Wednesday, October 10, 2012

I can smell nudity and money, but I can't find The David - A multi arched story

I will admit that while I have always wanted to go to Italy I never really took the time to learn that much about it.  Pretty much the only thing that I knew for sure what that it looked like a ladies boot.  So I did some research and looked at some pictures and was impressed with this gorgeous countryside that I saw.

Our first full day was in a city called San Giamano.  It is famous because it still has it's complete wall around it a hundred per cent in tact.  the plan was to do some light shopping (there is amazing linen store there) and then climb to the top of the city as the panoramic view from Tuscany is spectacular.  After an amazing lunch with several bottles of wine I was ready to attack this city.  We climbed and climbed and with each view being more breathtaking then the next.  When we finally reached the top I looked at the view and saw another town in the far distance that we were going to and then another.  That is when it hit me like a load of unwashed socks...

Italy is a country that is hills and mountains

The cities were built thousands of years ago...into these mountains, when there was no technology.  I was going to have to climb to the top of everything that I wanted to see...

SON OF A BITCH!

Ths was validated the next day while in Florence.  We were scheduled to tour the Duomo in the center of Florence which once again offered an amazing view.  I looked up, saw where I was going, realized there was no lift that was going to get my out of shape behind up there.  Getting to the top required climbing up a little less then five hundred stairs that are made of stone.  Five hundred stairs that are made of stone, that go up through little hallways that were made for little bitty feet. If you are claustrophobic you  will pretty much be dead by the tenth step and if you are even slightly over weight you are simply going to get stuck and die in the stairwells.  As I was ascending I thought of the clergy that did this EVERYDAY of their lives and realized that they had to have legs like Tina Turner and an ass tighter then Robert Pattinson's.  Oh, and there is no turning around once you start the ascent.  It is all or nothing.

I came down exhilarated that I had done it without suffering a mild heart attack and I vowed never would I do this again.

Until the next day, when I repeated the exact same climb with fewer steps at the Duomo in Siena. The only difference was that there were fewer steps and about halfway up when you thought you were actually at the top there was this smug bitch in a beret who cheerfully told you that you only had 117 more steps to climb.  Oh, and once you got to the top you only had ten minutes to enjoy the view.  Needless to say we stayed up there about thrity minutes, just for spite.

My vacation of climbing to the top of everything reached its peak though when I went to tour the Boboli gardens.  It had been explained to me that they were created by one of the de Medici wives who wanted the most gorgeous gardens in the world so I decided we needed to go see them.  Kinda sounded like Bellingrath Gardens at Christmas to me!  I walked to the Medici Palace entered the gardens and thought we would take a nice leisurely stroll around them. Until I saw that they were terraced gardens and that you had to climb to the top of them.  My first inclination was to run like my ass was on fire but then I saw Jeff take his first weary step up them and decided to follow.

I spent my vacation climbing to the top of everything in Italy and I wouldn't change it for the world and I got to great feelings.  The first was obvious.  I got to see places and things that most never get to see.  The second was that when I return to Italy with folks who have never been I can tell them "you have to climb to the top of the Duomo.  It's the most amazing view."  I can then sit back and grin while I  sip on a cocktail as they wearily enter the building!




Wednesday, September 12, 2012

My Own Melrose Place

So it has been a while since I have posted and it is because I just didn't find anything that was quite interesting to say.  Sure, in the month I have been away from this blog a lot has happened.  The political world keeps getting turned upside down, hurricanes have struck, someone named Drew Peterson (not to be confused with Scott Peterson, as I did) was convicted of killing his third wife and most importantly Kris Kardashian got herself another boob job.

the fact that I only know about the last one of these sometimes worries me.  Jeff tells me all the time that if it doesn't happen at 2901 Grant Street, I really don't seem to have a use for it.  Unfortunately for myself I have found this to be somewhat true.  Only because GREAT things happen at 2901 Grant Street.  In fact, it could be my break out bestseller....if I would ever write a break out best seller....

