Apparently, I'm Not As Well-Read As I Thought Or Stolen From Katie Or This Entry Was Also Sandbagged

Key:

*=read
! = want to read
Not in a million years= do NOT want to read
?= never heard of it

(plus combinations thereof)

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) *
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) !
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) *
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) Not in a million years
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) !
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) !
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) !
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) Not in a million years
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) ?
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry) ?
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling) Not in a million years
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) Not in a million years
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling) Not in a million years
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) *
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) !
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling) Not in a million years
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald) ?
18. The Stand (Stephen King) *
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling) Not in a million years
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) !
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien) Not in a million years
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) *
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) *
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) !
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel) !
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) !
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) Not in a million years
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) *
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck) *
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom) Not in a million years
31. Dune (Frank Herbert) *
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) Not in a million years
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) !
34. 1984 (Orwell) *
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) Not in a million years
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett) *
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay) Not in a million years
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb) ?
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) Not in a million years
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) ?
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel) ?
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) *
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella) ?
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) Not in a million years
45. Bible *
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) !
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) *
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) *
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) *
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb) ?
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) !
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) *
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) *
54. Great Expectations (Dickens) Not in a millio years
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) *
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence) ?
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling) Not in a million years
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough) ?
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) *
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger) ?
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) *
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand) !
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy) !
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) NIMY
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis) ?
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) *
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares) NIMY
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) *
69. Les Miserables (Hugo) *
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) ?
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) NIMY
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) *
73. Shogun (James Clavell) ?
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) !
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) *
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay) ?
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith) ?
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving) !
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence) ?
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) *
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley) ?
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck) *
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) ?
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind) ?
85. Emma (Jane Austen) !
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams) *
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) *
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields) ?
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago) *
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer) ?
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje) ?
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding) *
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck) *
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) !
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum) NIMY
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) *
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch) !
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford) ?
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield) !
100. Ulysses (James Joyce) *

This Entry Was Sandbagged

I know, I know, I took a quiz. Silly. Very, very silly.

I was thinking though that finding out which classic work of literature I would be - according to God-Knows-Who - might be interesting. Certainly more interesting than "Which Star Wars Character Are You?" Anyhow, I did not expect these results but that's what you get, no? Cheers.

You're Love in the Time of Cholera!

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Like Odysseus in a work of Homer, you demonstrate undying loyalty by
sleeping with as many people as you possibly can. But in your heart you never give
consent! This creates a strange quandary of what love really means to you. On the
one hand, you've loved the same person your whole life, but on the other, your actions
barely speak to this fact. Whatever you do, stick to bottled water. The other stuff
could get you killed.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

The White Buffalo and My Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Granddaddy's Penis

My sister called me yesterday and left a threatening voicemail as Kim Jong Il. In it, I was told that failure to contact my sister would, "Resurt in (Kim Jong Il) feeding (my) riferess body to (Kim Jong Il's) shark!" I know there is a more correct way to bracket portions of a quotation that have been changed for continuity of tense or context, but seriously, I just wrote the word "riferess".

I'm not sure exactly when we - and by "we" I mean my sister, myself, and many close friends - began leaving voice mail messages as dubious celebrities/made up characters/political pundits/Evil Masterminds for friends and family, but over the years I have received or left voicemails from/as Jesse Jackson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Sharpton, David Bowie, Christopher Walken, Borat, my friend's Turkish mother, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, and Mr. T. Sometimes I actually hope whoever I am calling doesn't answer their phone so that I, as Barry Gibb, can implore them to give me a call. I've actually had friends who I have not spoken to in months call me and then, when I answer, tell me to hang up so they can call back and leave their own ridiculous message.

As hilarious as most of these messages have been, there is one that stands out in my mind as the proverbial cake taker. My best friend (And current Brother-in-law...weird) was driving a U-Haul through the most underwhelming part of West Texas when he decided to give me a call as my great, great, great, great, great, great granddaddy from Snyder, Texas. He (My great, great, great, great, great, great granddaddy) had decided it was high time I heard the true tale of Snyder's famous white buffalo. For those of you unfamiliar with the legend of the White Buffalo, I really can't help you. All I know is that there is a statue - a very anatomically correct statue - of a white buffalo on the downtown square in Snyder, Texas. Approaching the town from any direction, one is assured of seeing at least one dilapidated billboard proclaiming Snyder as "The Home of the White Buffalo". The best I can tell, some poor albino buffalo was unfortunate enough to get himself shot in what would later become Snyder, Texas. Why this makes Snyder the "Home of the White Buffalo" and not the "Final Resting Place of the White Buffalo" is anyone's guess. Also, if you don't know Snyder, it seems that his shooting was the last significant thing to have happened there. Hence, the billboards and the anatomically correct statue which, by the way, replaced a previous statue that seemed more well-suited for a putt-putt golf course.

You may be asking yourself, "How did the White Buffalo come to be white?" Well, apparently my great, great, great, great, great, great granddaddy had something to do with it. As was related to me that day in an oddly spry and slightly smoky voice:

Well, me and your great, great, great, great, great, great grandmammy - God rest her soul - was out behind the homestead for a little privacy so we could get it on. I was giving it to the old lady when I looked up and saw a great big ole buffalo grazin' about a hundred yards away. With all the commotion - if you know what I'm sayin' - he looked up from his meal, and when he saw the gargantuan size of my wang he turned plum white, been that way ever since. As you may well know, havin' a giant pecker is a Smith* family tradition. Unfortunately, as you may also well know, it skips every other generation. So, I guess that leaves you with the short end of the stick...in more ways than one! He He. Well, later on!

Why a 180 year old man would reach out from beyond the grave to tell his 22 year old great, great, great, great, great, great grandson about the sexual habits/anatomical attributes of he and his wife and how said habits/attributes resulted in the sudden pigment change of a now dead buffalo is beyond me...not to mention the alternating generational particularities of the Smith family line. I guess that's not the point. Why would Kim Jong Il call and threaten to feed my to a shark if I didn't call my sister? Why would Christopher Walken want to know why I hadn't called and then recite a portion of "The Raven"? Why would my buddy's Turkish mother call and ask if I was "Having the sex?"

