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 |   The only blog that will put hair on your chest... |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Turning from the Dark Side ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** < This is where I'll insert a cool new blog description. Someday. > |
| I had pretty much forgotten what anxiety attacks felt like. I had forgotten the inexplicable sweat forming on my brow, the pressue against my chest, the racing heartbeat, the shortness of breath, and the hyperactive imagination. It's all coming back to me now. Seven to ten days. That's how long I'm guaranteed to deal with this anxiety before my mother's test results come back. My family has never had good luck, so I'm fully expecting the worse. I'm also therefore hoping the hysterectomy will solve all the problems. Apparently the opening in her cervix was too large to perform the simple procedure, thus calling for the hysterectomy, and they removed lots of unidentifiable tissue from the cervix during the examination. The emotionless doctor didn't offer up and hypotheses or apparent level of concern, unless of course she's not telling me everything. So, thanks to all my neurotic tendencies, I'm not fixated on this thing. I'm at work, but my mind is racing with the possible outcomes to the point where I can't focus to work or do much of anything. The panic is setting in, and my body is becoming physically ill. This is my mother we're talking about, and the threat of cervical cancer is bringing me to the verge of tears. I feel like I need to cry right now, but I can't because I'm at work. I really need Jodi right now. If my mom is in fact sick, that may very well put an end to my convention plans once again. I pointed that out to Jodi last night, and of course she was understanding. We could still send her though. I'd be worried sick about her, but I don't want her to miss that opportunity. No matter the pain and anxiety I feel, I need to make her happy. |
| My mother just called on her way back from a hospital an hour and a half away. A little over a year ago, just after putting my grandfather in the ground, my mother had a cervical cancer scare. It's the reason I didn't attend Convention 2005, despite having paid for most of it. It later turned out that she only had fibroids. For a year she put off the procedure of removing these fibroids because she was afraid of being "put under." After bleeding for the last five months and becoming dangerously anemic, she agreed to do the simple procedure, which would only take an hour or so and had a one day recovery schedule. That procedure was scheduled for today, but she never had it done. In preparing for the surgery, the doctor instead removed excess tissue and sent it to pathology. He rescheduled the procedure and turned it into a full-blown hysterectomy. She's not sure why he made all the changes, why something was sent to pathology, or why she needs the more significant surgery. At least she claims not to know, but I know my mother has always had a history of hiding bad news from us. This is all too familiar. I was terrified a year ago, and it's all coming back to me now. Will it hopefully have the same outcome? I don't know, but I'm scared. |
So if Poop-Freeze makes turds into poopsicles, would it turn diarrhea into a brown slushy?  |
I hope Jenn  is reading this right now. In fact I know she is, because for all her "malicious thoughts," she took the time to read each and every one of my contest entries. She's one of these hate viewers. Thanks for chocking up my views, lady.  She said I like to start shit but I don't finish it. Actually, I like to write about shit, because it's funny. Starting it is something else altogether. I never started anything. I followed the instructions of the contest and said exactly what I was thinking. God forbid. Or Goddess forbid however the case may be. You can be damn sure I finish the shit off though. I find it immensely amusing that you clearly found my prompt entry offensive and yet you continued to read all my subsequent entries. First off, you aren't even in the contest, so there was no reason to read or reply to my prompt. Secondly, if it so offended you, you didn't have to come back for all my replies. But of course you did, because you have nothing better to do. What other excuse could there be? Are you that fascinated by me? I need to get over myself, but I have my own naysayers hanging on my every word? If I'm such a horrible person, what does it say about you for following me so intently? Here's a little tidbit, a fun fact for you: this is my blog. Basically that means you don't have to read it. In fact, I'd rather you didn't. I'd rather not waste precious views on you. Someone just pointed out your entry about my fiancee and I. I don't even know how long it has been there. You know why? Because I have not read your journal, nor will I read it again. You're invisible to me. I don't know who you are and couldn't give two shits about you. You're a non-entity. I never knew your journal existed, and frankly I wasn't missing much. Am I a non-entity to you? Apparently not, because you read my blog religiously, despite being offended over and over. Even now you're reading it and just dying to reply. Well, guess what, unless someone points out your reply I won't read that either. Because your journal and your opinion isn't really worth my time. Writing this blog entry is worth it though, because it gives me something to write about today. You've given me a way to entertain my readers, which, judging by the outpouring of support and countless blog comments akin to "I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe," is a pretty big and supportive following. Thanks once again for hating on me. You have no idea what this does for my publicity. I'm not in fact an Ares, or however you spell that. I won't tell you what I am though. That way you can guess again. Then you'll get it wrong again and go on proving how inane your understanding of astrology is. By the way, are you a Cancer? I have no idea what Cancer's are all about, but I bet you're a cancer. I just love people who hate on people who psuedo-hated on people. Hypocrites are so funny. Did that last sentence make any sense? Probably not, but I'm sure you'll be glad to pick it apart in some petty manner. I was going to read your journal or peruse you port or something, in an effort to learn more about the person that hates me so much. I'm always curious to see why someone would hate me when so many people actually love me. But then I realized that researching you would be uber-boring. More boring than Saturday, June 3rd even. That's because I really don't care about you. Some people I don't like and I continue to read their journals, but I don't even dislike you that much. Like I said earlier, you're a non-entity, simply not important enough to waste any more energy on you. You are, however, worth a game, and I haven't had a blog game in a while. I challenge my readers to write single paragraph rebuttals to Jenn for me. Here's her entry: "Invalid Entry"  Post your reply as a blog comment here. Make sure it's funny and scathing. I'll give 5,000 GPs to the best one. Unless they all suck, in which case I'll donate 5000 GPS to RAOK. Let's set the deadline at Wednesday at midnight. Roast away, good readers! |
