My Neighbor Caught Me Messing Around with Her Dog's Poop

My house shares a yard with a couple of other units, and one of these neighbors recently got a new puppy. I think when she got the puppy she thought mainly of the cuteness and less about the responsibility because things haven't been going so well on that front. The dog is left in the yard barking and whining for hours at a time, and while I'm not wild about that, I'm even less in love with the shit all over the yard. Dogs poop, so I don't object to that, but I don't like that our shared yard is now a literal minefield of crap. Like, clean it up every so often!

I meant to address this issue with my neighbor like an adult, but before I got around to that, I had a friend over one day and she shouted, "WHY IS THERE DOG SHIT ALL OVER YOUR YARD?" Right after, I realized that the neighbor was standing at the adjacent and open window and must have heard the comment. That's not how I wanted her to hear that message, but I wasn't upset that it happened because at least she'd take the hint.

Except that the "hint" was ignored. A month worth's of poop amassed in the yard including several piles right outside my own front door. I decided my best course of action was just to just wait for the landlady to show up on the first of the month to pick up rent because she'd definitely say something about the mess.

On the 30th, however, my neighbor went around and picked up the poop. That meant she knew she was about to get and trouble, yet waited until the last moment to get rid of the problem. Of course, she didn't bother with the poop around my door, which would not be visible to my landlady.

So I devised a plan: I would move some of the remaining poop closer to the front so that the landlady would see it. It's silly, it's gross, and it's passive aggressive, but I genuinely thought it was a good plan.

I waited until 1:30 am so that I could do it secretly. With a couple of napkins, I scooped up dried out poop using both hands and made my way to the front yard. It was only as I was in the process of relocating the poop in a new spot on the ground that I realized that my neighbor was sitting silently in the dark on the porch. Panicked, I picked the poop back up and shoved it in my pocket and ran back into my house as my neighbor watched.

I can't be sure of what she saw or more importantly what she thinks she saw, but since the motion sensor light next to me had turned on, I have to assume she did see me doing something with her's dog poop. In retrospect, I should have put it in the trashcan rather than my pockets as if to indicate, "See, I have to pick up your dog's poop!" but I was caught off guard.

I don't even know whether it'd be better if my neighbors thought I was being conniving by recreating the poop mess or that I'm plain crazy and randomly playing with dog poop super late at night. Either way, I'm super embarrassed and feel like an idiot for not realizing this "good plan" was bound to backfire on me.

Did You Just Get Your Hair Done?

I had foreign friends I haven't seen since high school come to LA for a visit today. I was nervous about meeting them, honestly, because I wasn't sure whether we'd be able to pick up where we left off so many years later, but apparently I found it remarkably easy.

Greeting one of them, I said, "Hi! [Hug] Did you just get your hair done? It looks nice."

The other friend immediately began cracking up hysterically. "You haven't seen her in fifteen years and the first thing you say is, 'Did you just get your hair done?'"

Admittedly, it was strange smalltalk. Over the past decade and a half, there have probably been dozens of iterations of her hair I haven't been privy to, but here I was talking like I hadn't missed a beat.

For the record, her hair had just been done. I guess I had seen a recent Facebook photo and she had mentioned previously that she might try to hit up a salon while in town, so I made an educated guess without giving it much thought. I'll stand by it: the best way to bridge a 15 year gap is to just act as if you have seen the person yesterday.

Friendship Essay

In elementary school, every student had to write a persuasive five paragraph essay about why their best friend was literally the "best" friend. One of my friends, we'll call him Ronald, wrote his essay about me.

I wouldn't have known I was the subject of his essay except that Ronald's mother mailed my family a copy. She thought it would be nice for my parents to see all the nice things Ronald had to say about me. While I found it flattering, it also put me in an awkward position because I couldn't exactly return the favor seeing as I hadn't written my essay about him.

I hadn't written my essay about anyone in particular, actually. I made up a phony friend for the purpose of the essay. I had friends, I just didn't think of any of them were going to seem awesome enough on paper to earn a good score on the essay. It was much easier to persuade the graders that my friend was the "best" when I could make up any attributes I wanted. I fully acknowledge that this says a lot of sad things about me, but I maintain that I wasn't entirely awful… and I have Ronald's essay to prove it! 

