the two is ever-present. But I’m still trying, and I guess that’s the important thing.

Maybe I need to expect more and less at the same time. Expect less of others, which isn’t to say I won’t expect anything, but I should perhaps re-evaluate my own dealings with them.

And expect more from myself. Lord knows I deserve better than this past year has doled out. Gotta get me some of that, methinks.

That would be quite a rush, indeed.

Rush of 2004 to The Head, Part 1

Since self-publishing the blog book, writing in general for me has been a different kind of beast. Not sure if it’s better or worse, per say, but I do know that I think about the actual writing in ways I didn’t before the project started. For the first 20 months of blogging, the entries only existed in and of themselves, as snapshots of a particular moment, which could just float away once off the main screen.

Now, though, those words have weight. They have shape and form and tangibility. They sit on coffee tables, they are parcels currently in the US Postal Service, they are in a stack at my feet. Not sure they are any more important, per say, but there they are, nonetheless.

“Lithium Sunset”, the last part of the book, has in particular given me enough food for thought that I’m contemplating joining a mental gym to slough off the excess weight. It details the chronology of my life between the end of my relationship with Jenny to the end of my parents’ relationship just after Christmas. So, you know, it’s chock full of the happy.

Around the time I finally ended it with Jenny, I finally discovered Coldplay’s “A Rush of Blood to the Head”. Don’t believe me? Check it out. I had owned the CD for a few weeks prior to listening to it, because, you know, I was in that whole “do I really want to end the longest relationship of my life and how can I do this and I don’t quite remember what life was like single and man, maybe I’m better off just waiting and seeing what happens” thing. As ya do.

So, given the month-long literary recapitulation that led to the last half of the book, and as a way to return to a typical trope of mine, let’s take a peek at the State of the Ryan via lyrics from this album, going by the sequential order of the track listings. Some quotes are contextual, some are not, all are relevant. It’s my blog, and I’ll quote if I want to. You’d quote too, if it happened to you.

Give me time and give me space
Give me real, don’t give me fake
Give me strength, reserve control
Give me heart and give me soul
“Politik”

It’s early February in New England. The groundhog has seen his shadow, meaning six more weeks of winter. Six weeks? Six freakin' more weeks? Someone, please, shoot me in the face.

By most accounts, it was the coldest January since 1888. Think about that. The last time it was this cold, Don Zimmer was 24 years old.

I do believe in a psychic winter, in that it’s convenient for me to do so, since I’m striving for applicability here. But there was something in the air last month, to be sure. The new year did not bring about renewal…it simply brought an often howling chill.

Silence, too. Much silence. Usually in the form of waiting by a phone for the only call in the world that matters to do. And never getting it. She wanted time and space. I wanted so much for what was hopefully happening to be real. Turns out, it was fake.

And so you strive for strength, and for a semblance of control. But as tight as you pull your jacket around your body, there’s a chill in your heart that can’t be bundled up, no matter how many layers.

Cold, desolate, unyielding. Yup, it was that kind of a month.

I was scared, I was scared
Tired and underprepared
But I wait for it
And if you go, if you go
And leave me down here on my own
Then I’ll wait for you
“In My Place”

I’ve never been accused of being patient. The waiting game’s never been my specialty. Leave my to my own devices, and I’ll generally pick them apart, piece by piece, and be left with a heaping pile pf parts I’ll never be able to re-assemble correctly.

That being said, for once, I felt like I could wait for something. Or somebody, in this case.

After all, if you feel like you’ve been waiting for 28 years, a few months couldn’t be that much worse, right? And you’ve not even waiting for Godot anymore, you’re just waiting for a “go”. A green light. And yes, you’re in the car, you’d rather get there sooner than later, but you will get there, so no rush, right?

And the longer you’re at the red light, the more you fiddle with the radio. The more calls you make on your cell. The more you think about what’s on the other side of the crossroads. And suddenly, the grass ain’t so much greener. Maybe a pale yellow. Hints of brown. Hardly a sunny meadow.

But she’s there, somewhere on the other side. You just have to be patient.