| You heard me right, ladies and gents, there is poo in my freezer. That's why I'm me, and you're you. Point out any other person cool enough to actually have frozen crap in their freezer, and I'll point out someone who probably didn't get his diaper changed enough when he was baby. At least that's the case with me. Jodi blames my poo fetish on the many times my father let me stew in a poopy diaper until my mom got home to change it. I promise this will be the last poop entry for a while, but I really needed everyone to know that there is poo in my freezer. Frozen cat poo. Don't worry, it's in a freezer bag. You guessed it, folks. I ordered a can of Poop-Freeze from Amazon.com. (Here's the link again for those who need it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CMKPDI/ref=dp_return_1/104-5274072-3376764?...) My brother came over to the apartment when I wasn't home and insisted he try it out. He knew it would piss me off if I wasn't there to see it work the first time. He was right. I was livid. Thankfully, I have a whole can of poop-freeze and lots of poop to freeze. I don't know the details of the ritual poo freezing, but I know he threatened Jodi somehow into using it. They apparently made way for the litter box and frostbit a juicy black turd that was half the size of my pinky finger. I came home from baseball practice, and he proudly opened the freezer, procured a Ziplock bag, and passed me his handiwork. The white tag read something like "Chloe's Frozen Poo," Chloe of course being one of our cats. I inspected the frosty turd. It was laced in icy glory, a thin white film wrapped around its stinky exterior. I squeezed it between my thumb and index finger, and it did not squish. Frozen, truly and utterly frozen. My dreams of frozen poo had been realized. Finally, my very own poopsicle. It was the most turdtastic moment of my life. I resisted the urge to remove it from its plastic haven and feel its slick white coating, and I popped it back in the freezer. That's where poo belongs, and that's where it shall stay. Sometime this week I'm going to try to freeze my own. I'll hold it in all day, building up one of the monsters that will probably rupture my ass and fill the toilet with blood. I wonder if the blood will interfer with the freezing. I guess we'll find out. I wonder too if the sheer girth of the turd will keep that magic stuff from doing its deed. Will it frost the outside and leave the inside a gooey, fibrous mess? If I pick up the frozen log, will the unfrozen center be too heavy and it will crumble in my hands? I won't know until I try, and try I shall. So just remember, if you come to my house and you're looking for a summertime snack, the carton of ice cream is right behind the bag of frozen cat poo. |
| My sister heard the Krispy Kreme donut shops in the Northeast are closing down. Or maybe it's all Krispy Kreme's; I don't actually know. For some reason, which I have yet to figure out, Krispy Kreme donuts are regarded as the best. To listen to my sister and mother speak of them you'd swear they were Jesus's next water to wine trick. Personally, the only difference I notice between a glazed donut at Krispy Kreme vs. Dunkin' Donuts is the kid working the drive-through at Krispy Kreme might actually speak English or some broken variation thereof. Anyway, today being the last day for Krispy Kreme in the area, she got it in her head to found the phantom Krispy Kreme somewhere in Latham, NY. So Father's Day began with a road trip. Latham's about an hour away. The city of Albany is surrounded by a lot of nice towns, like Troy, Rensaelear (which may or may not be spelled right), and East Greenbush. We learned for the first time today that Latham doesn't fall into that category. Besides the obligatory Stewart's shops and a craptacular three store "mall," Latham doesn't have much to offer. It is, however, the home of the only 36 hole mini golf course I've ever seen. More on that in a bit. We drove around for a good bit, pretty much staying on one road the whole way. We got lost. Fortunately I was able to blame this on my father, who was driving. As navigator, I was dutifully reading my poker magazines as he drove by the road we were supposed to take. In fairness to my father and Jodi, who wrote down the directions, the road was identified by route number on the sign and by name on Mapquest.com. After driving around for... oh, wait! I forgot something! On the interstate into New York, I was the original driver. I only acquiesced and agreed to drive because it was Father's Day. I popped in a Phil Collins CD and started belting it out in typical PC fashion. I caught a breather as the next song was about to start. The faint sound of piano started, and my father gasped. Here I'm thinking he's pumped at the promise of "Su-su-sodio", and I'm ready to launch into karaoke with him. Instead he swiveled in his seat as I speed past a swamp at 70mph. "That was a moose!" he exclaimed. He claimed to have seen a moose in the middle of the swamp, which resulted in much oohing and aahing in the back of my van. We were two miles down the road with traffic rushing up behind me, at which point my father demanded I pull into the breakdown lane and back up. Anxiety disorder, which was probably accompanied by the slight fear of the tractor trailer truck bearing down on me, prompted me to refuse. I told him he should have drove. Up the road a few more miles, we came to a tollbooth. He instructed me to use the far lane and pull over after going through the booth. Not knowing what traffic adventures he planned on daring with my beloved conversion van, I agreed. At that point he comandeered my vehicle. And yes, I do mean comandeered. I do believe there was a weapon involved. I take that back; I'm thinking of the bottle of Advil my brother pegged me with from the back seat. My father proceeded to do a U-turn right back into the tollbooths and right into oncoming traffic. As the minivan in the eastbound lane slammed on its break, he gave the driver a courteous wave in a show of appreciation. I pointed out that he made the person stop, to which he replied, "Yeah, so?" He drove back east, and back through another tollbooth, and pulled another U-turn. The double tolls equated to us all paying a 70 cent entry fee to see the moose. And see it we did. A big cow basking in the sun, knee-deep in swamp water. He pulled into the breakdown lane, grinding my already worn tires on the rumble strip, and half the van unloaded as cars flew past at 80mph. The moose flicked her ears a few times before getting nervous and making her way to the woods beyond the swamp. Until her long spindly legs were out of the water I wasn't sure if it was in fact a moose or a yeti. Frankly I would have much rather it been a yeti. I could have led a perfectly happy life never having seen a moose. But never getting to see a yeti? Well, that's just a travesty. Even so, the whole ordeal gave me deja vu to watching "Harry and the Hendersons." Jodi, being the Mainer