the search for 'neo'...

10.2.05

american bulimia

superbowl sunday is analogous to many things: football, beer, half time shows, superbowl parties, beer, friendly (and not so friendly) wagering, and even the occasional wardrobe malfunction (and beer).

one thing that the superbowl is not analogous to, is the act of shaving.

or at least that’s what i thought until this past weekend.

because prior to this weekend, i would never have associated the two together.

but after this weekend’s ‘performance’, i cant help it.

because the highlight of superbowl XXXIX was the shaving.

and if you saw (what i saw) you might agree.

although im sure that many of you didn’t (see it), and even if you did, you probably wouldn’t (agree).

which is completely understandable.

because in order to agree, you would have had to have seen the ‘girls gone wild’ half time show. ha!

which was as trashy as you’d expect it to be, with more nudity and degradation than you’d expect there to be.

but it was still better than the ‘lingerie bowl’.

which tried its best to legitimize itself as a ‘manly’ alternative to the decidedly ‘androgynous’ paul mcCartney concert.

‘androgynous’ in the ‘lets – choose – paul – mccartney – because - he’s – about – as – sexless – as – they – come – and – we – cant – have – another – JJ – malfunction – this - year’ kinda way.

we proceeded to watch 30 seconds of pauly before opting to buy the ‘lingerie bowl’ on pay per view.

we proceeded to watch 30 seconds of THAT before opting to buy the ‘girls gone wild’ half time show on pay per view.

pay per view musta fucking loved us.

i don’t need to go into details about the show – im sure we’re all aware of the nekkidness combined with stupid coeds combined with (probably) a lot of coke combined with drunken lecherous assholes.

and of course shaving.

which has absolutely nothing to do with football, but now will FOREVER have everything to do with football. ha!

but lets be honest – even with the shaving, ‘girls gone wild’ is fucking lame. its semi-legitimized softcore porn dressed up with some ‘real’ college coeds and snoop dog to boot.

i say semi-legitimized because the public actually condones the sale of this material (why else do we see advertisements for GGW tapes on major broadcast networks) while simultaneously condemning the degradation of society amongst the implication that boobies (janets to be specific) are corrupting the moral fiber of society.

in other words, the general public is fucking bulimic.

as americans, we want to have our cake (and eat it too). but we also want to purge immediately afterwards, and condemn food as being unnatural.

all of which doesn’t stop any redblooded american from slapping down his hard earned fifteen ninety nine, and tuning in to girls flashing their naughty bits during the superbowl half time show.

which leads me to believe that the general public could care less about showing t&a on tv, so long as we pay for it.

which basically means that janet jackson wasn’t enough of a capitalist for our nascar joe society. ha!

now don’t get me wrong, i sure as hell wasn’t thinking about the degradation of society or the meaning of life during the ‘girls gone wild’ half time show.

in fact you would expect that i wouldn’t be thinking of much of anything.

which is partly true.

(then again, when am i EVER thinking much of anything?) ha!

because throughout the thirty five minute girls-gone-slip-and-slide, i did have the occasional thought bubble.

and like i said, i wasn’t thinking about moral fiber or any other such nonsense.

instead, over a chorus of ‘OMG!!! and ‘where can i meet these girls?’ and ‘look at her bounce!’, i was thinking, ‘if only my friends could see me now’.

and i had to laugh, because superbowl sunday was the perfect contrast to two separate conversations that i had had the day before.

conversations in which two of my girl friends had ‘laughingly’ asked me if i was gay.