And then, she’s not there anymore.

And you’re stuck with the newest Matchbox 20 song as your only traveling companion. But you’re still waiting. Waiting is what you know. Even if they are no longer there. Even when they don’t want you to wait.

Still, you wait. And wonder. And turn up the volume until your ears bleed.

When you work out where to draw the line
Your guess is as good as mine
“God Put A Smile Upon Your Face”

So you’re there, and the noise and the wind and the cold and the crowds all conspire to a type of consistent white noise in your everyday life. You seem like a fully functional person, but only because many others are as self-involved as you does no one really and truly notice.

Sometimes, you pierce through the buzz and attempt to reach a coherent strain of thought. Look for something to hold onto in your brain as you piece through the scattered jigsaw puzzle of your life. Try to figure out some words that can express to someone what you’re going through, what you’re feeling, what happened.

And you wade through the muck and the mire and you find a big ol’ bag o’ nuttin’.

After all, there are no adequate words, no real replies, no truths to be found. You don’t know the answers not because of your own intellectual inferiority, but because there are no answers to be found.

That is, in its own way, worse. Hard to get closure that way. Hard to come to a conclusion when there’s no easily-reduced-to-a-stock-statement discovery after days/weeks/months of analysis.

Doesn’t mean we don’t keep looking, though, even after we figure out the utter futility of our search. Sometimes, it feels like it’s impossible to give up. Because once you’ve stopped, it’s really, truly, finally over.

I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling your puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart
“The Scientist”

So you’re at the age-old point where logic and emotion take off their gloves and go all Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton on each other. Problem is, of course, that just as there are no answers, there’s no real way for these two to even fight. It’s “apples and oranges” to the nth degree. They are oil and water. Simon and Garfunkel. Take your choice of unmixable opposites.

Logic is, nominally, “cold”, meaning “devoid of emotion”. The opposite, in fact, colloquially speaking. To accuse someone of being “logical” is often a derisive tactic. You’re calling them insensitive and unfeeling. Likewise, people are often accused of reacting too emotionally, with nary a sense of decorum or reality in their responses.

One is not concurrently logical and emotional so much as one performs a delicate, always-about-to-collapse balancing act between the two. They don’t mix so much as co-exist. Each of us has our own ever-present mixture. Some people are 60/40, others 70/30. To complicate matters, some people can go in and re-arrange your chemical balance and shoot you to a 99% emotional composition, with that shred of logic barely hanging on for dear life.

And that’s what I think those last two lines are about, when the heart speaks louder than the mind, and the thumping in your chest is pounding louder than the machinations of your mind and you can’t think your way out, you can only feel your way out, but you’re blind and in the maze and the thumping isn’t helping your sense of direction and in the end, we all fall down.

Could be wrong about that, of course. But that’s what it can feel like, and while your instincts can often be wrong, the purity of the emotion never deceives. Leads you down a path you regret, perhaps. Take you into a back alley, beat you up, and take your lunch money, occasionally. But it never lies.

And to invest something so pure in something that turns out to be so false…well, it’s not fun. Not fun at all. Pull the puzzles apart, see the design, and see it walk away. Not for the faint of a now-bleeding heart.

Come out upon my seas
Cursed missed opportunities
Am I part of the cure
Or am I part of the disease
“Clocks”

It’s one of the great conundrums of our time, up there with the whole nature/nurture debate, the Coke/Pepsi debate, and the Paris/Nicole Ritchie debate.

So do I attract these types of girls, or are these types drawn to me?

I hesitate to classify these women, since a lot of them read the site, and I don’t wanna hurt any feelings, and who am I kidding, they are all nucking futs.

There. Said. Whew. I feel better. Cleansed. Like I had an enema administered by Edward Scissorhands.

The worst part about the most recent dating debacle is not that it didn’t work out, although on a suckage meter, that’s awful high. Lower than “impaled upon something sharp at a high velocity”, but definitely above “slipped roofies again by that cute bartender at Friday’s, that saucy minx”. No, worse than that is the fact I once again don’t trust my instincts.