she is, has already twice seen two moose. Hopefully we'll get to see our first yeti together. How romantic would that be? So yeah, thanks to our moose sighting, we were on the road for about two hours when we finally pulled into the Krispy Kreme. Ah, the Krispy Kreme, our bastion of glazed Heaven, our paradise of going-out-of-business-half-off donuts. It was a dream come true for a donut connoisseur such as myself. Though frankly, since I live across from a Dunkin' Donuts, the whole thing seemed a bit excessive. Especially since the place was already fucking closed! I could have punched my sister in the face. Right in the back of the face. That's right, the back of the face. I'd tear off her face, punch the back of it, and then push it back on. I'd spit on it first to hold it in place. I'm a nice guy like that. But I didn't. My poker magazine was too interesting to bother. Plus it was 95 degrees, and even my pit stains had pit stains. Having suddenly realized we were never having another Krispy Kreme, we abandoned our efforts and looked for a place to get lunch. Although lunch had become dinner during our escapades. First we stopped at some colonial looking place that had a line of senior citizens and some guy in full combat gear. Something about that combination unnerved me. If someone was going to open fire on a room of retirees, shame on them and all that, but I really didn't want to be there to see it. Liver spots are gross enough, but bloody liver spots? I'm fairly certain I would have lost my appetite. So instead we went to some 50's styled diner. Some crone was waiting in the waiting room, an appropriate place for waiting. At first I though she was a prop or something because she was wearing full 50s era wardrobe. When one of her wrinkles jiggled I realized my error, and I pointed out, "Oh great, there's an old crone in the window." Elderly people waiting outside a restaurant is always an omen, but no one trusted me one this one. My father asked her if the food was any good, but she explained she didn't know and that she was waiting for a taxi. While the outside looked like something in the 50s, the inside looked like a pretty standard crappy restaurant. The service and food lived up to that standard. My cup-sized portion of french fries didn't last long. In fact I blinked, and they were gone. My father's steak chewed like a tire and tasted like a tire sauteed in onions. Jodi and my mother's meal gave them diarhea, which is always a positive on the hottest day of the year, and my brother left half his burger on his napkin, because that's just something he likes to do. We left a tip... I think, not that it mattered. When we left the one-star diner an hour later, the crone was still in the waiting room, still waiting on her cab. She saw one go down the road and make a left, so "it was probably turning around." I wonder if she knows she was supposed to call the cab first. I actually think her husband was supposed to pick her up, but she forgot he took a bullet in Germany in 1943 and never came home. I actually felt bad for the old girl, as we all did, because senility, despite its potential for humor, is honestly never something to laugh about. We should have called her a cab. Though I wonder if she could have paid for it. Then we decided to venture out of the air conditioned van into the 95 degree heat to play a round of 36 hole mini golf. (Whose genius idea was that?) You could play 18 or the full 36, and I wasn't to be cheated out of playing in the first ever round of 36 holes. They told us we had to skip the 18th hole, because it was where the ball was collected if you only played 18 holes. That meant it was actually only a 35 hole course. Bastards! I wanted to punch them in the back of the face. Or right in the bum. But we played the 28th hole about six times so I guess we got our money's worth. By the 16th hole we realized how crappy this was and stopped keeping score. I was winning at the time, because that's what I do best. My brother and I decided we could take less shots if we hit it over the obstacles instead of around them. In the process, I put my ball in the rocks, in a pool, and in a flower bed. I did get two hole in ones for the whole course though, and I think Jodi had one too. Round about the 29th hole I grabbed my father's ball and kept it in my pocket for the remainder of the course. He played shadow ball the rest of the way. He proceeded to shoot the course record. That man is amazing when the pressure's on. On the 36th holed I banked it off the fiberglass castle and bounced it three times above all our heads on the turrets. It was easily the coolest thing anyone has done at a mini golf course. Ever. I did it about four times before I got sick of it and threw my ball down the hole never to be seen again. I think I sweated off 5lbs during that double round of mini golf. From there it was back home. But my father made an unexpected trip to the cemetery. He asked if that was okay, and I of course said it was. As we drove down to the corner where my grandfather is buried, it dawned on me. I had gotten to spend this whole Father's Day and all these misadventures with my father, and his father was one year in the ground. "You wanted to come here because it's Father's Day?" He nodded, and though the tears begin to well in my own eyes, my father was stoic. And yes, dear readers, the great PC can cry once in a while. Though I hid it pretty well. We piled out of the van and walked around the grave site. Flowers adorned the grave, no doubt placed there by my aunt who had come earlier in the day to say hi to her father and the man in the ground beside him, the father of her only child. I contained myself pretty well, as did my dad. But when we drove away, I saw the tears in his eyes, and I tried to hide my own. It's been a little over a year since we lost him. I still cry now and again, but for the first time since his funeral I cried for my father and not for myself. As hard as it is for me, I cannot imagine what he goes through everyday. They were close, closer than my grandfather and I, maybe even closer than my dad and I. Today I felt that responsibility come back, that necessity to be the strong Ernie in the family. I took that role on for months after his death, until I could find time alone to cry or to cry on Jodi's shoulder. And I was strong today for him, no matter how badly I wanted to just lose it and submit to the pain. I'm crying as I type this. Firstly because I miss him, but mostly because I wish my father could have been with his father on this day. We got back to our apartment, and my father immediately got into his own car. My mother sensed his emotions and said they had to go. He left and I lost it for a bit. I wish Jodi didn't have to deal with that so much. I miss him as much today as I did a year ago. This doesn't get any easier. I realized we spent the day together but I hadn't really done anything for my dad. Our plans to catch a minor league ballgame had been nixed, so I called him up a while ago and arranged for us to go next week. That's the sort of thing we do together. I wonder if his dad will be there with us. I don't really know what to think about what, if anything, comes after death. But wherever you are, Happy Father's Day, Ernie Sr. |