My answer: Who cares? It's nice to know you have friends and family who want to hear from you. It's even nicer knowing they love you enough to want to make you laugh.



*Seriously, would I post my real last name on here?!

On Fire For The Lord

I went to a private Baptist university, a cluster of red brick buildings and manicured mauls, in an unspectacular town in Central Texas. I am thankful for my university experience and remember fondly the majority of my time there. But in the first week, I hated it.

My mother was raised Catholic and my father Methodist in a dusty and forgettable footnote of West Texas that has become more dusty and more forgettable as the years have passed. Even if my mother had not been made to feel like an outsider by her disapproving Church of Christ relatives and my father not been completely estranged by, well, everything as far as I can tell, the theological differences between their two spiritual upbringings would have, in all likelihood, conspired to lead them to the decision they eventually made anyway - assuming they got hitched in the first place - which was to leave decisions about the whole "God" thing up to my sister and me. In some ways this worked swimmingly, in others it was a total disaster, like when my sister, after spending the night with a friend on a Saturday, was taken by the friend's family to a Baptist service the following morning and nearly caused the Sunday School teacher to burst into flames when she, feeling the need to contribute to the morning's study, made up a Bible verse, name number and all, or when I, after a similarly timed overnight invite from a friend, wound up at an Episcopalian service chomping down on a Communion wafer with all the grace and solemnity one might reserve for an after school snack of Ritz crackers. From a young age, our familiarity with organized religion could be best described as remote and uneasy.

It was in this context that I arrived on the campus of the World's Largest Baptist University in late summer of 1998. One of the reasons I chose to go to this particular university was the welcoming feeling of community I experienced during my first visit to the campus as a high school senior. People actually said, "Hello," as I fumbled my way from building to building with an arm-load of maps and brochures. This was a far cry from the cacophony and measured aloofness of the large state schools I had visited, and my sister had already blazed a trail in that direction anyway. Ever the contrarian, I wanted to do something different, even if my high school teachers and friends were left stupefied and expressionless when I told them where I had chosen to attend school or if it was unlikely that I would ever be able to support a wining football team (Apparently, God doesn't much interfere with matters between the sidelines).

For all incoming freshmen, the World's Largest Baptist University organizes an entire week - Welcome Week - as an orientation to the university and the community. Mostly, this consists of community service outings, pizza socials, ice cream socials, watermelon socials, Dr. Pepper socials, movie socials, and social socials, but occasionally, after a vigorous water balloon fight, the organizers and student leaders bring up the Big JC and His role in campus life. One cannot mistake to what kind of university he has come. After a solid week of this I was beginning to wonder what kind of college experience I had signed up for.

Feeling a little socialed out and more than a little duped after the third or fourth time my kind, bearded Christian student leader had asked me out for lunch or Ultimate Frisbee only to commence Operation Save My Soul - acoustic guitar in hand - I tactfully notified him that I was probably going to bow out on the culmination of the week's festivities, an "important event" to be hosted at the university's basketball arena. He was relentless and insisted that I go. "You will love it," he implored. And after a week of being sanded down by all sorts of Baptist fun, I remember thinking to myself, "Maybe you haven't given this whole thing a fair shake. Push your comfort zone around a bit and give it a go. After all, it's college, right?" Hence, I caved.

The arena was packed with sunburned and fresh-faced college neophytes like myself all sitting clustered in pockets of new and uneasy friendships wondering how the hell - excuse me, heck - they were going to find their way to their first ever college class the following morning. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the pseudo camp meeting the event turned in to. There was acoustic guitar music in the simple, non-hurried #G, #C, #D chord progression anyone familiar with contemporary Christian music would instantly recognize. People stood, and not because they were tired of sitting. Apparently, as I was uncomfortably realizing, an abiding love of The Lord is best demonstrated in the standing position, eyes closed, hands stretched toward the ceiling, and swaying contemplatively to and fro with a slightly drugged looking smile on one's face. There was a testimonial. An upperclassman earnestly related to us how she had been saved from the den of iniquity that was her previous university (Coincidentally, the same impossibly huge state school at which my sister was receiving a world class education) by coming to God's chosen institution of higher learning.

I somehow willed my way through what I guess was intended to be a pep rally for The Lord with a straight face and thought the event was over, but as my fellow classmates and I silently made our way to the exit doors, some out of absorption in the moment and some, like me, out of shear confusion about what the heck just happened, we were met by more student leaders passing out candle light vigil candles from massive cardboard boxes. Yes, there is such a thing as a candle light vigil candle. It's not just a candle. It's a candle with a cardboard cone attached to it, on which is printed something ridiculous like, "Candle Light Vigil Candle: For All of Your Vigil Needs," to prevent hot wax from dripping on its holder's hand. Before I could shout, "Nehemiah!", I had not one, but two candle light vigil candles lighted and placed in my hands and was following a weaving line of flickering light to the university marina on the shores of a river in which bodies would be routinely pulled in the next few years.

At the time though, it must have seemed an idyllic setting for yet another reflective praise and worship session complete with yet another kind, bearded Christian and an acoustic guitar and yet another former drug-addled tramp ready to guide us melodiously through a meditation on why we had chosen the World's Largest Baptist University as our place of study. The university's marina is half circle shaped. The waterline is rimmed with a wooden dock at which Sunfish sailboats are tethered and further inland from the dock is a concrete sidewalk. Beyond the sidewalk, a steep, grassy hill leads up to a road, parking lot, and soccer field. It was a typical late summer Texas night; warm but not hot, lots of insect noise, and the fecund smell of vegetation growing on the banks of the river. As my classmates and I, double-fisting our candle light vigil candles, teetered our way precariously down the grassy hill to find a spot to sit not already occupied by fire ants, some of the student leaders lit candles on a giant, floating Styrofoam cross that was anchored in the middle of the marina waters.