Nevertheless, I've always felt a little guilty about that situation. That guilt is only compounded by the fact that last I knew, Ronald was in a halfway house.

A Miscarriage of Word Choice

For the record, "Did you hear about Patty*? She's not pregnant anymore," is not the best way to convey to me that Patty gave birth to her baby.

Obnoxious

While attending a wedding, I decided to be polite and reintroduce myself to an older woman I've only met once or twice and haven't seen in about 20 years.

"Hello, I'm Kev…"
She cut in immediately. "I remember you, you were such an obnoxious kid."

I froze in panic and checked her face to see if there was a hint of humor in this accusation, but it was genuine contempt. "Uh," I stammered. She either didn't pick up on my discomfort or didn't care.

"You were the most obnoxious kid. I was just thinking about you the other day and how obnoxious you were."

I didn't even know how to respond to this woman. Did she want me to apologize for some unspecified "obnoxious" thing I did in my early childhood? Her adult children seemed mortified but didn't come to my defense, so I just stared back at the woman, my mouth slightly agape, long enough for her to add one more, "Just so obnoxious!" I couldn't decide whether I was more disgusted with the words she was saying, or the fact that she spit when she spoke.

At this point, the woman had called me obnoxious four times in just fifteen seconds. As tempted as I was to call her out, I wasn't about to get in a fight at my friend's wedding.

Instead, I simply said, "I have to go" and walked away. Granted, it was pretty dumb because I obviously had nowhere else in particular to go at a wedding reception that had only just begun, but how much longer did I have to put up with a woman who was insulting my youthful former self? And "obnoxious" four times? Bitch, get a thesaurus.

Whatever, her unpleasantness spared me the trouble of having to make pleasantries with her. I may have been obnoxious as a kid, but at least I'm not an obnoxious adult.

It's 3[:30]AM I Must Loony

I thought the crowd at the 24-hour taco place by my house at 2am after the bars let out was really weird… until I met the 3:30am crowd. Anyone scoring a burrito at that hour has been up to no good.

My friends and I were there, too, so admittedly we deserved to be categorized similarly. At least we had the good sense not to try to intermingle with the fellow riffraff, but all the other patrons were intent to chat us up anyway.

First, an older gentleman interrupted a couple of my female friends' conversation about their respective hairlines to give his input. He was a "comedian" but never really said anything funny. When my friend finally tried to excuse herself from a conversation the guy wouldn't take the hint needed to end, she told the slightly balding guy, "Okay, good luck with your hairline!"

Then there was a straight male ginger Latino fashion student (who knew?!) who was celebrating his 21st birthday. He claimed he had $4,700 on him that his father gave him to celebrate and kept offering to buy us stuff and take us places. He told us he had paid his friend to be a DD and that he was on his way to Vegas after eating and we could join him. Behind him, his friend shook his head no to indicate that was not going to happen. The ladies also declined to give him their phone numbers, despite his persistence. I'm not really sure whether he had all that money on him either, but he did wind up buying us an horchata.

Meanwhile, some woman a few feet away started screaming and slapping a guy after he told her he was leaving her at the taco place because he couldn't afford the gas to drive her home. She could have left before with Tito if he had mentioned that fact earlier!

Both the 21-year-old and the comedian were asking where we all lived, and one of my friends offered up the fact that I lived "right over there" and pointed. I leapt into action: "Yeah, but not right there… way way back. Like a few miles in that direction." Sorry, but we don't give my address to shady drunk people.

Speaking of shady drunk people, the creepiest dude of all never even talked to us. He was a young guy by himself carrying a 12-pack of Tecate in his arm. As he methodically made his way through his beers, he would flash a big smile and just wave at us every couple minutes or so. At first it seemed friendly, then it seemed like a condescending joke, and then it seemed like we might get murdered. At some point, the smiling and waving between strangers needs to stop, or people are going to start to think the worst. It's a shame, too, because it might have been nice to be friends with a guy unashamed enough to drink a 12-pack on a public street corner.