| A couple weeks ago in the journal contest a fellow contestant flew into a diatribe that was more or less a personal attack on me. It was rude, crude, inaccurate, and amazingly ironic considering the source of the rant. I responded in somewhat subtle terms and more or less let it go. I wasn't actually offended, and I'll explain why in a moment. But then last night Jodi pointed out that this contestant wrote an apology entry to me. I read the apology, and I don't buy it. He was challenged to write something out of character, and that's all he did. It doesn't mean he meant it. In fact, I think it was intentionally sarcastic. It doesn't matter though, because sincere or not, I wouldn't accept it either way. I don't accept apologies from degenerates. I never needed an apology anyway. I wasn't really offended. How can you be offended when your character and your existence is questioned by a wannabe writer whose entire life is comprised of keggers, getting stoned, and miserably failing to get into the pants of everything that's ever worn a skirt? How can you put any stock in the ramblings of a 24-year-old hotel clerk with delusions of grandeur? Lest you actually believe that moronic diatribe he no doubt wrote while under the influence, here's a little bit about me. I actually graduated college and actually got a degree. At 24 I got my dreamjob. At 25 I was promoted, making more money than most of the people in this county, and hardly working at all. Also at 25 I was engaged to the woman of my dreams, a sweet and wonderful woman a hundred times smarter, funnier, and more beautiful than any of the skanks certain drunkards chase after. I live in a nice, big apartment that does not resemble the inside of a frat house. I saved my virginity for the woman I'm going to spend my life with, despite having previous opportunities to lose it. I've never tried any drugs that weren't prescribed by a doctor, and I rarely drink alcohol. I've coached youth baseball for nine years, and I have a close but healthy relationship with my immediate family. I'm fairly certain none of those qualities makes me Jerry Springer material. It's not like being a sex-obsessed, alcoholic hotel worker. I'm sure that more closely resembles white trash than a clean, engaged to be married, white collar citizen. So no, the rant never really offended me. The sheer irony of it made me chuckle actually. And the fact that 90% of the contestants played along with my poop story and was repulsed by his little rant is downright hilarious. Not that he would appreciate the significance of that aftermath because he'll just assume he's better than me and better than the populace. I mean clearly he's led a better life than all of us, what he remembers of it through the drunken haze anyway. His apology claims I almost dared him to hate me. I have no idea what that means, but I won't split hairs over it. That fact is I've always hated him. No sense in picking fights with scum though, so I just ignored his existence. It's not like we had to coexist or anything. Everyone will always know other people they genuinely do not like. But if it's not necessary to interact with these people, why bother? So I didn't bother. He did reply to my entry, however hateful it might have been, so I feel obligated to respond to his, even though I have dropped out of the contest. He challenged the other contestants to write about a time when they did something completely out of character and how it made them proud. If you've done something worthy of pride, I'm thinking that says something positive about your character. So if you do it when you're out of character, what does that say about your usual character? He comforted a young woman instead of trying to bone her, and he was presumably proud of that. I commend him for that, but what does it say about his usual behavior? Normally he would have taken advantage of her? Now that's a class act. Yes, doing the right thing instead of being a total sleaze is definitely something to be proud of. I totally understand how he can pass moral judgment on me now. The joke of an apology was exactly that to me: a joke. He clearly believes what he wrote in that rant, so an apology is worthless. Unless of course my theory is true, and that of course is that he's jealous. I was hand-picked to go second in the contest, and his own place in the order was randomly picked. I'm sure that made a horrible piercing pain in his bloated yet fragile ego. Especially since the one doing the picking was yet another pretty young thing with whom he'd like to get nasty. Although when he's drunk enough, which apparently happens most nights, I bet he'd gladly bang an 80 year old behemoth with breasts sagging to her knees. He'd crawl between her folds and do his dirty deed. Well, actually he'd probably never get to enjoy it because the freakishly high levels of alcohol in his bloodstream wouldn't swell anything except his kidneys. But I digress. I think he was hurt that he wasn't the first male journaler picked to go, he wasn't the one hand selected to kick things off. He was overlooked by someone with whom he's obsessed, while the guy who writes about farting got all the glory. I can definitely see his point; realizing you rank lower than fart jokes can't be good for a hotel worker's ego. I'm glad I don't know what it's like to be that pathetic. Now I also understand why he hounds a fellow contestant to pursue a faux feud in an effort to keep his entries as edgy and controversial as mine. Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So the apologize is not accepted, not that he ever intended it to be. I'll forgive him only when he's lying in a hospital somewhere. They'll be pumping fluids into his body to keep him nourished. Considering he's long since put himself on a liquid diet, that shouldn't be too out of the ordinary. They'll have him hooked up to dialysis to drain this kidneys that long since gave out. They'll be pumping him full of antibiotics for the inevitable sciorsis, and doing whatever they do for alcohol poisoning. I've never experienced it so I don't know, but maybe he can provide the details. He won't have to worry about the army of STD medications though, because he's apparently not getting any, despite all his efforts, which he writes about at least every other day. That's doubly sad considering the wenches he's chasing would likely have sex with a dog if it's schlong was big enough. But only when he's lying in that bed, hanging on to his last days on this earth, which probably coincide with roughly his 40th birthday, only then would I forgive. Ah hell, I still wouldn't forgive him. I don't forgive trash. I've never been that gracious. *sigh* I just went and did what I promised myself I wouldn't do. But I don't want to erase this entire entry, so I guess all that's left to do is end this with some idiotic tittering. *titter titter titter* |
| ... is a three-legged dog pooping. I could die a very happy man. novusfemina linked to http://www.catsinsinks.com in Scroll today. This particular one was too priceless to forget...