‘if only my friends could see me now’

which is not meant to be an indictment of my friends, or them evaluating the possibility of my ‘gayness’.

because lets face it, i am into some pretty ‘gay’ shit.

first of all, im obsessed with relationships and feelings and the ‘one’ and soul mates and romance etc. etc. hell! i even have an entire blog that is dedicated to these topics.

second of all, in real life i have a lot of girl friends. too many in fact. so many that people have to ask ‘don’t you have any guy friends?’. ironically this is closely mirrored by my ‘online’ readership… who are also mostly of the female persuasion. (sorry mr N). ha!

if you add on my willingness to watch chick flicks (and the occasional inclusion of said chick flicks amongst my movie collection) i think you can make a case (albeit flimsy and based on stereotypes) that i am gay.

shit, i guess it doesn’t help that i ‘style’ my hair and dress well too.

hell, i must be gay!

these are understandably shallow assumptions. and had anyone else ‘joked’ about my sexual orientation i might have labeled them as ignorant. but these girls know the gay community, have gay friends, (hell!) we even have mutual gay friends.

so i know that no harm no foul was intended.

in a way i think the reasons for their ‘jokes’ run a little deeper.

i think questions like, ‘why won’t you date me?’, ‘or at least hook me up with one of your guy friends’ may also factor into this discussion.

and even though it SOUNDS egotistical to project these rhetorical questions on to my girl friends, im willing to bet that a couple of them HAVE entertained these questions at one time or another. (maybe not for very long, maybe not all of them, but it was considered, and some of them did)

my answer to the first question can be simply summed, ‘im just not that into you’ ha!

which is so true, but so cliché, and so lame which is why i hate to use it.

(did i forget to mention that ill indiscriminately read any type of book – including self help clit?**) ha!

the answer to the second question was easily demonstrated by the shaving and the bouncing and the ‘girls gone wild’ half time show.

most of my girl friends are not the ‘girls gone wild’ sort.

and most of my guy friends are.

go figure. ha!

3.2.05

the ‘one hundred twenty eight million five hundred sixty three thousand two hundred second’ plan

i love chicago.

ive lived here for three and a half years and i cant imagine another city that i would rather live in.

it’s a perfect match for me - metropolitan, 24hr public transportation, vibrant nightlife, a dynamic cornucopia of cultures (ha!), and a summer lifestyle that no one else can rival.

i fuckin love this city.

and yet six months ago, i found myself having a bit of a ‘moment’.

i found myself actually considering departing this fair city.

i was at a loss for words.

i was newly single, i had just been promoted, and my life was relative stable.

and yet here i was having a ‘moment’.

i was having a 'take stock of your life' kinda moment.

i was having an 'ask the questions, lest they never be asked' kinda moment.

questions like, 'am i where i want to be? am i doing what i want to do? am i meeting the people i want to meet? am i friends with the people i want to be friends with?'
but most importantly, 'am i (on the way to being) the person that i want to be?'

i gave myself a year to find out.

i decided that IF i couldn’t find the answers to these questions in chicago, i would have to look somewhere else.

i needed to decide if chicago could be home.

first of all, let me clearly state that this wasn’t a 'marisa tomei' kinda moment.

it wasnt a 'midlife crisis' kinda moment.

it wasnt a 'my biological clock is tickin' kinda moment.

it wasnt even a 'buy a porche, and date a girl half my age' kinda moment... because (lets face it) a girl half my age would be twelve and a half. ha!

it wasn’t any of these things.

instead it was a ‘holy-i-am-twenty-fuckin-five-years-old-shit!’ kinda moment.

(should twenty five year olds even be having ‘moments’?)

which is a good question, considering that twenty five is the perfect age.

its the 'goldilocks' of age groups.

its not too young... its not too old... its just right. ha!

and yet while i should be content to eat my porridge, sit in my chair, and sleep in my o' so comfy bed, this sense of restlessness pervades my thoughts, my actions, and my dreams. a sense of urgency that i dont entirely understand yet. a sense that something 'big' (for lack of a better word) is quickly approaching. change is in the air, and who knows when (or where) the other shoe will drop.

or maybe im just making all this shit up. (because with me, you never can tell.)

maybe im making mountains out of mole hills. maybe im bored. maybe im trying to force a fight club epiphany. but i cant help but feel like this upcoming year is going to be an important one. i cant help but feel like twenty six will be an age tottering on the cusp of dramatic changes - watershed moments that will ripple effect the rest of my life.