No more enchiladas at 3:30am.

The Break-In

There was a break-in at my house last week. Sort of.

I was there just sitting in the living room when my front door popped wide open. I figured it was my roommate, who had left to run an errand not long before, returning, but it wound up being a strange man.

"Hi?" I said. He mumbled something incomprehensible and let himself up the stairs. Perplexed, I sprinted toward the staircase to try to catch him, which is when I encountered two women - presumably a mother and teenager daughter - letting themselves into my house as well.

"What is going on?" I asked.
"We're here to look at the apartment," the younger one said.
"Uh, why?" I said.
"The room for rent. He's showing us the room for rent."
"I.. wha… uh… there's no room for rent. I live here."

We continued to try to hash out the details a bit more, but I realized the longer I talked to the women, the longer the man upstairs was unattended. "Look, you're welcome to come in, but there's no room for rent here," I said before running to find the man. [I probably didn't have to be so nice as to invite potential intruders in, but I was frantic and unsure of how to deal with the situation.]

Upstairs, I found the man stumbling up and down the hallway. When I got a good look at this face, I realized he might be a former neighbor of mine who I hadn't seen in a long time, but he looked especially sickly. It didn't seem like he was stealing anything, so I asked, "Are you all right?" and kind of gently coaxed him back downstairs. I couldn't understand his mumbled Spanish, but I was pretty sure he wasn't a threat to me.

At the women's request, I called the landlady to see if there was actually a room for rent anywhere in the compound. She told me no, and urged me to call the police to get the people out of my place. I told her that it probably wasn't necessary because whatever was going on seemed like a mistake, not malicious.

It turns out it was my old neighbor after all. He had spent a long time in the hospital after being diagnosed with a brain tumor and his mind wasn't right anymore. He wasn't just sort of confused, he was terribly confused, and somehow the ladies got pulled into his story that my apartment was for rent. The women apologized profusely, but I assured them there was nothing to apologize for, and we called the man's daughter to come take care of him.

Meanwhile, we're being more proactive about locking the door because you never know when someone's going to let themselves in and try to rent out your home when you're not looking.

Cashews

I know you've been waiting for an update on which things give me itchy hives, so allow me to finally put the speculation to rest:

I got the results of the test back: I definitely am allergic to cashews. (If you're not hearing me deliver that line like the breast cancer revelation from The Room, then you know me even less well than I knew I have a nut allergy.)


If you'll recall, at the beginning of the year, I had a horrible allergic reaction, which I suspected might be related to cashews but I was too afraid to confirm because a) I didn't want to test it and break out into a useless mess again and b) cashews are my favorite nut and I am not keen on the idea of giving them up. Well, this week I threw caution to the wind and bought a can of cashews and WABOOM, itchy red blotches on various parts of my body… but mainly around my crotch.

The damn thing is that I like cashews so much that I can't even promise I will never eat them again. Food allergies are new to me (other than the fact that maybe just about every food gives me diarrhea, but I digress), but I always thought people were repelled from foods they're allergic to. Is there some kind of bargain I can make where I give up almonds and pistachios and macadamias so that I can keep eating cashews safely? It might seem drastic, but I'll do it.

For now, though, no cashews for me, if only because they make the area around my butt hole itch. You don't know how difficult it is to be in public when all you really want to do is scratch vigorously in the vicinity of your butt crack.

Who Are the People In Your Neighborhood?

I encountered some awesome people just before getting on and then again just after getting off the train yesterday.

First, Christine pointed out a woman walking ahead of us that she called "Ariel". Indeed, the woman with red hair - not like orange "let's call it red" hair, but straight up dyed scarlet red hair - and a flowing teal dress looked straight out of The Little Mermaid. Obnoxiously, we started singing "Part of Your World" behind her.

As we got even closer to her, however, she didn't smell fishy. She smelled… skunky. I got a big whiff of pot and then noticed she was lighting a bowl right there on the street. Forget "Under the Sea", she was Under the Influence… in public. Gotta love a Disney princess who willfully defies the law.