Our across the parking neighbor and Jeff apparently have waged all out war against each other and I must say that I am taking a fair bit of delight in watching this play out.  I have no idea our neighbors background but I truly think that she is Hilly Holbrook from "The Help" who has moved to our complex because she still has quite gotten over eating that sh*t pie.  She complained about everything and I mean everything that happened in Unit 601 until finally he lost every bit of southern grace and charm he was raised with and told both her and the board of directors that if she uttered one more word in our direction he was suing her for everything that she had.  As this equates to a 1993 powder blue Bonneville, and invalid husband, and the most wretched cat on the planet I don't think we would be winning end if we won said lawsuit.  Anyway, this was enough to have Hilly (or Miss Hilly as I have had Chloee start calling her...to her face) slink inside her courtyard, or dumpster area, pool, or clubhouse every time we see her.

Recently we also had a complex resident pass away after she fell down a flight of steps and broke her neck.  While I don't find the death of anyone humorous, the way the members of our complex reacted to it was priceless.  Everywhere I looked there were people who were tearlessly crying into perfectly ironed handkerchiefs all trying to catch a glimpseof the tragedy which has befallen complex 1703.  All you could hear were quiet whispers and all you could see was the mournful shaking of heads.  Chloee and I hugged everyone and told them how sorry we were, letting them know if there was anything we could do to let us know...then we got our towels and went to the pool.  The next day of course her parking space was happily occupied by her neighbor because it was, after all, closer to her house.

My newest neighbor though is the one who gives me the greatest since that I truly do live in my own Melrose Place.  She is a doll of a woman who frequently comes over to borrow cups of vodka.  Not sugar, not milk, not cream...vodka.  Said vodka is usually poured into a styrofoam cup containing a little melted ice with a  straw and off she goes.  Recently separated from her husband she also has stored (and by stored I mean hidden) many things in my own Unit and even hid her Mercedes from her soon to be ex-husband as a bargaining chip to get her divorce taken care of quicker.  She freely walks on my courtyard and taps on the glass before entering to get her vodka, lament about her day, and then sway back home.  This would normally get on my nerves, but I find it to be comic relief to an otherwise work filled day.  Until two o'clock comes and she is screaming on her cell phone on her court yard, throwing up, and sobbing.  We woke up a few Sundays ago and the entire front end was ripped off her Tahoe.  When I asked her what was wrong she said it involved "a light pole and bad decisions."  Common sense dictated that I not take the conversation any further.

The reason I can talk about all of this is because I, or course, was the cause of our biggest tragedy when I burned the top floor of my complex down.  That's right.  Nothing says re-sizing like a fire and when you can pretty much end up sweeping the contents of your life into a plastic bag you are pretty humble. It has been nicknamed "the Incident at 601", which I actually kinda sorta really like.

This is simply the tip of what goes in My Own Melrose Place.  Some buildings are quiet, some are not.  Some residents are amazing and I can tell you that based on the way some act they are going to straight to hell when all is said and done....You know, if anyone knows how to forward my life to the "E" Network, I would be happy to let them follow me around with a camera for a couple of weeks....you know, to show those Kardashians and that damned "Honey Boo Boo" what a true unscripted reality series is!


Monday, July 9, 2012

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU...

As most everyone who knows me knows, I will be 41 next month.  When I was younger I started a 30 day countdown until my birthday so everyone would be aware of the number of shopping days there were until said birthday happened.  These days, while I could care less about how old I am, I also would much prefer a nice dinner with my friends somewhere the night of my birthday.  Seriously, gifts are not important to me.

I wish that the first year of my forties would have listened to me when I told everyone this. Apparently it took it upon itself to get me a few things.  I wish it would have also given me the receipts for these things as I would gladly like to return them.