I’m sorta like Drew Barrymore. No, really, work with me here. Her character in “Charlie’s Angels” is a barometer for dangerous men. In real life, I seem to be the same Ground Zero For Those Looking to Take a Guy and Mentally Beat Him Like a Red-Headed Step Child. Oh sure, for a bit they are Shaking It Like a Polaroid Picture. And after that, they are Making Me Consider The Moral Grounds Of Decisions I Made In A Past Life. Soon, we move onto them Creating Scenarios and Plots So Complex I Couldn’t Possibly Have Come Up, Never Mind Execute, Them. And then, the real fun begins.

Yes, I’m being all hyperbolic, but even when I give the straight skinny to friends, blow by blow, of some of these women over the past year, and you’d swear by their slack-jawed, glazed over expression that I was talking about my time as a POW in ‘Nam. Sure, my view isn’t 100% untainted, in that every retelling of history is in and of itself a work of fiction to some extent, but unintentional rewriting aside, it’s enough to make one pause, enough to make one ponder, enough to make C+C Music Factory go “hmmmm”.

In the end, I’m responsible for some part of this. After the past year, you’d think I’d have some tiny bit of insight, but instead, I’m here, writing about my lack of insight what again. What a rip-off, I know. If y’all paid for this, I’d give you your money back. Luckily, you don’t, so I can chalk all of this up to a “recurring motif”, which is pretty damn slick of me, I must say.

I am nothing in the dark
And the clouds burst to show daylight
“Daylight”

And yea, you have to make jokes about all of this, because if you don’t, you end up like some tragic victim on the 6 o’clock news who everybody liked, and how did it come to this, and they show a picture of you in the 5th grade with those silly bangs that made you look like the dorky Beatle. And trust me, that isn’t good.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth mentioning again. At the end of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”’s sixth season, Giles, her Watcher, comes back after a prolonged absence. Buffy confesses all that has gone wrong in the year since his departure, and Giles’ response, after her lengthy monologue, is to simply burst into laughter.

Thank God I can write about this stuff, some of it, at least. I mean, if I bottled it all up, it’d form one nasty ball of bile in my belly, and really, my digestive system is bizarre enough on its own without any added elements. My friend Julie is right---I do think too much, but for every instance where my mind wraps itself into a knot too complicated to unravel, it also points to some truths I wouldn’t have come up with in a “drink ‘til the pain goes way” approach.

I’ve always thought a lot, OK, too much. But when you go to private school and then an Ivy League school, you don’t notice this fact, because everyone around you is as full of crap as you are. So you just assume, by a socially mandated complicity, that everyone deals with the world in the overwrought, overcomplicated, not-really-relating-to-reality way as you do.

If the last year has taught me much of anything, it’s that I’m straight, but Kyan’s pretty hot. Wait, that’s not what I meant. Not at all.

What the last year has shown is not the lack of value in thinking, but rather the virtue of, at times, simply letting go of such thoughts. I had drinks with Obi-Wan tonite, and I think she was pleasantly surprised at my lack of sobbing. I mean, she coulda done without my consistent groping, but that’s another article altogether.

Letting go of thought, giving in to action. Not something I’m good at. The last time I’d felt this strongly about someone, I was 21. Seven long years ago. Back then, when the bottom fell out, I could skip class, drink beer, watch “Simpsons” reruns, and basically drop out without a whole lot of consequence to my actions. Now, well, there’s work. And bills to pay. And family to see on the weekends. And books to deliver. And maybe this more mature response isn’t based so much more in maturity (although that certainly plays a part) as the sheer fact of my very living has forced me to put one foot in front of the other. As such, I have had less time to dwell, and thusly, have been in much less of a sad funk and in more of a P-Funk.

I mean, there’s nothing to be done to change what happened. Nothing that I could have said then, nothing that I could say now. Maybe sunlight’s on its way soon. I’d like to think so. But mostly, I’d like not to think. I’d like to do.

Whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing. Not sure what that is yet. Mostly likely won’t know next week or next month.