The train ride itself was pretty normal, other than the fact that we sat beside a stunningly beautiful woman. "She is way too pretty to take public transportation," Christine noted.

Right off the train, however, we encountered a fight. A black woman and a Caucasian man were getting in each other faces and shouting for the whole block to hear. The woman screamed, "I'M A REAL N*****! I DON'T OWE YOUR HOMELESS ASS ANYTHING!" The man was offended. "Whoa! One: I'm not homeless! Two…"

I didn't get to hear point two because I was laughing too hard. He might not be homeless, but appearance-wise - and I say this as someone with compassion for the homeless - he could have fooled me.

More than anything, I wanted to know the context of the fight. Like why did she have to state that she was a real [racial epithet]? Did he somehow offend her by not calling her the n-word?

Even though she seemed to be the aggressor in the altercation, in a subsequent game of "would you rather", I decided I'd prefer to be the woman's friend of the two. Better to be a real n***** than a fake homeless, am-I-right? Of course, I reckon they could both be pleasant if they took some time to mellow out with the Little Mermaid.

The Most Amazing Tan I've Ever Seen

On the first day of school my sophomore year, my Spanish teacher asked one of my peers whether he had spent much time at the beach during the summer.

"Yeah, I surfed most days," the student said.
"I knew it! I could tell!" the Spanish teacher celebrated. "You have the most amazing tan I've ever seen."

While his skin was remarkably tan, there was one problem… dark brown was his natural skin color. Year-round, even. An awkward silence fell over the room because most of us students knew that she got lucky with her beach guess and the tan was not temporary, but correcting her might make the kid feel even more uncomfortable.

When you're in a school district that's 95% white, mistakes like this do happen. I remember in elementary school, I had friends that were very plainly not Caucasian, but it never occurred to me that some of them were anything but white. With only a juvenile understanding of race, I figured people who acted like me and that I liked must be "white." Sure, they had really dark skin, but deep down, they must actually be white. In a way, I thought I was giving them the benefit of the doubt, which is all sorts of horrible, but the kind of notions a kid has to navigate through in a world of white privilege surrounded by limited diversity.

Occasionally, I think back to the incident and wonder at what point she realized his "tan" wasn't going away. Did it take a week, two weeks, maybe a month for humiliation to set in? Did it surprise her to discover that the kid who acted just like the others in an otherwise all-white class wasn't white after all?

If it makes anyone feel better, the Spanish teacher was diagnosed with cancer a few months later. But she was also a nice woman, so don't revel in it! Subconsciously whitewashing the people around her makes her ignorant, but taking pleasure in her getting cancer makes you an asshole… and that's probably worse.

Pullups Pillow

So there's a senior citizen passed out in my hallway using a bag of Huggies Pullups as a pillow. PARTY AT MY PLACE!

It's a long story, but for reasons I still don't understand, my roommate allowed his friend, his friend's wife, their 2 and 3-year old kids, and his father-in-law (see "grandpa" above) to have a vacation at our house for four days. So far they've gone to Disneyland and the beach… yet mysteriously, not a motel.

Simultaneously, my roommate has also invited people to crash here for Fuck Yeah Fest (a music festival in LA this weekend), which means there are drunk concert-goers also taking up space on the couches. I guess when there's not enough places for people to sleep, Grandpa winds up on the floor?

How does this situation even work? It arguably doesn't. We have the late 20s/early 30s degenerates boozing until 3am, and then just three hours later, the kids are awake, screaming and stomping around like children their age do. Plus, there's just one bathroom for all of us.

It's like Full House, but with fewer heartwarming moments.

10 Morbidly Funny Last Words from Executed Texans

A couple of months ago I wrote an article 10 Heartbreaking Last Words from Executed Texans. In order to compile the list, I read all of the final words from the 500 death row inmates, which ended up being an even more emotional experience than I anticipated.