then again maybe im just blowing the proverbial ass smoke again. ha!

frankly, it shouldn’t be surprising that i feel the way i feel.

hell, im practically wired for it.

hell, we’re all wired for it.

we are all wired to the same ‘four year’ plan.

in between sips from your heffi’s and heini’s some of you may ask ‘what pray tell is the ‘four year’ plan?’

well let me take a sip of my own, and explain.

like many of you, i was born into the ‘four year’ plan. i didn’t have a choice. and even tho i didn’t realize that i was living it, i grew to accept it and even ‘enjoy’ it.

it gave me structure. it gave me guidance. it gave me a clear pathway from point A to point B, with plenty of milestones to observe along the way.

the ‘four year’ plan is a way of life. and we’ve all lived it. lived it and loved it.

so lets take a step back to explain what im babbling about.

the ‘four year plan’ traces its roots all the way back to kindergarten.

do you remember kindergarten?

yep, neither do i.

not much happens in kindergarten, but that’s where this all begins.

so stick with me.

four years after that and still not much is happening - but at least this milestone does mark the completion of your first four year cycle.

you’re just getting the hang of things.

four years after that and you are graduating from middle school (i.e. eighth grade) - goodbye childhood, hello teen angst.

add another four years and you are graduating from high school - goodbye parental dependence, hello college ‘independence.’

and who can forget the ‘grande enchilada’, your graduation from uni - goodbye 10am ‘early’ classes, hello ‘officespace’.

its hard to imagine, but these are actually significant moments in our lives.

its hard to imagine that these are actually the important milestones that we’ve worked towards, that we’ve lived through, and that we’ve celebrated.

its hard to imagine, but it’s the truth.

for close to 20 years, we’ve lived our lives in four year increments. each cycle represented by a concise beginning, middle, and an end. each cycle marked with its own excitement (i.e. freshmen year, fraternity rush, my own apartment), its own difficulties (AP’s, SATs, finals), and its own conclusion (graduation).

each cycle is distinct; each cycle is finite; each cycle marks a period of growth and maturity (in my case immaturity) that culminates and transitions to the next cycle like a baton passing along a relay team.

do you see where im going with this?

twenty six marks the first time that our lives officially depart from the ‘four year’ plan.

twenty six marks the first installment of life that isnt pre-scripted for us.

twenty six marks our final departure from childhood and our shocking arrival into adulthood.

for me, turning twenty six will represent all of these things, and much much more.

because when i turn twenty six, that will be the four year anniversary of my arrival in chicago.

four years in chicago and what do i have to show for it?

four years in chicago and what do i have to look forward to?

if i stay in chicago for four more years, will i know the answer to these questions?

probably not, but at least ill still be living in chicago. ha!

i don’t need to graduate from chicago to get closure.

i just need to find some answers to my questions.

... answers and maybe a thirteen year old with a porche.

ariel proves my nice guy vs. bad boy point ~

1.2.05

the live aid dvd


i like to put band aids on my nipples.

which sounds weirder than it is.

although it probably sounds pretty fuckin’ weird to most of you.

band aids are a necessary weirdness considering that my nipples are bloody sensitive.

not all the time mind you, just during specific activities – any type of long run (over an hour and a half in duration) and during any type of run (irregardless of time) during the wintertime

which is especially problematic considering i love going on long runs during the wintertime.

i love the crisp winter air as it sears your lungs after every breath.

i love the crunch and squelch of thousands of snowflakes being godzilla’d underfoot.

i love my solitary shadow dancing along the lakefront without another soul in sight.

i love the feeling of a hot shower as shower drops bounce off of my cold skin after a long run outside.

i love everything about running during the winter, but i hate when my nipples bleed.

bloody nipples are the bane of male runners.

oftentimes bleeding will occur because the person’s shirt (usually cotton) rubs vigorously against their chest until the area is chafed raw.

males are usually the victim because women are more likely to have a protective shell (i.e. a sports bra) protecting their nips and tippleys.