For a few minutes, in the stillness of the night, the water from the marina reflected the light from the cross, the candles, the stars, and the fireflies in a constantly dancing collage of golden flames and darting greens. The moon was a quarter of the way through it's nighttime trek across the sky and the last pink and orange hues from the setting sun were melting away on the opposite horizon. The student leaders had stopped talking and the guitar was only a whisper to the soundtrack of emerging crickets and retiring cicadas now quieting their cries against the day's heat. I found myself broadsided by the moment. It was still and it was beautiful.

Then the cross caught on fire.

It started as two or three violent but small flashes from among the calmly flickering candles, but then the Styrofoam reached its flash point with an audible whoosh and the gentle, golden glow of the candles' flames transformed into an angry and treacherous looking multi-colored flame that lashed out aggressively from the floating inferno. I was no longer caught in the moment, but now taking obvious delight in glancing from face to face in the suddenly nervous and confused crowd of my classmates.

The kind, bearded Christian atop the marina deck tried to save the situation by proclaiming the flaming cross a sign of our burning desire to be closer to God, but then the noxious smoke from the melting Styrofoam billowed its way into part of the gathered crowd and the students there started to cough and hack as they extinguished their candle light vigil candles and scattered in an effort to escape the smoke. I half expected the MC to try and spin the smoke as a manifestation of the Holy Ghost infusing those fortunate coughing and hacking students with the love of The Lord, but he just started and stopped two or three times to say something and then gave up. After the initial explosion, with the smoke now coursing out of the marina through a clear spot in the crowd made by vacated students, some sense of serenity started to settle back on to the crowd and the MC must have thought he had saved the situation with his whole "burning-desire-to-be-closer-to-God" thing. I hadn't noticed, as I was now trying to stifle my laughter by burying my head in the crook of my elbow, that, while things were beginning to settle down, a panicked troop of student leaders had commandeered one of the Sunfish and were using their hands as paddles to splash their way out to the burning cross. I looked up just in time to see them put out the flaming chunk of Styrofoam that now floated pathetically in the marina with three quick silence-shattering blasts from a fire extinguisher. Apparently, our burning desire to be closer to The Lord had been deemed a health hazard and needed to be extinguished forthwith.

To their credit, the kind, bearded Christian, the former drug-addled tramp, and the student leaders nobly soldiered on for a good five minutes while the half submerged and charred remains of the cross smoldered in the marina and periodic violent coughing fits erupted from within the crowd, but the moment had been lost. I was in stitches.

When they realized the situation could not be salvaged, the student leaders called all of the freshmen into small groups for a brief round robin discussion/reflection of the week and of our coming years at the World's Largest Baptist University. I listened politely as two of my classmates discussed their newly polished commitment to seek God in all they did, and then it was my turn to reflect and discuss.

"Did you guys not see the freakin' cross catch on fire?! That was hilarious!"

Crickets.

I was quickly pierced with disapproving looks from around the gathered circle, but instead of feeling shamed as an intruding pagan, I felt confident and hopeful. My history of remote, uneasy disillusion was floating with the melted cross in the marina. I was smiling. God, I had decided, had a wicked sense of humor. How can you not like a guy like that?

Texas Is The Reason

I was in discussion today with The Special Lady Friend about the relative merits of my home state and the joy with which natives of said state tell of its greatness. The state of which I speak is Texas. (Just so you know, I had to resist the urge to type "Texas" like this: TEXAS.) Now, any self-respecting Texan would realize at this point in the post that I have written enough to render all counter arguments moot and void by their silliness. I mean really, typing TEXAS should be enough, but I will humor my non-Texan readership and continue in delineating my infallible logic in an effort to educate and persuade those of you not fortunate enough to count yourselves among the blessed.

I know some of you are rolling your eyes now and thinking to yourselves, "Oh, God, here it comes - another Holier Than Thou Texan waxing poetic about his state and how its so big and so badass." Let me first enumerate my credentials:

1.) I was born overseas to two native Texans in a beautiful and unassailable country who CHOSE to move back to Texas over all other choices.

2.) I have traveled substantially - and from a very young age - and have been taught to value and appreciate multiculturalism and the beauty of foreign cultures.

3.) I do not drive a pick-up truck, nor do I own a gun.

4.) I did not vote for Bush, nor would I ever even if paper cut over my entire body and dipped in a vat of fresh lemon juice.

As I was explaining to the Russian first-named Special Lady Friend, Texas is the greatest state in the United States. Whereas a Virginian or Californian traveling overseas will introduce themselves as being from the United States, a Texan will introduce themselves as being from Texas. This is not arrogance. This is a simple and honest admission of the fact that they are better than you, but no disrespect is intended. You are more than welcome to move and adopt the state as your own. As Lyle Lovett so elegantly stated, "That's right, you're not from Texas...Texas wants you anyway." It's not that everything in Texas is the best the world over; far from it. It is, as I was explaining, that everything in Texas is inherently better than its equal outside of the borders of the Lone Star State. Confused? Here's an example:

Texas has mountains. Yes, I know, those of you from Colorado are scoffing at the mere suggestion of it, but it's true. In the far western reaches of our impossibly well-proportioned state, there exists a small and humble "mountain range" whose tallest peak towers a rather underwhelming 8,749 feet. Alaska's Denali juts majestically past the 20,000 foot barrier and presents a formidable challenge to seasoned mountaineers the world over. However, and here's where my infallible logic takes over, Denali, or any other peak outside of Texas, cannot be the "best" mountain in the world by virtue of the fact that it does not lie within the borders of our aforementioned impossibly well-proportioned state. Conversely, Texas's underwhelming 8,749 foot Guadalupe Peak can never be the "worst" mountain in the world because it DOES lie within those same impossibly well-proportioned borders. It's not me talking here, it's God. Who am I to argue with God (aside from the fact that I'm from Texas)?