I have had insomnia ever since I can remember so not going to sleep is nothing new for me.  However, I was relatively surprised when after I took a sleep study to find out that I have sleep apnea.  Oh and not only do I have sleep apnea, I have one of the most severe cases noted in a person my age.  I always have been an over achiever.  When I told this to Jeff I was met with a nod and an "I told you so" face, which I will admit that I readily deserved.  Now when I go to bed I take a sleeping pill and put on a mask with a hose running from it that attaches to a machine on my night stand which constantly circulates air to help me breathe AND matches absolutely nothing my bedroom.  I have never seen a Storm Trooper from "Star Wars" sleep, but if I were a betting man I would think that it would look a lot like me.

Glasses are something else that I have had since I was about thirteen or fourteen years old and I will admit that I am a glasses man.  If I put on a pair of contact lenses it is for one purpose only...to change my eye color to match what I am wearing.  Glasses however give about 99% of the world the look that they know what is going on.  They are especially good props for meetings where you feel like you have to make the impression that you are really smart.  (I also use my college class ring as a similar prop).  Last week I went to LensCrafters to get my new glasses, all ready to hear the familiar "your prescription is enough to be annoying" speech from the doctor.  Not so much.  I was told after my exam that I needed bifocals.  Certainly there has to be a mistake I said when she reminded me that I was about to be 41 and that this was a natural progression to aging.  My own natural progression was to tell her a thing or two about herself that she could change, like her blue eye shadow, but I just took my prescription to the attendant, picked out a pair of ridiculously overpriced Prada frames that I thought benefited an old, blind mine and headed to happy hour to work all of this out.

Now I know that these gifts are meant to help me.  One of the main ways you can tell someone is alive is when they are breathing and reading can be quite difficult when your vision always looks like that you went swimming with your eyes open in an over chlorinated swimming pool.  I am interested in seeing what gifts my forty first birthday produces.  I am already ignoring people so I will know what it is like when I really can't hear them!




Thursday, June 21, 2012

I'M SO EXCITED, I'M SO EXCITED...I'M SO...SCARED!

Well, in reference to my upcoming forty first birthday I am neither excited nor am I scared.  You see, I have never been one that got anxious about a birthday nor did have I ever dreaded one.  Okay, I will readily admit that I turned 25 with a little bit of trepidation but it was only because I was not yet safely installed in my New York City apartment that I was going to buy after Oprah reviewed my very first breakout novel that was going to make me more famous then Brett Easton Ellis was after writing Less Than Zero.  Even last year when people we going around with big, goofy smiles saying "someone's going to be forty soon!" or "guess who's going to be forty soon?" I wasn't bothered.  Yes, I showed them all up by turning forty in Manhattan with one of my best friends but I didn't do it because I thought I had a point to prove.  Well, maybe I did.

My point here however is that birthdays or my age in general don't bother me.  Or they didn't until two very recent events that made me long for the days when I sold hermit crabs in Gulf Shores and my biggest worry was how quickly I could get to the Flora-Bama after I got off work.

A friend of mine who is two years younger then me has two daughters who somehow managed to get hold of her wallet.  Her oldes daughter came running up to her with a look of shock on her face and pointed to her drivers license and asked "Mom!  Were you really born in the 1900's?"

I almost choked on my vodka and sprite.  I remember being in school and when the word "hundreds" was added to anything it meant that thing was old.  No two ways about it.  It was old.  Never before had a gauged my age to anything.  I wasn't alive when Kennedy was killed, when the first man walked on the moon, or when Hurricane Camille made landfall and I considered all of these things benchmarks to my age.

Until it hit me that all of these things happened in the 1900's.  The century I was born in.  The 100 years in which I was born in that are now over.

Well, I somehow managed to pull myself together from this and went on about life fully aware that my birth century was gone but that I was still very young in body and even younger in heart.

Until this happened.