Soon enough, though.

That’s a nice thought to have.

***

Part Two can be found here.

Coming Attractions

OK, it's a busy week here at "Wading", what with the sell-out of the first run of the blog book and me designing my very own metallic starburst pasty to promote the second edition...

It's rare I know what I want to write about ahead of time, but lo, I'm giving myself deadlines this week, because 1) busy is good for me these days, 2) it'll get me motivated to finish, and 3) busy is good for me these days. That's worth repeating.

So, here's your schedule:

Wednesday: 2003: Via "A Rush of Blood to the Head", Part 1

Thursday: 2003:, Via "A Rush of Blood to the Head", Part 2

Friday: Weekly Ramblings

So, you know, tell the neighbors, wake the kids, kick the cat...whatever you gotta do.

Super Bowl Review

Random thoughts from the Super Bowl:

***

So, she wore a pasty, right? Please tell me that was a pasty.

***

I’m at my cousin’s place in Malden, with his wife, his best friend with his wife, and another cousin. We’re consistently wondering why the ability to throw a football through a swinging tire means you can tap yo’ wife’s booty again.

One person asks why no drug commercials say what the product does anymore. Then I explain (after having this explained to me last week after watching those “bathtub in the Italian countryside” commercials) that if you state the drug’s indication, you also have to state the side effects. So Dan chips in: “So, yea, you can get an erection, but you also have anal leakage.” The combination drug “Levistra” is born: a combination of Levitra and olestra. You can have sex, but only if she’s on top and you’re on the toilet.

And yes, I’m going to hell now. Like there was any doubt.

***

Look, if you have a half-time show sponsored by the new AOL that is touting its speed, don’t have the show filled with songs that came out two years ago. That does not speak well for downloading capabilities.

***

Best commercial: the Jet Blue one where the kid emasculates his dad. I’m not even sure if this was broadcast nationally or not. Or that I imagined it after being hypnotized by Janet Jackson’s nipple. Runner-up: the “Troy” ad, even if it feels exactly like a “Lord of the Rings” spot.

Worst commercial: that creepy one where the quarterback won’t stop feeling up his center. I mean, like, there’s nothing wrong with that sort of thing, except this commercial gave me the jibblies. I took a quick peek around the room, and there were five frowning faces to mirror my own. That's not good advertising, people.

***

After the game:

Dan: “MVP’s gotta be Brady.”
Kelly: “What about Vinatieri?”
Me: “I gotta go with the swinging tire, personally.”

***

Creepiest post-game occurrence: OK, I’m riding home on the Orange Line last night, and there’s a palpable sense of violence everywhere. It’s like I’ve wandered into a “Grand Theft Auto: The MBTA” video game. As I approach Sullivan Square, there’s a din growing steadily louder. And louder. And louder. And we pass by a large group of people. And my car stops right in front of them. And 20 of the loudest people ever pile into my car.

They are screaming, and yelling, and hootering, with the occasional hollar. They are jumping up and down, banging the signs, the windows, the doors, everything. I mean, they just do not let up. This is all well and fine, though it’s creeping me out a bit, since there was a fine line between celebration and outright anarchy.

And then the dad gives his seemingly 15-year old daughter the bottle of Chivas. She gulps it from the bottle.

I got off the car at the next stop, and went one car down. At each of the next 6 stops, I could hear the ever-present din from one car over. Just slightly terrifying. I wonder what would have happened if the Patriots had lost.

Note I say “the Patriots”, not “we”. Cuz we New Englanders didn’t win jack sh$t. Great for those players and coaches to win, no doubt. But to smash windows while screaming “We won!” is just about the worst type of fandom possible. Just bugs me. I woulda brought this up, but I didn’t want a Chivas bottle thrown at me by the 14-year old mom.

***

Someone, somewhere, will explain the link between “watching your team win a big game” and “the need to break and/or topple things”. I’d rather go for a “find a cute girl and swap saliva”. Then again, that’s just me.

***

Seriously, a nipple? Say it ain’t so.