Also, and I almost hesitate to present this argument but it seems necessary considering that there will be some people who read this and are confused by my previous argument, Texas is the only state that looks good as a tattoo. Seriously, would another state be as recognizable or as aesthetically pleasing as Texas? "Hey, check out my new tattoo. I know it looks like a rectangle, but it's Wyoming." Or, "No, that's not a birth mark, it's my sweet new tattoo of Idaho."

I'm not sure I convinced the Special Lady Friend of the greatness that is Texas, but she's from Indiana and they're still hung up on the whole basketball thing. Plus, she admitted to me that as a child she wanted to move to Texas because it seemed alluring in an indefinable way. Which brings me to my third argument: How many Texas school children do you think want to move to Indiana? I rest my case.

Qualities Possessed by The Fairer Sex For Which I Have Been Looking, But of Which I Have Been Only Recently Made Aware

I have been seeking a woman who believes those who drive yellow vehicles, particularly men, are, by consequence of having chosen freely to drive said yellow vehicles, douchebags...or, at least, are significantly predisposed to douchebaggery. One notable exception to this otherwise highly proven rule is school bus drivers. They had no choice in the color of their vehicle.

I have been seeking a woman totally intolerant of lactose intolerance, but tolerant in all other ways.

I have been seeking a woman pointedly irked by any and all attempts to stifle a sneeze, especially when said attempts result in the sort of high-pitched nose hiccup a lesser person might describe as “cute”.

I have been seeking a woman with a Russian first name. This just makes sense and I cannot believe I did not realize it sooner in life. I present to you, the reader, a simple yet irrefutably true equation: Russian first name = sexy as hell.

This list will grow. Give it time.

Americana

I had my first flea market experience today and I'm not sure I can write about it in any cogent form. My senses have been assaulted with so many curios and as-seen-on-TV gimmicks that I am even now, after more than a few hours separation, finding it difficult to rein-in the bounding, ricocheting shards of observation that are flashing in and out of my mind's eye. I discovered today that a "good" flea market is a patchwork of completely useless and unrelated crap, and I think this post would be best served to follow in the footsteps of its inspiration. So, without further verbosity, completely useless and unrelated crap:

It cost three dollars to park at this flea market and the expanse of grass and gravel that would eventually be covered by thousands (no exaggeration) of cars primed to haul home the day's bounty stretched over the horizon in three directions and was tended to by a flock of tanned and leathery pre-teen car jockeys in oompa-loompa orange t-shirts.

We entered the flea market, a collection of Hoover-ville style tents, lean-tos, mobile homes, and the odd permanent structure, by way of gate number eleven. Gate eleven wasn't even the last gate. I saw numbers as high as sixteen...and the number of gates did not seem excessive. I never once thought - and I wanted to - "Gee, that gate really is unnecessary. Almost no one is using it."

Like ants to a melted Sugar Daddy at a hot state fair, this flea market attracted impossibly pale, freakishly obese, suspiciously scarred, bargain-hunting, grammar-murdering , infomercial connoisseurs from across the Greater Midwest. Plus, my co-workers and myself. So I guess you can lump us in there as well. Seriously though - I know I'm coming off as an elitist prick - but this was more depressing than a Wal-Mart on a Sunday afternoon. Oh, and the Amish. The Amish were there too. Unfortunately, their presence, rather than being a dignifying factor, only contributed to the utter weirdness of the clientele. You can only see Jebediah and Ezekiel completely enthralled in a micro-fiber glass cleaning demonstration so many times before you realize that not drinking or using electricity doesn't keep you from getting duped any less frequently than the Coors Light, Rascal-driving crowd.

You want fake flowers? In what color? POW-MIA flags? What's that? Only if they're made in the U-S-of-A, you say? Have no fear, "We don't sell no Chinaman flags." A beer stine with Dale Earnhardt on it? Look no further, M'Lady. An old empty Coke can that may or may not have collector's value? Follow me to the back. A G.I. Joe with no legs and a melted face? Indeed! A box of batteries? No? Well, what about a box of bungee cords? I knew I'd get you. The best eaves-dropped conversation of the day though was between a sturdy, no-nonsense NASCAR fan and a Middle Eastern vendor of samurai swords and way-too-authentic looking air guns. From memory:

NASCAR: :Twenty dollars!? You must not do much business then.

Vendor: I've been here twenty years, my friend!

NASCAR: I'll give you twelve fifty for it (holding up a samurai sword).

Vendor: Why not twenty?

NASCAR: (Apparently expert in the value of mass-produced samurai swords) This ain't a twenty dollar sword!

I have no idea if a deal was ever struck, but I could still see them haggling even when I was well out of earshot. The fact that they were dickering over the price is nothing new to me. Even the fact that their tone was increasing in vitriol as I made my way from the booth did not bother me. What had me unsettled, and still does, is the fact that A). There is a market for samurai swords at flea markets in the Midwest, and B). That NASCAR would have such a need for a samurai sword that he would invest a good deal of a Monday afternoon in trying to obtain said sword at a bargain price. Maybe it was less about the sword and more about a victory in the art of dickering. Maybe NASCAR came from a long line of dickerers and, in his eyes, fleecing the vendor of a twenty dollar samurai sword for twelve fifty was sort of like defeating an actual samurai in skilled combat. Either way, the sword could justifiably assume a prominent position in his home and speak volumes for his prowess in one-on-one combat...of a sort.