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| I was saving this response entry for last, partly because it was written by my wonderful fiancee and partly because my response to it would be the perfect ending to the contest. Since I'm withdrawing and this will be my last entry regarding the contest, I decided to use it here. Unfortunately I can't use it exactly as I had planned given the circumstances, but I'll make do. "You want the truth? You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!" Jack Nicholson was right; we can't handle the truth. I know this because that's all I've ever been writing during this contest. My blog is where I express myself, always honestly and never pulling any punches. That's always been my perception of why I have a journal or blog. And apparently no one can handle that. Over the past two days I've read innumerable complaints about the contest becoming cutthroat and/or vindictive. I've seen people who laughed alongside my honest and not-so-gracious responses suddenly agree that some people are tearing down others too much. You want the truth? I'll give you the truth. The point of this contest was to read someone's entry each day and respond to it. That's all I ever did. Was I cutthroat or vindictive? Well, being cutthroat would imply I'm tearing people down to increase my chances of winning. I've made it clear from the beginning that I have no interest in winning whatsoever. Truth be told, since that's what we're doing here, I volunteered to drop out early on and help shannon judge instead, long before any of this ridiculous drama. Being vindictive implies I'm looking for some sort of vengeance. For what, people, for what? That doesn't even make sense. Have my entries torn apart the entries I'm responding to? Yeah, some of my responses have been pretty repugnant. I took the contest literally, and I responded to the entries. And when the entry inspired anger, shock, boredom, or confusion on my part, that's what I wrote about. I never sugar-coated it with some boring entry that didn't really say much. I just wrote whatever I was thinking. I wrote the truth. Everyone laughed when I did it for one particular response, presumably because no one likes that unfortunate soul. Several people laughed a second time when I voiced my confusion over a prompt. And now those same people are saying it was mean, etc. Why the double standard? If being cutthroat et al is taking the contest too seriously, where does being two-faced fall on the serious scale? Was it funny up until the moment you realized our lone judge wasn't approving and that nodding along to my honesty might actually hurt your chances? At what point did it stop being funny? This is my blog, the one writing venue where I let it all hang out. People read my blog because that's exactly what I do. People comment because they know you can never truly take me seriously. I write things that other people experience and think about but are too scared to write about. I don't pull any punches in here. If I did, this blog wouldn't be half as entertaining. Jodi, who's easily the nicest person I've ever known, who shannon has compared to Mother Theresa, went so far as to say, "Without you, this contest would be boring and superficial." I think that's an overstatement. It's a great contest with or without me, but you can bet your ass I'm never boring or superficial. She might have a point. I will not stifle my own rambling creativity, nor will I stifle my honesty in this blog just to play nice. My blog has always been the truth as I see it, and it's always been very very raw. So, rather than jeopardize more friendships and upset more people that really don't know anything about me, I'm withdrawing from the contest. This stands as my final entry. For those of you who found my blog offensive, I know you're still reading this, so this last bit is at least partially for you. Since you know I'm such a jerk without ever really getting to know the real me, here's some raw truth. Because you choose to take me so seriously, you'll never get to know that I... write to entertain, not to be some prestigious author or win some contest. write when I feel like, not because I feel like I must. laugh, play, and make merry because without it life is pointless. love, because I've discovered there is no greater joy. poke fun at myself almost as much as at others. hardly ever mean it when I mock, insult, or tease, and I'll make it clear when I am serious. hardly ever care if someone takes me too seriously. am hardly ever serious. am insecure, anxious, worrisome, obsessive compulsive, and otherwise socially retarded. am a geek and proud of it. am a lover, a friend, a brother, a son. am a hard worker when I want to be. am often the funniest guy in the room. am not afraid to voice my opinion ever. am embarrassed by the simplest things but embarrass everyone else. am conservative enough to usually hate hippies and liberals but moderate enough to know and befriend some good ones. am on the same page as most everyone else, but I'm the only one willing to say so. am a hopeless romantic. am chivalrous. am a staunch defender, protector, and provider. am not an egomaniac despite what you may think. am stubborn and willful, and pushing me only makes me resist more. am not nearly as offensive or problematic as you think. am loved by a wonderful family, the biggest, goofiest dog ever, and the most amazing woman in the world. am forever yours, Jodi. |
| For once I can't blame it on streaking my undies. This time it's my fiancee's fault. And no, she didn't streak them for me, as much as she'd like to. She surprised me with a full body massage after I surprised her with a dozen roses, a card, and a candlelit dinner. We have these massage oils that I inevitably spill on the sheets and have to eventually wash off my hands with a power nozzle, but Jodi likes the stuff. I have to admit it smells pretty good. More importantly when I'm on the receiving end, her hands slide over my back pretty easily with the stuff, instead of snagging on all that back hair and body lint. After she rubbed me down she let me know that she must really love me, because all the while she fought the urge to burst that pea-sized pimple on my ass cheek. She's got a pimple fetish that rivals my own poo fetish. When she started the sentence "I must really love you," I cringed. I expected it to finish, "Only someone who loves you could deal with those brown-stained cheeks." But instead she just reminded me of my oozing, pulsating ass zit. Thanks, hon. She also let me know that when she rubs the oil on my back it slides down between my butt cheeks. At that point there's no saving it, because even Grissom wouldn't explore that crime scene. I suddenly understand why when I stood up I felt like I had just received an enema. My damn ass is squishy, and now I have to take a dump. Ah well, at least my ass crack never smelled so good. |
| I'll award GPs to the first person that can identify the word that appears in exactly 5 of my journal contest entries. You have until tonight at midnight to guess. Just post your guess as a comment below. Hint 1: It's one of my favorite words Hint 2: It's 5 letters long Hint 3: It often describes me |