In addition to reading words that shook me to the core, I also found a handful that were fairly funny. Not LOL hilarious, mind you, as these people were all seconds from death, but morbidly funny. If you can stomach dark comedy, here are 10 of my favorites:

10. "If there's anything I have left to say, it would be that I wish I had a Shakespearean vocabulary, but since I was raised in TDC [Texas Department of Corrections], I missed out." - Raymond Kinnamon

9. "I've been hanging around this popsicle stand way too long. Before I leave, I want to tell you all. When I die, bury me deep, lay two speakers at my feet, put some headphones on my head and rock and roll me when I'm dead." - Douglas Roberts 

8. "I said I was going to tell a joke… Death has set me free! That's the biggest joke… And the other joke is 'I am not Patrick Bryan Knight and y'all can stop this execution now.'" - Patrick Knight

7. "Um, I don't know what to say. I don't know. [pauses] I didn't know anybody was there. Howdy!" - James Clark

6. "I gotta go, road dog. I love you, Gabby. [Remaining portion of statement omitted due to profanity.]" - Cameron Willingham

5. "You all brought me here to be executed, not to make a speech." - Charlie Livingston

4. "They are fixing to pump my veins with a lethal drug the American Veterinary Association won't even allow to be used on dogs… I am worse off than a dog." - Reginald Blanton

3. "The reason it took them so long is because they couldn't find a vein. You know how I hate needles… Tell the guys on Death Row that I'm not wearing a diaper." - Charles Nealy

2. "The last meal was really good. That is about it." - James Collier

1. "If I am paying my debt to society, I am due a rebate and a refund." - Billy Hughes Jr.

Okay, maybe these are still heartbreaking, too...

Ashton Kutcher Plate

At the risk of boasting, check out this commemorative art that Ashton Kutcher commissioned of himself that I now own!

In 2005, Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher starred in the film Guess Who - a modern bastardization of the Sidney Poitier classic Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - where a white guy meets his girlfriend's black family and race-based hijinks ensue! I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that none of you have seen it. I certainly haven't seen it; heck, my friend worked on the movie, and I don't think even he's seen it.

It is because my friend worked on the film that I now have this fine art. As a sign of gratitude, Kutcher gave the cast and crew painted decorative plates. You might be thinking "How uncharacteristically awesome of Ashton Kutcher to give the crew a thank you keepsake!" Before you get carried away, take a closer look at the plate.

It's a spoof of the Last Supper and Kutcher has cast himself as Jesus Christ. The black cast, inoffensively obviously, surrounds Kutcher as his disciples. It takes a special kind of ego to deify oneself… and an even greater ego still to pass it off as a "gift" that the crew would have any interest in.

Apparently, it's been my friend's closet for years because what do you do with something like that? I guess just pass it off to someone you know that would find it ridiculous enough to appreciate.

And I do! I would actually eat off the plate, except that on the back it warns: "Food consumed from this vessel may be harmful." Mmmmmm, how deliciously toxic! Guess I'll just have to display it on my mantle instead.

The back of the plate also features Ashton's signature and the word "SHALOM." I googled that, and I guess that during filming, Kutcher improvised that his character was Jewish, but the director ultimately cut all references to that out. It's nice to know that this plate is not just a testament to Kutcher's egomania, but also his ill-conceived creative input.

One day I will sell this on eBay and make TENS of DOLLARS!

Pee-p Show

The bar we hung out at this weekend has a major structural flaw: from a certain angle, you can see right into the men's room. Since it's not a single occupancy rest room, each time another guy enters, it affords an unobstructed view of a urinal.

How do I know this? I found myself sitting in just the right spot. Even though my focus remained on the band playing in the front, I still got plenty of incidental glances at the urinal 10-15 feet behind them in the background. It wouldn't be a big deal except that often times you could see dudes mid-piss, oblivious to the fact that there were spectators.

When more of my friends arrived, I ended up scooting my chair closer to the end of the table to make room. While the polite thing to do would have been not to draw attention to the fact that people were unwittingly urinating more or less publicly, I didn't do that. I don't know, it seemed like a waste of a view. So instead I announced, "Yo, you ladies can see a lot of dick tonight if you want!"

Naturally, that warranted an explanation, but once they understood the situation, they were pretty into it. They informed our whole party each time they spied a bro's penis in the distance.