Shooting From the Roof In A Too Vivid Dream

We had a good plan. We thought we had a good plan. And then the Christians began to march through the city. It was getting dark and their candles appeared first slowly like fireflies at dusk. But soon it was night and the streets were weaving rivers of wax and light and our plan no longer looked so good. We had not expected them, the Christians not the soldiers. I think they fired first, the soldiers not the Christians. Or maybe we did. My world was atop a thin and rusty apartment building on a broad avenue to the southeast. We did not have a plan. The soldiers could not see me through the darkness, and I could not hit them on account of my innocence. The Christian candles started to go out like neighborhoods on a failing electrical grid. I started to aim my shots away from the soldiers so that they might forget me. They did not. Their rockets were getting closer. One came so close he could look at me, the fire from his back illuminating my face. "I wish I could turn around and tell the others where you are," he said as he shattered apartment 1013 below me and to the west. Near the soldiers, glass shattered and a dam broke. I do not think I was responsible for this. The torrent cooled their guns and quieted their bodies. I walked away from the roof of the thin rusty apartment building and into a store. My friend was there, and although I do not know his name, we chatted like children and relived our newly intoxicating personal histories as the store clerk listened, tired and unimpressed. Then the lights went out. All over, pitch black and a silence like swimming in ink. I bit my tongue and made my way to the broad avenue without my nameless friend. In an orange cone of light, where the drowned soldiers once stood, a flare went off next to my foot. My perch atop the thin rusty apartment building was no longer mine. Someone else was there and he was better than me. Dust danced by my feet to the music of the inky silence and I ran from it like a drunkard. I slithered through the grass of the park trying to make my way to where the drowned soldiers' guns might be. First forward, now listening. I made too much noise to not have been noticed. There was no one there, but I imagined a thousand eyes from just beyond the darkness laughing at my loneliness waiting for me to be almost too close to shoot. I thought at any moment the darkness would errupt in fire and drums all around me. I was teetering on a moment in silence. An elephant walked by. Then a giraffe and two rhinos. Zoo escapees who looked to know where they were going. Another elephant appeared through the trees and I laid motionless and stiff on my stomach hoping not to be stepped on. The elephant passed by and then turned as though he just realized he had missed me. Facing away from him, I resumed my stiff, motionless pose. Headlights warmed my back and melted the dark spaces around my face. I pressed myself further into the mud of a slight embankment. Stiff and still. The soldiers walked by once then twice. I tried to imagine what a finishing shot in the small of my back might feel like. They walked by a third time. How could they not see me? I peaked at their faces, tired and pale, limp and sweaty. I moved more and saw further to my right. Three giant pills, full of blood and bodies, strapped atop another truck. Now they saw me. I was gathered like a sack and dumped with the others. But I am alive, am I not? "Two doctors will cut off our hands to ID us and then we will be dumped in one of the three pills," said the dead face to my left. I sit up amongst the shattered and the drowned, but I am not noticed. It is my turn to face the doctors. I am carried, although I can walk. I wear a black suit and a human face and I hold my hands out to the doctors. The doctor on my left hand scrapes a trail around my wrist with a dull blade. "Excuse me," I say, "I am not dead, as you can clearly see, and I would very much appreciate it if you did not cut off my hands. Your blade looks dull and small and I am quite sure that the pain would be too much. And anyway, since you're doing it to ID me, and I'm alive, you could just ask me who I am." They stare back in silence, unsurprised. Tired and pale, limp and sweaty.

I am not sure if they proceed because I wake up.

Brilliant. I Wish I Had Thought of It...But I Guess Then I'd Have to Be English...

Steven Wells
June 15, 2007 12:34 PM


David Beckham is going to the LA Galaxy. Hurrah. Let's all laugh at American soccer. Again.

Modern Englishmen are in two minds about Americans playing proper football. Some think it only right the poor benighted heathens be gifted the game historian Eric Hobsbawm rightly described as an artform. But others fear it'll make Americans more like us and therefore much more difficult to despise.

I am firmly in the former camp. Public toilets, atheism, publicly funded radio and association football - these are all things of which no society can have too much. Witness the fact that soccer-playing America is massively liberal, loving, caring, socially conscious and nice. While soccer-hating America consists of increasingly isolated gangs of Bush-supporting, bible-bashing, gun-crazed, dungaree wearing, banjo-playing, quasi-fascist chicken-lovers and their twelve fingered, pin-headed, cyclopic, drooling monster children.

Alas, Englishmen who live in desperate fear of an American soccer planet are legion. As the recent spate of stories about US businessmen buying British clubs and Goldenballs relocating to LA proved, there's no shortage of stuck up limey soccer snobs who still think it's frightfully funny the ghastly Yanks play the round ball game at all.

Like most prejudices, this hatred disguises fear. Recently a leading English soccer journalist told me he "really hopes football fails in America". Others are less blatant but they make their loathing plain through sarcasm, satire and snidery.

You know whom I'm talking about. Reader, I am about to piss on my chips. I will not only bite the hand that feeds me, I will take the arm off at the shoulder. For no one has mocked American soccer more consistently or with more vigour than the sneering, primly moustached, stiff-lipped cads of the Guardian Unlimited Sports desk.

It's always been thus. In the 1970s, when the star-studded New York Cosmos were filling stadiums during the first American soccer revolution, Roy of the Rovers found himself playing Stateside for the Pine City Pirates. Roy was appalled by the shallowness, ballyhoo and sheer incompetence of American soccer. "I thought I was going to learn something by coming to the States!" he moaned. "I didn't dream I'd have to teach them how to play the game!"

And who could forget the 2002 World Cup and Gary Lineker reading from a typically and hilariously stoopid Yank match report: "Wolff procrastinates over a sideline handpass and is ref-charged for clock abuse" and "he top-bodies the sphere into the score-bag, and Mexico have a double-negative stat!"

Oh those pig-ignorant cack-gobbed Yank wankers! How we laughed. What more confirmation could we possibly need that these gibbering, thumb-fingered mouth-breathers will never understand the beautiful game?

Of course, it turned out Gaz was reading a marvellous Guardian Unlimited spoof. Hell, I laughed. And so did Lawrence Dallaglio when he repeated the quotes the next night on a different TV show. And so did the studio audience. Which is when the penny dropped. This isn't just how Brits think Americans perceive soccer - this is how Brits need to think Americans perceive soccer. And that, actually, is a little bit sad.

During that same World Cup, before the US v Germany game, a British TV crew stopped folks in Time Square and asked them (oh hilarity!) if they even knew a game was taking place (lol!!!!!! rotflmao!!!!!!!!!!). Unfortunately almost everyone said yes. One dude in a soccer shirt even invited the reporter to watch the game with him. "We thought there was apathy," muttered a deeply disappointed Gabby Logan back in the studio.