My Mardi Gras organization had come up with the theme of "The Golden Age of Television" as a theme and we were all picking what our individual thing was going to be.  When "Saved By The Bell" was picked I was more excited then I should have been.  I men I remember when the show was called "Good Morning, Miss Bliss" for Gods sake.  As I was making note of this someone next to me whispered "I've never heard of that show. When did it come on?"    After explaining the show to her and recounting the years that it came on her response was, and not out of malice, "Oh, I think my Mom watched that when I was a baby."  The look on my face had to have been the exact same one that I gave my mother when I begged her to buy me the cassette of "Private Dancer" by this awesome new singer named Tina Turner.

I almost threw up.

I remember AC Slaters first day of school, Principal Belding, Zach taking Kelly to their own prom, and of course Jessie Spano's infamous caffeine pill addiction were she lamented that she was so excited and yet so scared!  Caffeine pills!?! 

I still don't mind my birthdays and I still don't care how old I am, after all, the alternative could be much worse.  However it is a little unsettling to think that the century you were born in is over and the parents of a friend of yours watched one of your favorite shows on television the same time you did.  I'm just waiting for someone to ask me if I have seen that new great show called "Dallas" that just started.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

I'M A PEOPLE PERSON!!!!

I have recently been sitting in on interviews at work.  I rarely have to do this and I am very glad.  It's not that I mind interviews, nor do I mind sitting in on them.  However, there are a few things that can make me turn off to whatever else you have to say in an interview and start singing show tunes to myself in my head...

When I ask you to describe yourself to me I don't want to hear that you are organized as that is something that you can't prove to me.  I have never opened your junk drawer nor seen how your closet is arranged so when you tell me you are organized to a fault I am either going to hear "I am obsessive compulsive" or "I am lying".  Also, don't ever tell me how organized you are while fishing through a purse the size of a number three washtub for your drivers license when I tell you I need to make a copy of it.

Not to offend anyone's sense of religion, but when I ask you what your greatest achievement is the answer is not your love of the Lord and his ability to pull you through.  I have no doubt of your love or your belief in a higher conviction but that answer is not going to tell me anything about how you are going to perform as an employee.

Gum chewing is no no and one that is going to irritate me to distraction.

When I ask you what your greatest weakness is your answer, under no circumstance, is "I don't think I have one."  Here is hint, if you tell me you don't have a weakness, I automatically assume that you have two weaknesses.  You are arrogant and you are conceited.  The flip side of this is that I also don't want to hear "I tend to procrastinate (I am not going to procrastinate in not hiring you) not do I want to hear something like "I tend to fall in love to easily"  If your answer sounds like it came from a fortune cookie I am not interested.

Most when asked to describe yourself there is no such thing as a "people person".  If I had a nickle every time I heard, "I love people!"  or "I am a people person" I wouldn't be interviewing you because I wouldn't have to work.  The very fact that you are alive makes you a people person because you are a person who is part of the people.  The funny thing about the phrase "people person" is that, whenever I ask someone to tell me what that means they say "I am good with people.  Okay.

Interviews were meant to highlight your strengths and be honest about your weaknesses.  You aren't accepting an Academy Award for best actor in a mini-series so I expect you to be yourself.  You know, a highly organized, gum chewing, God fearing people person... 

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Hmmmmmm

I have prided myself on being a relatively smart man.  I did well in school, I am a relatively good conversationalist and even though I am opinionated I do have an open mind.  I have posted before though that there are some things in the world that I just don't understand:

1.  Politics in general -  I have never quite understood them so I don't discuss them., much the same way that I don't really talk about religion.  I'm Catholic, and honestly it doesn't bother me that you're not.

2.  El Nino or LaNina:  I don't know who these Latino siblings are or where they came from but their power to control my weather from wherever their homeland is amazes me.

3.   Kony2012 I am sure this is political, hence my complete and utter confusion on it.

4.  The inner workings of a microwave over.  The fact that after my house burned there were still uncooked potatoes in it, yet putting them in a metal box for four minutes and they are BLOWS MY MIND.  I don't know why we aren't currently all glowing in the dark.  I just don't trust something that gets that hot that quickly with no visible means of fire.