It seemed funny until, as happens when you drink a bunch of beer, I had to pee. I had to pee so badly that it trumped the my self-consciousness about doing it in front of my friends. I entered, and was disappointed to find that the urinal - the magical, visible urinal - was the only toilet available. I hope that if I just peed at more of a sideways angle rather than straight on, my friends wouldn't be able to see my dick.

No dice, though. "We could see you peeing!" they shouted when I returned to my seat. I guess that's what you call karma? Look, ladies, some of us are just trying to tinkle, not put on a show. Have some respect!

P.S. Oddly, this is the second time I've unintentionally found myself in the bar seat with a view of cock.

Eating with Cannibals

I'm currently watching a documentary called Eating with Cannibals on a friend's Netflix account because I apparently have little shame. In truth, I'm probably less embarrassed that I've given into morbid bloodlust-y curiosity than I am about the fact that the people who share the account are going to see that title as recently watched and exclaim "Kevin!" I can only imagine what Netflix will see fit to recommend to us after my interest in this flick.

The National Geographic host/narrator who is venturing into remote Papua New Guinea villages where cannibalism has occurred is so fucking smug. He can't help but be condescending and a little grossed out by it all. Like, dude, you came to these people specifically because you knew they'd tell you about incidents of cannibalism - don't act so shocked when they tell you exactly what you expected to hear. Also, would it kill him to spend some time asking them other questions about their culture before getting right into "So, how do humans taste?" It just seems a little rude.

Best fact I've learned so far: men and women taste the same.

Apparently, they only eat people they suspect to be sorcerers… and occasionally for revenge. But pretty much everyone says they haven't eaten a person in a long time. The host, meanwhile, is like LOL, yeah right, liars, I can smell it on your breath.

Oh great, now he's speculating that if missionaries hadn't come to the villages and spread Christian values, they'd probably just be eating each other left and right. If I had swallowed any human recently (and I've pretty much copped to the fact that I'd try it not too long ago), I'd be gagging on it right now.

The only way this documentary ends well is if these Papua New Guineans eat this nosy, judgmental host guy. It's not every day a hunk of white meat wanders into town and asks mouth-watering questions about how you would cook him, so seize the opportunity!

4 Notable Things That Happened While Flying Last Week

4. Look, at this point, it's cliche to say that the TSA molests you. I know that. But also: the TSA molested me. I went through that x-ray thing, and when I came out they said my right shoulder and my left pocket had been "flagged". At first I got what kind of felt like a brief shoulder rub/massage, which, I won't lie, was kind of nice. Then the dude felt up my thigh and smooshed my testicle against my leg. So I guess my ball was the threatening thing they saw in my pocket? Wouldn't be the first time it terrified someone, truthfully.

3. Waiting for a red-eye at an airport is tiresome, but waiting an additional hour and a half because of a delay is downright exhausting. Thankfully, there was a dude who took out his guitar and sang songs at the gate. Normally, this could be annoying when you're just trying to nap, but he was legitimately good. Great, even. Me and the people nearby just kind of quietly sang along. I even applauded at one point to show we were appreciating it.

Only after he was done playing and some fellow passenger asked him his name did I realize I actually knew who the singer was: Tim Urban, a finalist on American idol from a few years back. I actually used to vote for Tim… not because he was good, but because he was notoriously bad. As a fan of VoteForTheWorst.com, a recently defunct website with a mission of keeping the worst singer on the show.

It's a little surreal to sit there and genuinely enjoy a singer only to realize he's someone you once thought was laughably bad, but, you know, consider me a convert.

Oh, and the older guy who asked him his name? He kept misunderstanding and calling Tim "Keith Urban" because he didn't know who he was. But he still asked for a picture with him anyway. Reality TV fame must be the worst.

2. And speaking of reality TV fame, Tim wasn't the only reality star on my flight: Gervase from the first season of Survivor sat a couple rows up from me. The reason this is particularly noteworthy is because he's (more than) rumored to be on the upcoming season of Survivor. In fact, I looked it up, and filming apparently JUST ended, so it made sense that he was now flying back to Philadelphia.