| I'm so damned bored. I wish I had enough GPs that I could whore myself out for IMs right about now. I've done that before, with startling results. It's amazing how many people will chat with a loser like me for some GPs. I suppose the very irony of that somewhat alters the perception of who is or is not the loser. At this point though, I'd even chat with my worst enemies, which amounts to about two different people. I have not yet figured out how to get through this last hour and a half of work. I have pretty much nothing to do and no one with which to chat. Hell, I've alienated about 98% of my readers with this contest anyway. Funny how I acquire a following before just by being honest, but then when I continue to be honest at the expense of things I have to read I'm suddenly a jerk. So be it. I don't think I'll bother finishing the contest at this point. It's hardly worth the drama. To top it off, scroll is the very definition of dull today. Despite my best efforts to incite some kind of conversation, scroll is bot-centric. If not for the obligatory "Thank you, so-and-so" for the bots, I suspect nothing would be posted at all. Disappointing to say the least. So now I'm sitting here making out a list of groceries to pick up after work. That's something I never do. I've either been domesticated completely or I've achieved all new levels of boredom. I desperately need something good to blog about, something to inspire me. The response entry for today accomplished that, and I even found myself rambling, but the euphoria was short-lived. I should have conserved my damned response and whittled away at it each hour to keep myself awake. Now I'm in danger of nodding off at work, and I can't even rely on IM, scroll, or some poop entry to keep me awake. What a way to start the week. |
| The only drugs I've ever taken outside of caffeine and a wee bit of alcohol are those ones you buy in a grocery store or the ones you pay through the teeth for when the doctor writes some indecipherable name on a slip of paper. I'm proud of that. I never really had the opportunity, but I know I would have turned it down anyway. I refused to try a cigarette, so I think it's safe to say I'd lay off the serious stuff. Hell, I didn't even drink any kind of alcohol until I was 24. Unless of course my father slipped me a sip in my formative years without me knowing, which incidentally would explain a few things. The most potent drug I ever took was morphine, and that was being shot in through an IV while I lay on an ER cot waiting to hear if my broken sternum was accompanied by an aorta leak. If only they had been shooting me up before they literally dropped me onto the CATScan table. It was the first time pain ever made me hyperventilate. I was thankful for that morphine though when the chief trauma surgeon didn't believe the X-rays and decided to punch my chest. He said if it was really broken, I would have punched him back, but he didn't realize I was already doped up. I wonder if he felt any pang of guilt when the second set of X-rays confirmed the broken sternum. Then again, maybe it wasn't quite broken until after he punched me. They sent me home with Vicodin, the worst crap I've ever put in my system. I could actually breathe with a minimal amount of searing pain in my chest, but that stuff made me constipated. I didn't have a bowel movement for four days, and you all know how important my regularity is to me. I took myself off the stuff cold turkey, had the shakes for three days, and suffered my aunt the nurse giving me two enemas to get the juices flowing again. Yeah, if that's what drugs are about, I'll gladly pass. I've never known any friends or family to OD either. I've had some alcoholics in the family, and one of my senior classmates got drunk in another state and killed himself in a car accident. Ironically he was the president of our school's SADD chapter. Actually, considering the core membership of our SADD chapter, it wasn't really ironic at all. Ah, the hypocrisy of high school. Death then? I know about that, but I'm not much in the mood for talking about it. Read my blog and you'll see enough mention of it as it is. A while back if I wasn't contemplating my own death, I was busy mourning my grandfather's. I've mostly conquered the former, but I can't ever reverse the latter. So I'm supposed to respond one or the other: death or the contest. The beginning of this entry is enough doom and gloom for one day, and considering it's the first nice day in two weeks, it would be a shame to ruin it with thoughts on death. Besides, I'm just aching to voice my opinion on the other, especially since it's very clearly relevant to me. Do I think some people are taking this contest too seriously? You bet your ass I do. I think some people take everything too seriously. What good is life if we can't ever joke about it? Like Zoo wisely pointed out, we all have our flaws. Rather than hide them behind grandiose entries, why not just be honest and have a good time with them? Here's a newsflash: we're nobodies. We're a bunch of hack writers with way too much time on our hands. People take this website and the writing here way too seriously. If you want to get published, then go do it. Put in the effort, deal with the rejections, and get it done. And if you can't hack it, admit that to yourself, and sit back and enjoy it here rather than continue to delude yourself into thinking your Writing.com portfolio is important to the world. Likewise, the majority of people on here are fake so far as you're concerned. You'll never meet most of them, and you'll forever be limited to knowing a single facet of the people on this site. People aren't actually the same way in real life as they are online. That could be intentional or purely a matter of perception, but if we take everything at face value and too seriously, we have a Writing.com soap opera on our hands. In fact, that's exactly what we have. This contest is supposed to be fun. Shannon created it so she could find more blogs and journals to read. The prizes are just to make it interesting and to light that competitive fire on which some of us thrive. But guess what, people, your journals and blogs really don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. They're important to you personally, and hopefully they entertain your readers. Beyond that, they're not getting you anywhere. Do I think people are going too far with tearing other people's entries down? Since I've been a perpetrator of this, what do you think I'm going to say? Of course not. You know why? Because it's a contest, people, a contest that clearly outlines in the rules that we write an entry to which everyone must respond. I've responded to every entry, honestly and openly. When you signed on for this contest, you agreed to write a prompt for other journalers. You knew the possible outcome, but you still signed on. If you can't stand the heat, you shouldn't have gone into the kitchen. You get no sympathy from me. My blog is a place of truth; it's where I say exactly what I'm thinking. It's always been that way, and since competing in this contest doesn't effect real life one iota, I'm sure as hell not going to change that just to be nice. If I think an entry is crap, and I have nothing to respond to, that is going to be my response. I write what I'm thinking. Period. I don't throw together some artificial, artsy nonsense to impress the other readers and the only judge. My own prompt was shitty as hell; I know that. Of all the entries I've written for this contest, the prompt entry I wrote is the worst by far. That's because it was contrived. I write about what I'm thinking, whatever inspires a blog entry, and that entry was a forced entry from which I drew no particular inspiration. Every entry thereafter was simply the response to another entry, an honest and initial reaction to something someone else had written. I don't sugarcoat in my blog. Last I checked my blog is by no means a diplomatic tool; it's just where I tell it like it is. Wow, that's a long entry. Now on to the important stuff... I still have those Vicodin. How much can I get for them on the street? Any takers? |