The rest you know. The "USA!" chants at Manchester United games. The MU Rowdies gags in the Fiver, The Guardian Unlimited design-a-new-hilariously-Americanized-MUFC-crest Gallery that was then ripped off by The Sun so the whole nation could join in the yanks-don't-get-football yukfest.

Then Bex signed for the LA Galaxy-and the whole sad circus started all over again.

Trouble is, the joke tells us nothing about America or American football (or "soccer" as those crazy, propeller beanie-wearing goofballs call it!!!!!!!!!!!!). And it tells us everything about us.

We - a substantial chunk of us, anyway - are desperately scared that association football will succeed in America. That the USA will become a footballing power. That the yanks will develop a version of the beautiful game as irresistible as jazz, rock'n'roll or the amazing American language (and unless you've checked the English/American phrase books handed out to GIs in 1942, you probably have no idea how much American you speak, limey).

Why are we scared? Because as a nation we have a desperate need to feel superior to the vibrant barbarian culture that's replaced us as top global ass-kicker.

Face it, feeling superior to Americans is about all we've got left. But the list of things we actually do better than the Yanks is slim and getting slimmer. Did you know that the bastards even brew decent beer these days?

So what have we got left to be smug about? Wensleydale cheese, Ricky Gervais, Theakston Old Peculier and Helen Mirren. And, oh yeah, football.

Sorry, the Yanks get it. Not all of them. Not even most of them. But enough of them. Even if Bex bombs. Even if the MLS collapses, American soccer isn't going away.

It's time for a new joke.

[Insert Clever Title Here]

Pardon the quotations, movie title, and otherwise lack of bold or italicized writing. I'm flummoxed by html and blogger at the moment. That's right, flummoxed.

"Shut up Amber!"

"Stupid Dog!"

"Can it!"

"Shut UP Ambuuuuuuurrrrrrrr!"

"Amber, enough!"

(Dog still barking)

"Amber, want something to drink, Sweety?"


Amber was a Cocker Spaniel who was angrily barking her displeasure at the two grown men - of which I was one - in lycra and polyester who had dared ride their bicycles within visual range of the monstrous Buick LeSabre she proudly occupied. Amber's owner was a crusty and leathered middle-aged woman. For those of you familiar with the Tuna plays, she was nearly a dead-ringer for D.D. Snavely, gravely voice and cigarette included. She walked with a cane; the temporary kind one gets from a prescription; the kind devoid of any ornamental consideration; the kind one might be prescribed after a farming accident or a too firm kick to their no-good husband's groin, or regions thereabouts (A drunken kick is hard to aim.).

Amber's owner - I'll call her Barb - shoved the gas station door open with one hand and her cane when Amber's barking reached a Cujoesque crescendo as my buddy and I propped our bikes against the outdoor ice machine and started to make our way past Amber's Buick. There's nothing more obvious than a dog owner who has completely out-punted their coverage with concern to controlling their dog. I'm sure Amber was sweet at one time -like pre-Barb- but as we made our way past her car - and I call it "her car" because Barb was clearly the Beta Dog - Amber's barks turned from curious and designed for attention to vicious and designed to fuck you up.

Seeing a Cocker Spaniel who wants to kill you is disconcerting in an almost cute way. You expect a Pit Bull to want to tear your calves from the bone and floss his teeth with your squirting veins, but watching a Cocker Spaniel go over the top is something from which you cannot look away. It's sort of like a toddler suddenly launching into a profanity-laced tirade and pulling a knife on you. I stared through the windows of the Buick as I made my way into the gas station while Barb banged her cane against the car in an even more ridiculous attempt to calm down Amber.

There's nothing like walking into a rural anything in cycling apparel. One feels a little like Kevin Costner's character in Dances With Wolves the first time he rides into the Sioux village. You are a foreigner and the locals might kill you. Fortunately, the girl behind the counter seems to work at this particular establishment most weekend mornings and many-a-cyclist stops there for water and food. She's jaded and typically just peaks at your crotch as you walk in. This makes me feel a little dirty, but it is definitely preferable to dualie drivers who try to run you off the road while yelling out the window such original insults as, "Hey, Fag!"

Apparently, Barb and the girl behind the counter go way back. Barb came back into the store - briefly flooding the small space with Amber's blood-thirsty warnings as she opened the door - and repositioned herself in what looked to be a familiar stance against the counter.

Barb (Chomping on gum): Hey, Hun. You all aren't goin' past [such-and-such] county line, are ewe?

Me (Not knowing at all because I just moved here and turn left or right when I'm told): Ummm, I'm not really sure. Why?

Barb (With Amber's murderous howls in the background): My dawg'll chase ewe...but she's harmluss. She'll stay in the yard.

Me (Knowing she's totally full of it): Really?

Barb: Other's of ewe all (referring to cyclists) have complained and the sheruff even asked me to git rid of'r, but how'm I
gonna git rid of m'baby? I paid tew hundr'd un fifty doll'rs fer her!

Girl Behind the Counter (Without a hint of irony): Ewe'd git rid of that husbund of yer's before you sent Amber off!

Barb: Shooot, he ain't werth tew hundr'd un fifty doll'rs!

Barb and the Girl Behind the Counter (In unison): Smoker's lung cackles.

I paid for my Snicker's bar and water and made my way back outside where Amber's anger had not diminished in any discernable way. I made a point to look in her eyes as I passed by the car. This did not sit well with Amber and she launched into an even more furious battery of barking. Amber was not the type of dog to stay in any yard.

As my buddy and I remounted our bicycles I asked him if we were going near [such-and-such] county line. He said, "No," and I secretly breathed a sigh of relief. A Cocker Spaniel has short legs and small lungs and probably tops out at 15 mph (Without a lead-out I sprint at close to 40mph), so I should not have been worried, but Amber had the fury of hell in her eyes and that's got to be worth an extra kick in the mph department.

Hello, I Am Genetically Superior to You in At Least One Way

I went to the dentist yesterday.