Later, I wrote it up with some pretty pertinent details for a Survivor spoiler message board and got called a liar and troll. Fine, guys, fine! Don't trust me!

Also, thank goodness our plane didn't go down, or it would have been a sad day for reality television junkies.

1. Okay, but the craziest thing of all was this granny/awkward ~25-year-old grandson that sat immediately behind me on my connecting flight (or rather the flight I got put on 5 hours later after missing the next two connecting flights thanks to the first flight's delay). Granny was blind or at least legally blind, so her grandson was reading SkyMall magazine to her. Except instead of reading the provided captions (which some copywriter worked hard on!) he was just interpreting the stuff based on the picture.

The shit in SkyMall is extravagant and bizarre, and to have someone sum up all the goods without a hint of irony was absolutely trippy. Part of me wanted to turn around and tell him to shut up, while the other part of me wanted to take out my phone and record it because it's the kind of WTF nonsense that should go viral.

I fly again Friday. Undoubtedly, more stories to follow.

The Renaissance Fair

I never thought I'd attend a Renaissance Fair (because ha!) but I found myself witnessing one today by accident. I met up with some teammates for a barbecue in a park, and much to our surprise, a lot of the space was claimed by a few hundred fully costumed Ren Fair devotees.

I like people-watching, but watching people who are playing pretend is fascinating in a whole new way. This wasn't a performance for an audience (though the couple dozen of us who happened to be at the park had great seats), just adults amusing themselves and each other by sweating through heavy costumes in heat that would have called for shorts and using funny accents to say words like "exalted" and "decree."

A lot of things were going on at the end of the Middle Ages, but if you were relying on these LARPers for your information, you might think it was nothing but fencing. The men loved fighting with their swords and that took up the majority of the day. It seems like it might be more accurate if some of them were sharecropping or whatever. Then again, if they were concerned with accuracy, I probably wouldn't have seen so many of them playing with their smartphones.

And then there was the Queen! She wore the fanciest gown and a crown, and had attendants follow her around with parasols to provide her majesty with shade. I wonder how they chose the Queen and whether she got to be the Queen every time they played. When an ice cream truck came to the park's parking lot, the Queen went over to buy some and several of her attendants tagged along. I also wondered whether they were obligated to do this or wanted popsicles, too.

Although the women remained primarily in subservient positions - true to the times, I suppose - it was nice to see that the African American participants held various ranks. More than anything, however, I was just surprised that there were black people there at all. It's times like these that I recognize my underlying prejudices. White people? I expect this kind of Ren-Fair shit from them. But black people… I guess I thought that black people were cooler than that.

Hi, I'm Calling about Your Boobs

My friend "Tiffany" got a call from "Roger", one of her best friend's father. Since they don't generally have any contact, naturally Tiffany assumed something awful had happened. In a sense, something awful had happened, but it had nothing to do with Roger's daughter.

For context, Tiffany has a history of breast cancer in her family. In fact, her sister was diagnosed at an early age, well before the age of recommended mammogram screenings. As a result, Tiffany's doctor thought it would be a good idea for Tiffany to get screened.

That's where Roger comes in. He works for a health insurance company. Coincidentally, he was assigned to Tiffany's request for a breast cancer screening. And then he called her up! Gee, must be nice to know someone who can approve your procedure and give you some personal service for once!

Except that, actually, Roger was calling Tiffany to tell her that he had denied her claim. After all, his job is to reject paying for most medical care… that's how a health insurance company operates! Normally a customer wouldn't receive a call, but once he recognized her name, Roger wanted to call Tiffany personally to tell her her doctor requested mammogram would not be covered by insurance and that he felt really bad about it.

Aww, poor Roger. It's nice to know he cares. Not enough to, like, ensure Tiffany is healthy, mind you, but there's just enough of a guilty conscious for him to admit he dicked her over. It's not like early detection could save her life or anything! He found some excuse for rejecting the claim and went with it!