| You think you've eluded it for good. You think you've finally found sanctuary. It's been defeated and replaced. It's been forgotten and eradicated. But that's not how it works. It's always there, always waiting for people like me. And no matter how hard you try, no matter the things you have to be thankful for, no matter the tools you've been blessed with to defeat it, it always comes back. It's back now. I can feel it digging its claws in. It saps my strength and leaves me immobile. Already I feel the comatose sensation returning. It bleeds my motivation, ambition, and resistance dry. Everywhere I look I see it, ever waiting to swallow me whole. Fighting it seems futile, but I have to try. For her sake if nothing else. Wish me luck. |
| My parents stopped in last night and brought us Chinese food. My fortune cookie read Your kindness will be repaid in full. Okay, considering I've shown all kinds of kindness of late, I can't wait for the windfall. I'm working on a list of stuff I'd like in return for my karmic benevolence. I do what I do out of the kindness of my heart, so I really don't expect anything in return. Since it's been promised though, I may as well get what I want. So, by all means, the best gifts are those that include cash and gift cards. |
| I just read "Invalid Entry" Ding ding ding! We have a winner! I don't even need to make it through the rest of the contest to see who gets the boobie prize. You should give it out right now, shannon. I concede defeat now. No one can top this prompt, no one. I should stop my entry right there, because I've already exceeded the size of the prompt. I've already put in too much effort. I'll play along anyway though. Wow, I'm drawing a blank. Maybe I can't play along. I honestly can't think of anything to respond to. Oh wait! This entry is a guessing game or something isn't it? "I am not even upset or jealous... [sic] or am I?" Hmmmm, is she jealous? Tthat's a good question. Now I see; we're supposed to figure out if she is or not! Okay, where are the clues to this game? Am I missing something? Is there some sublime, ingenious clue in those legendary three lines of text? Think, Ernie, think! Is she jealous or not?! What else do we know about this prompt. I need to think outside the box. First off, who is lucasmom's ex? I'm not sure; maybe lucasdad? Meh, probably not. What kind of person would he be? Oh lord, I'd rather not think about that. If he is lucasdad, he must have contributed to making lucas. Oh sweet Jesus, I think I just soiled myself. Best not to think about that either. He claims he was in the car with his mother, not some new floozy. Hmmm, what information can we gleam from this? Maybe he has a mother? Ooh yes, I bet he does. The plot thickens! Anyone with a mother is respectable right? Wait a minute though, we're not trying to figure out whether or not he was lying, are we? We just need to figure out lucasmom is jealous. Well, he is her ex, which means they used to be together, so is he really worth getting jealous over? Probably not. But that's me talking, what would lucasmom think? Well, assuming that's possible, what would she think? Or more accurately, what would she feel? Let's put myself in lucasmom's shoes. First... I need to talk with a lot of ellipses... and I can't really say much... But yeah.... something, something... I hope your day gets better... I am glad your day went well... Okay, I think I'm in her mindset. Now the tricky part is sifting through her thought processes and emotions and getting to the nitty gritty. Luckily that's not too complicated in this case. In fact... yup, I just discovered the meaning of life. Ah, the wonders within an empty vessel. Wait, I think I know the answer! Actually, wait, no I don't. I'm really just stalling because I have nothing more to say. I can't think of a good way to end this inane entry. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say even she doesn't know if she's jealous. I think it was a trick question all along. This game isn't fair. I'm stupider from having played, and I still don't know the answer! |
| I'm going to commit a mortal blogging sin right now; I'm going to start my entry with a defintion. Overwrite: 1) To cover (something) with writing. 2) To write about in an artificial or an excessively elaborate, wordy style. 3) To destroy or lose (old data) by recording new data over it Lots of people start their blogs with definitions, but for me it's a mortal sin because I swore on my own 10 Commandments of Blogging that I would never do something so inane and boring. For the first time ever though, it has a purpose. Shannon wants us to write about a scar. Her whole prompt entry was about a scar. It was titled "Overwriting." I had to look up the definition of "overwriting" because I had no idea what overwriting has to do with a scar. I could not with a clear conscious write about a scar and then give my entry some completely bizarre title that has nothing to do with scars but happens to follow N in alphabetical order. One of my other 10 Commandments is "Thou shalt not choose a blog title that doesn't relate to the entry just for the sake of being artsy." So which of those definitions apply? Maybe she wants to hide the scar, but she can't write all over her body to accomplish that. Maybe there's some figurative way to do it, but I take things literally. Only hippies and communists delve into that whole figurative symbolism nonsense. Actually no, hippies and liberals, not communists. The third definition obviously doesn't apply at all. So that leaves us with definition #2: "To write about in an artificial or an excessively elaborate, wordy style." Bingo! This is shannon's specialty. (Don't worry, ML, spelling a proper noun in lower case was intentional, because shannon hates capital letters.) It is a well-crafted and flowery entry about something as simple as a scar. I'm sure strange would have been very proud. Overwriting is a way of flaunting or feigning sophistication. I'm personally not a fan. Unless you use flowery language in everyday speech, mixing in the occasional obscure or literary term as if you learned it as a toddler, overwriting is more a forced attempt at showcasing a superior vocabulary. To my knowledge shannon is not an elitist, so I can't imagine she would ever intentionally "overwrite" something. On the other hand she does like to impress, and she craves appreciation of her skills like I crave thin slice pizza, which is of course to say always. So could she subconsciously be "overwriting?" She titled the entry as such, so it's clearly not subconscious. Is she instead willingly and perhaps shamefully admitting to overwriting? She's also a brutal self-critic, so maybe she considers this entry to be a little self-indulgent and/or self-absorbed? Maybe she recognizes an artificial and excessively literary portrayal of a scar? Maybe she sees her own need to be recognized as an superior writer? Shannon loves to brag about her vocabulary, and since this is her contest, and since I've already written myself out of winning, I have to tell a story. I wrote a little blog entry a while back ("Invalid Entry" ) in which I challenged my readers to come up with alternative acronyms for my nickname PC. The alternatives had to describe me in some way. In typical shannon fashion she posted the phrase "pulchritudinous chevalier." My first reaction was, "Ah, she's trying to impress and/or confuse with me big words." And yes, I said "and/or" aloud. I always say "and/or" aloud. I looked up "pulchritudinous" on Dictionary.com because I had no clue what it