Let me rephrase: I went to the dentist yesterday for the first time in at least four years (more like six). As it turns out, once you get into college and eventually are dropped from your parents dental plan, there's really not that much encouraging you to go to the dentist. A simple test:

Please select the most appealing choice.

A). Schedule and go to an appointment with the dentist.

B). Do not schedule an appointment with the dentist and spend the money that would have paid for said appointment on something you really want. Like beer.

It's a scientific fact that most people will select choice B. I certainly did...for four years (more like six). What finally gave me the nudge/shove to schedule an appointment, you ask? My mother called one evening to chat and, among other things, mentioned the epic dental work my grandfather had scheduled and exorbitant cost of that work. The phrase "bone graft" was used and a dollar figure in the few thousands was quoted. Add to this the fact that I was pretty sure I had brushed off a piece of tooth just one day prior, and a trip to the dentist suddenly seemed a good idea.

Unfortunately, the dentist with whom I scheduled the appointment did not have any openings for a good week-and-a-half so I had to stew away in dread of the irreparable damage I was sure I had inflicted upon my poor teeth. This became a conversation piece at work. My job attracts a certain type - rule followers let's call them - and they could not fathom the kind of thinking that would lead to four years (more like six) of forgotten or otherwise put-off dental commitments. An over/under on the number of cavities I was sure to have was started. The magic number was two. Everyone took the over except my boss. When I asked him why, thinking he would say something like, "You seem like the type of guy who brushes regularly and is in most ways healthy," he responded with, "I like to live dangerously."

So the day finally came. Yesterday. Zero hour. I was sure this would end poorly. I would have many cavities and gum disease too. I would face months and months of expensive and painful dental procedures and the whole time I would have to listen to the dentist - in that smug tone all dentists have - ask me why I hadn't taken better care of my teeth. Did I not value my TEETH!?

Well, color me surprised when I was informed that, aside from four years (more like six) of plaque build-up on my bottom teeth - which had to be removed with an instrument the dental hygienist described as a "mini jackhammer" - and a little recession of the periodontal pockets on my lower bicuspids (I'm a good listener), my mouth was healthy and cavity free. The dentist described my teeth as - and I couldn't make this up - "genetically superior". Fuckin'-A right.

I asked her if that meant I didn't have to come back for another four to six years, but I don't think she thought it was funny. I'll take genetically superior over funny any day. If I had a choice, my genetic superiority would be in the realm of extreme speed or reflexes or huge lungs or unfathomable good looks, but I'll take wicked strong enamel if I have to. As a friend of mine said, "Hey, you never know when you might have to chew through something." Indeed.

You Don't Have it That Bad...Really

So, there's this new show on the History Channel called The Worst Jobs In History (Blogger isn't letting me italicize that so....deal with it.). I try to stay away from the History Channel mostly because there is very little actual history discussed on said channel - I mean, the guy from Doube Dare hosts a show about snack foods -, but also because the actual history that is discussed seems geared exclusively toward people who masturbate to big guns and believe the first moon landing was filmed in a Hollywood studio.

Not really my type.

But this new show caught my attention with an episode on the Industrial Revolution that highlighted the important and indispensable position of "Child Hurrier". Seriously. This person's job was to continually harass and harangue the over-worked and otherwise abused child factory workers under his supervision lest they take a moment to, you know, be kids. At this point, I feel I must profess two things:

1. I laughed at the job title "Child Hurrier".

2. I am a terrible person.

It was of this show that I was reminded while eating lunch today with a group of friends and their spouses/significant others. The discussion - and I'm not sure why - turned to pigs and pig farming. The conversation flowed down numerous rabbit holes, including why never to trust a man with a pig farm, until the wife of a friend of mine piped up and announced that during college she had worked on a pig farm as part of workers' program subsidized by the Canadian government (They're Canucks...eh.). The mission of this program was to provide work for mentally disabled adults. Her job was to look after the workers while they were on the job and give them guidance/instruction.

As it turns out, pig farming was not a big draw for program workers so she was really only responsible for one worker. Sounds pretty easy, no? Well, that one worker, bless his heart, was tasked with hosing all of the pig shit through slats in the floor of the pig barn beneath which it was collected in a massive tank of unholiness that was continuously agitated in order to avoid sludge build-up and also to prevent flies from finding purchase for the maggots they wished to lay upon the accumulated crust of filth. The stench from the pig shit on the floor must have been near unbearable, but the added aroma of the constantly bubbling lagoon of filth beneath the floor would have been positively demonic. Added to this comedy of misfortunes is the fact that the mentally challenged are so named for a good reason. Our noble hoseman was apparently lacking in the department of motor skills and would sometimes unpredictably fling the hose toward my friend's wife covering her in a good deal of the deflected filth from the floor. During lunch breaks, as this was an all day task, the other workers on the pig farm would say to her, "Looks like you picked up some more freckles, eh." This is a job for the Seventh Circle of Hell. Given the choice between the two - Child Hurrier and Pig Shit Hosing Retard Wrangler - I choose Child Hurrier every time and so did my friend's wife, she's now a middle school teacher.

And if her job was worthy of the Seventh Circle of Hell, then the hoseman - had Dante thought of it - would be plying his trade well within the Eighth Circle. At least she had all of her mental faculties. I can only pray the hoseman comes back in another life as a brilliant millionaire playboy heavily invested in the perfume industry.

You don't have it that bad.

That's Not a Dog, It's a Dingo

What do you do when you find out your beloved canine companion is actually a stone-cold killer?

Mazzy hasn't snapped yet, but she wants to. The day my illusions of dog food and laundry commercials are shattered - where puppies sing about summer camp and frolick in freshly dried linens - is not long off. I will come home from a long day at work. Mazzy will approach me with her excited full-body tail-wag. She will have something in her mouth. I will think it is her favorite throwing toy. I will take it from her. It will not feel like her favorite throwing toy. It will be the punctured bleeding carcass of a cute furry woodland creature. I will be horrified. Mazzy will glow with the pride of the kill.