5.  Fax machines.  There is no way to even attempt to explain this to me because I am never going to get it.

6.  The Olsen Twins.  If I am being honest, I am not sure if I don't understand them or if my blinding hate of them is what is keeping me from embracing both their fashion and action brilliance

7.  Polyester.  I don't even think I need to expound on this.

That aside, I'd like to revisit number one on this list because I think that in today's world people hide behind politics and religion in order to hammer a point home and usually it is a point that they do not have any understanding on.  I have found, as have most people, that if you are against interracial marriage you probably are not in one.  If you are against gay marriage, my bet is that you are straight and if you fell that a same sex couple shouldn't adopt or raise a child together then you probably had heterosexual parents.

See, here is how I think the world should work, and it may be simple but it works for me - If you are against interracial marriage, marry within your own race.  If you are against gay marriage, I would strongly you not marry a gay person.  If you don't want your child raised by a same sex couple then refer to not marrying someone of your own sex.

As I see it none of these problems are about politics or religion.  They are issues of love an commitment.  Which are things that we are all entitled to...and no higher being, whether it be political or spiritual should care about that!


Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Apparently Eight Isn't Enough....

It is no secret that I have a disdain for a lot of reality television and don't quite understand the appeal of it.  No, I am not speaking of the Kartrashians...it is pretty clear that their meteoric rise to super star status both bewilders and pisses me off at the same time.  No, the things I don't understand are far more simple.  They include:

1.  How the real housewives are called housewives when most of them are divorced.  To be a wife you either need a husband or another wife.

2.  Theresa Caputo on "Long Island Medium" can not talk to the dead.  Period.  End of discussion

3.  On "Say Yes to the Dress" if you are not marrying me I don't give a damn what your dress looks like.  Who am I kidding?  If you are marrying me you wont be wearing a dress.

4.  As I have mentioned before, if you are on "Extreme Couponers" and you are buying things like cat food and diapers when you don't have a cat or a baby you need help I can't give you.

5.  The Duggars

While these things and others I have not mentioned do not generally cause me the same amount of heartburn as my sisters Kourtnee, Kim and Khloe do, there is someone out there who does.  She has yet to have her own "reality" series but she has been making the rounds ever since she did what can only be described as the most ridiculous thing in the world.  My disdain for her runs far deeper then it does for the Kartrashians.

She is Octomom.

There really are no words in any language that I think are quite strong enough for her but the first one that pops in my head is "stupid."  I remember thinking when she first popped out that she was going to have her hands full with eight bundles of joy then I heard that she already had six waiting for her when she got out of the hospital and that she had not conceived ANY of them naturally.  She was in financial straits before she got pregnant with her octuplets.  Now, I have never been a mother but a lot of my friends are and I think that any mother worth her salt will tell you there is nothing more precious then the time they spend with their children.  This time is cut dramatically short though when you have fourteen of them with eight being exactly the same age.  Now I have a brother who is seven and half years younger then me and together we ran our poor mother to death.  If she would have had TWELVE others between us I am certain that she probably would have started giving some of us away because there was no way she could have ever kept up with us,much less fed us.

Which brings me to my next set of issues with her.  According to news reports she is living in squalor, her kids are wearing clothes belonging to the opposite sex, she is about to lose her house, she has filed for bankruptcy and she is about to resort to doing porn.  WHAT. THE. HELL.  I understand people fall on hard times and I understand that you do whatever you need to do to take care of them.  However, had you not been so foolish as to bring these helpless children into the world with no other help you would not be in this situation...not to mention that I can't think of anyone on the planet that wants to see this beast do any kind of porn.

So, Ocotmom, this is what I want to happen.  I want you to open your eyes, realize you can not care for these children and let them be put with people who will love and support them.  Do not keep crawling your skanky ass on "Entertainment Tonight" trying to get a reality television deal because apparently the only show you are qualified to be on is HOARDERS.