meant. Dictionary.com identified its sole definition as "characterized by or having great physical beauty and appeal." I was flattered but extremely confused. I immediately IM'ed shannon and asked why she thought I was "pulchritudinous." I never told her what Dictionary.com told me. She said something like, "It means great inner beauty." I pointed out that the dictionary specifically referred to physical beauty and only physical beauty. Oh how I wish I could have been there to see her dark skin turn ten shades of red when I copied and pasted the definition into the IM. We argued for a bit, and she made the claim again and again that her dictionary said otherwise. Wondering if Dictionary.com was wrong, I checked with two other online dictionary sites, and they were all in agreement. "Pulchritudinous" refers to physical beauty. That means one of two things happened: 1) she was too embarrassed to admit she was throwing out big words that she didn't really understand or 2) she didn't actually know the broadly accepted meaning of the word. If it was #2, that means she must have either scanned her dictionary for the right word or she's sat down and read her dictionary. Equally embarrassing for her in either case. And if it's #1, then she could have avoided the whole embarrassment by not overwriting in the first place.  |
| People tell me all the time they're not going to read my blog anymore. Someone told me that just this morning. She can't go on reading it because it inevitably leads to conflict, which is coincidentally something I absolutely adore. I bet she's reading it right now though. She's scanning this very line and suddenly getting very paranoid that I'm going to write a scathing entry about her. She need not worry though, because her identity is safe. I'm obnoxious and instigating, but I'm not petty. I'd never rant about someone by name, nor would I ever insult his or her intelligence because of a comma splice. So she's reading this entry right now. Why do you suppose that is? Well, it could be that I just tricked her into reading it because I'm so damn clever. But I bet she was going to read it anyway. Apparently she's deemed me an enemy or something, and if that's true, why would she be reading my blog? The same reason all of you people read the blogs of people you dislike. It's like a train wreck; you really don't want to see the aftermath but you just can't help yourself. You want to know the next idiotic thing that comes out of that bastard's mouth. I do it too. I read a couple journals I have no real interest in. I read them just because I want to keep tabs on those people. I want to know the problems they'll cause next. I detest them, and yet I need to know what's going on in their lives. I say I'm going to stop reading, and I will eventually, but for a while I have to keep checking in, silently and anonymously of course. You wonder if they'll write nasty things about you or about people you like. We're fragile creatures, and we need to know who's talking shit behind our backs. The fascination is soon replaced by your genuine disgust with that journaler though, and you'll eventually stop reading. Well, that's true in most cases, because eventually they forget about you, they don't write about you, and their journals start becoming boring to you. When you're not the center of their hate anymore, you can easily see just how insignificant they are. That's when you finally move on. Or maybe you read those journals to protect people you care about? Or maybe you're looking for fodder for future battles? *sheepishly raises hand* Maybe you think the journals are actually quite entertaining, but you just don't like the author? If so, you're just lying to yourself; no one's that impartial. You're secretly looking for anything to nitpick or anything to emphasis this person's questionable morality. You probably stop commenting and pretend you're not reading those journalers at all. Alternatively you could be completely gutless and leave anonymous rants in reply to their entries. I take that back; even more gutless would be to not comment at all and then rant about them in your own blog because you figure they don't read it. I've got a newsflash for you: they do. They read it for the same reason you read theirs. If they don't, that actually makes them better people than you. I, personally, have never worried about "being the better person." So here's to all those anonymous journal views out there, the ones that come from your worst enemies. May those hate views move me even higher on the most viewed blog list. I knew those fascinated haters were good for something. |
| Yes, you're a freak. I, however, am not a freak. And in fact I'm quite apalled at all the freaks participating in this contest. Fortunately I love laughing at freaks, so I'm dealing with the obstacle of competing against a bunch of weirdos. Being as uber normal as me sometimes makes me uncomfortable when surrounded by nutcases and space cadets. Sometimes my freaky friends ask me, "Ernie, how come you rule so much?" To this I simply reply "It's not easy being E." And then I whoop their ass at ping pong or something. They all aspire to be like me, the very definition of normal. Alas, setting the standard for normalcy is never easy. No one can ever quite attain it, no one can ever quite become just like me, and that of course means I'm the only normal person around. I was musing about that with the leprechaun that lives on my shoulder just the other day, but we had to end the discussion prematurely because I had to measure my turd. Speaking of turd measurements, did you know I hold 37 world records? One includes the world's longest turd at 2 feet and 3 inches. I don't brag about it much though, first become I'm a modest person, and second because it's really not a big deal. A two foot turd is actually quite normal. The rest of you are just underachievers. The talking unicorn that I wrangled last summer had an epiphany the other day. The funny thing about unicorn epiphanies is they are generally accompanied by an outburst of flatulence. I'm serious! Every time she has a revelation I fart in her face. Her revelations are so stupid she deserves it. She's so dumb she makes Mr Ed seem like... well, like me. But this particular epiphany was noteworthy. She thinks I'm the next step on the evolutionary ladder. Apparently in her world ladders have steps instead of rungs. What do you expect from someone with a bone sticking out of her forehead? She might be right though. Maybe I'm the only normal one because the others haven't caught up yet. Maybe in two or three generations we'll have an army of Ernies running around, and everything will finally be normal. Used chewing gum will finally be used as currency, the wizards at LAZ-E-BOY and General Motors will realize the genius of my plan and install built-in toilets in recliners and vehicle bucket seats, the east coast will subsist entirely on a diet of single-topping pizza, all silent G's will be pronounced for effect, and we'll all have leprechauns and invisible aliens poised over our shoulders. (Fred Flinstone was such an innovator.) In the meantime you're all welcome to go on wondering "Geez, why does Ernie rule so much and kick so much ass?" You'll get there someday, people, I promise. Well no, actually your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will get there. At least your descendents won't be freaks like you; they'll be normal like me. Hey, does anyone know how to tie a sweatsock bowtie? No? Then get lost, freaks! |
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Tooo rich...Love the tale....Would make a great comic for a local newspaper!!