For fuck's sake, if you can't even get someone who knows you and your personal history which validates this particular medical exam to cover the costs, how can you expect the health insurance industry to ever take care of you?

Anytime your friend's dad calls you up to discuss your boobs, it's bound to be an awful conversation, but this might be one of the worst cases.

Eurovision 2013 Round-Up

Yesterday's Eurovision Song Contest was pretty bleeping amazing. Tell me this video of Romania's song isn't the most bizarre thing you've seen. Tell me, I dare you! It's been labelled "gay vampire ghost opera dubstep" and I suppose that's as good of a description as there will ever be for something that words cannot accurately describe.

But Romania was hardly the only WTF moment. Finland channeled her inner-bridezilla and ended her song with a lesbian smooch:


Greek men clad in kilts jammed and repeated the lyrics "Alcohol is free!" incessantly. (It's a message we can all get behind, anyway.):


This pretty Ukranian woman got carried onstage by an actual giant, sang about gravity, made weird hand motions to mimic a butterfly, and still ultimately finished in 3rd place:

Moldova screeched while wearing the most multi-functional dress you've ever seen:

And we picked up some "cool" "new" "dance moves" from both Belgium and Belarus.

About ten of us watched the festivities live together yesterday, and while Romania was obviously our collective favorite, our runner-up was the show's actual winner, Denmark:
I was smitten with the song within twenty seconds: a flute, those drums, a hot, purposefully disheveled young lady with perfectly messy hair and bare feet. All right, for me the appeal is admittedly half crush-based, but it's also half really catchy song. I might already own the MP3, even.

The runner-up was an astonishingly handsome man (hey, save some good genes for the rest of us) from Azerbaijan who probably had the best staging of the night. I don't care for the song, but I can't even make fun of it because I was just genuinely impressed with the effects:

I realize I write about Eurovision a lot for an American, but it is too funny/confounding of a ritual to not get excited about. Like, what was with this announcer who snuck in a plug for his new single and then gave control back to the main host who he referred to as "#MILF"? Man, I can't get enough: is it next year yet?

P.S., here are three honorable mentions that for obvious but not justifiable reasons were eliminated in the semi-final rounds:

• Montenegro (ASTRONAUT RAPPERS, GUYS!)
• Latvia (It's not an homage to the 80s, Latvia is just decades behind in trends.)
• Bulgaria (She wails, she drums, she's awesome.)

A Baby Is Born

So that my pregnant friend of mine who I said all the wrong things to met us at that same bar this week. I wasn't expecting to see her because she's literally nine months pregnant. Come to think of it, I don't think anyone expects to see a nine months pregnant woman in a bar.

Weirder still is when she said she was likely to come out again the following week… a day after her due date. That is, she stipulated, if she hadn't given birth yet. "What if you have the baby on the due date, will you still come out the next night?" "No." she said. See, this baby is already cutting into our friendship.

Luie said he'd grab towels "just in case." We tried to get her to agree to name the baby after the bar if her water broke while she was there, but she wouldn't agree.

My favorite moment, however, occurred between a married couple who are new friends of mine. After they were introduced to my pregnant friend and stared at her massive belly, they had a brief exchange: 

Husband: "That looks awful. I don't think I could ever do that to you."
Wife: "That's good, because I don't want you to ever do that to me."

Sounds like we can be friends for a good long while. Three cheers for the non-procreators!

Just 36 hours after that night in a bar, I received a picture message from my friend: it was her fresh-out-of-the-oven baby. Admittedly, it's difficult to reconcile the fact that we were hanging out and then soon after she was pushing a new human being out of her body.

I, again not saying the most appropriate things for the occasion, responded by sending this GIF of an even cuter baby performing CPR. (Seriously, I adore it so much, I watched it loop for fifteen minutes straight.) Accordingly, I asked the new mommy if she had bothered to teach her not-even-one-day-old resuscitation techniques yet.

She gave some lame excuse that the baby having enough difficulty learning to breastfeed, but whatever. This is about potentially saving someone's life! It's never too soon. Frankly, I'm not sure I'm willing to hang out with this baby until I know she could rescue me in the event I stop breathing.