i find that cold air irritates and exacerbates this condition more than warm air. im sure everyone knows that nothing brings the ‘twin towers’ to attention faster than exposing your chest to a wave of cold air. running while being a 'nit bit tippley' is a sure way to aggravate and irritate your skin.

but having said that, it is still possible to see someone during the summer who is sporting the tell tale ‘spotting’ on their shirts. this usually occurs as a result of salt crystals (from sweat) that become trapped between a persons top and their chest. once the salt has adhered to a shirt, its only a matter of time before the up and down motion aggravates a persons skin.

long runs provide plenty of opportunity for this type of situation.

which is why you will often see this type of occurrence during a marathon*.

it amazes me that someone can train for a marathon and NOT know that they should be wearing a dri-fit top instead of the race’s freebie cotton-t. but inevitably there are always a handful of hardcore runners who are proudly wearing cotton shirts with badges of one (or maybe two) trails of ‘courage’ running down their chests.

even though it looks like extremely painful, you are unlikely to feel anything during the actual run.

but after the run is an entirely different matter – especially as you climb into your post run shower.

that shit stings like getting double-tapped on the chest by two paintballs (on bare skin mind you).

which is why i like to put band aids on my nipples.

i find that this saves me a lot of irritation, discomfort, and (occasionally) embarrassment.

which is why i was a little irritated (pun intended) when i forget to don my running ‘pasties’ this past weekend.

maybe i forgot because i was in a hurry to cram this run into my already stacked schedule.

maybe i forgot because i was thinking about someone (and had been thinking about someone) all weekend.

or maybe i forgot because im a moron, and i need to learn to take care of myself better.

personally, i think it’s some of the second, and a lot of the third.

because i REALLY have been thinking about this person… a lot.

which has me fascinated and hopeful and stupidly optimistic for this weekend – because i know ill be seeing her again. and i want to learn more and i want to talk more and i want to gauge her interest and i want to ask her out.

i want to do all of these things because she’s cute and she’s smart, and because she’s interesting and philanthropic and because she’s (seems) genuinely interested in me.

but most importantly, i want to do all of these things because she’s the first person (in a long time) that actually garners these types of feelings from me..

unfortunately because i wont see her till this weekend –i have plenty of time to overthink this one.

which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. because right off the bat, i know im making a HUGE mistake…

because im falling for the oldest trick in the book – being nice.

and in this particular case im not even talking about myself. im not even talking about playin’ the ‘nice guy’ card.

i hate that ‘nice guys finish last’ bullshit.

im talking about misunderstanding when someone else is being nice.

which is a con that we all are capable of falling for.

especially (us) guys.

we are the absolute BIGGEST sucka’s when it comes to a girl being nice to us.

that shit gets us every time.

because we naturally equate a girl being nice… to a girl wanting to sleep with us. ha!

which is a sad but true secret.

which isn’t really a secret, since its no secret that guys are morons.

but you cant blame us completely. because girls know how this type of thing can go down. and they just choose to ignore it. and who can blame them?

why should it be wrong to be nice to someone?

as is always the case, context is the key. if a guy is not attracted to a girl, her ‘niceness’ factor doesn’t factor. but if a guy is attracted to a girl, her ‘niceness’ factor can be completely misconstrued as mutual interest.

which is why i could be making a HUGE mistake.

i want to believe that there is some mutual interest – i want to believe that all the pieces fit together perfectly and im not completely misreading this. but obviously this is such an easy rabbit hole to fall down.

on one hand i feel like i need to be careful. i need to check my enthusiasm.

because lets not forget that im a moron, and i need to learn to take care of myself better.

because lets not forget that pre-emptive measures can save me a lot of irritation, discomfort, and (occasionally) embarrassment.

because lets not forget that i hate bloody nipples.

but on the other hand i say fuck it.

because i like being hopeful.

because i like feeling the way i do about her.

because i cant wait to see what happens this weekend.

* contrary to most non-runners belief a marathon is ALWAYS 26.2 miles (with the exception of marathons run in pre-historic times)