It's only days away. Mazzy is growing up and gone are the awkward puppy days of tripping over herself and flopping around rather than running. She is an athlete. I realized the other day while playing fetch that she could easily bound over our chain-link fence. Thankfully, this bit of information did not become apparent to her as she was focused entirely on executing a complete 180 degree horizontal turn while deftly catching her tennis ball four feet off the ground. "Holy crap," was my only reaction.

Squirrels used to torment her with their taunting chuckles and teasing runs through the yard, but the teasing runs through the yard seem to have decreased in frequency somewhat. I attribute this to the fact that I saw Mazzy almost - and by "almost" I mean through the jaws close - catch a chipmunk. That's taking it up a notch. For pure speed, I'll bet squirrels and chipmunks are in the same class, but chipmunks can absolutely throw down when it comes to manueverability and Mazzy turned with this poor guy dime for dime. The fence is the only thing that saved him and as soon as she realizes she can clear it with one hop we're all screwed.

I used to watch our family's Golden Retriever chase squirrels with what I would call detached encouragement. You just knew he wasn't going to get close, but you had to admire his commitment. If Mazzy has a puncher's chance with a chipmunk, the squirrels are on notice. The Dingo jokes were funny until the Dingo in her decided it hated squirrels. Hopefully, that's where it stops. If she can get chipmunks and squirrels, babies stand no chance, and I don't want to have to knock on any doors to explain to someone that my Dingo ate their baby.

I've Got a Feeling Somebody's Doping Me

Cycling is a ridiculously difficult sport. It encourages obsession and rewards suffering and it's because of this that the sport has been plagued by drug scandals since long before anyone cares to admit. The professional peloton is comprised exclusively of genetic freaks. Seriously, we're talking about a group of guys that God saw fit to endow with legs that do not tire and lungs the size of beer kegs. Oh yeah, and some of them have hearts that only need to beat 25 times a minute because they're SO FREAKIN' STRONG.

Falling far below this group of cyborgs is the rest of us. I speak of people for whom an extra 10 grams off their bike makes absolutely no difference because they're carrying an extra 10 ponds on their ass. The notion of blood doping amongst we relative miscreants is sort of like contemplating putting a hood scoop on a Saturn Ion. Laughable. For us - and I count myself among the 10 pound ass folks - obsession is negotiable and suffering has an off switch.

Which is why I've felt so odd recently. I am suddenly taking brutal pulls on the front of my group rides. I am attacking on hills and going over the top with gas in the tank. I am sprinting it out at the end of the rides, and not for 26th place. And I've checked, this is not a Special Olympics training ride. There is only one explanation for this sudden turn in form:

Someone is doping me in my sleep.

Seriously, I wake up and look for needle marks on my arms. Whoever is doing this has a delicate hand because I have yet to find any. I have felt like a lot of things on the bike, but Monster has not traditionally been one of them. Some of my favorites:

Microwaved Stretch Armstrong Action Figure - This one is a repeat offender and particularly popular during the summer months in Texas. If you can imagine your skin feeling light-headed, like it wants nothing more than to burst releasing your well-heated innards onto a skillet of asphalt, then you can imagine the Microwaved Stretch Armstrong feeling. This typically happens when it's hot and you did not bring enough food or water. Example: Relatively new to cycling, I went on a 54 mile training ride near Burnet, TX having only eaten 1 Cliff Bar before the ride. That's 240 calories toward a hilly 2,500 calorie effort (I know because I went home and read the back of the Cliff Bar wrapper. I had to quantify my stupidity). 1 solitary mile from the end I fell off the bike. I literally could not go one pedal stroke farther.

Circus Bear - All great cyclists have great nicknames. The Cannibal. The Lion of Flanders. The Pirate. The Circus Bear is not likely ever to be one. As a big rider - 6'2 who's been as heavy as 210 on the bike - I have definitely resembled the Grizzly in the pointy hat on the tricycle. Cute, but not going anywhere fast. In Texas this image was compounded by the fact that my training buddy was all of 5'4 and weighed 130 pounds soaking wet. We looked like a lycra-clad version of Abbott and Costello.

Tin Man/Joan Crawford - Shaky and stiff. Other riders drop their inside shoulder and carve a rail through the corners. I turn right angles and stutter my way through turns as I lose bowel control.

Marshmallow - White shorts, white jersey, early season ride with no tan. Marshmallow says a lot, but "wicked fast" is not one of those things.

Big Freakin' Sail - The kind you might find on a pirate ship. And to extend the analogy, my legs would be the pirates and they would be pissed. As in mutiny pissed. And instead of the wind catching the sail perfectly and propelling us swiftly and gracefully to treasured booty, it would be catching our sail and rapidly dropping us from among the booty (aka other riders). Throw a sea anchor in there as well and we're getting somewhere. Multiply this feeling by 10 if we're riding uphill.

For now, I'm not reporting myself to the authorities. I rather like the feeling of dropping people off the back of the group. I enjoy passing EVERY OTHER RIDER on a hill, catching their sideways glances, and reading expressions that say, "Fuck you for thinking this is easy." I am addicted to the manic spooling of energy that builds at the end of a ride and suddenly explodes in the violence of a sprint. I'm in love with the speed and power.

I guess I'm officially a cycling jerk.

Waking Up at Home 1,000 Miles From Home

It has been too long for me to even pretend to say that I have been soooooooooo busy or that nothing much has really happened. I have been busy, but no one is really THAT busy, are they? And much HAS happened. I won't place "good" and "bad" labels on any of it because, to be honest, I haven't made my mind up about whether "much" has been good or bad.

I'm going to ease in to this. In this first post I will not write about my new job or barely containing an emotional meltdown during Easter service while mourning the physical loss of a great friend and great pastor (all over again) or the emotional loss of a girl I alternately miss dearly and hate madly (but who may no longer exist) or the glory of my new MacBook (which is facilitating the writing of this little check-in) or the trials and trivialities of raising a dog meant to run free with the sheeps (yes, I know sheep is the plural and the "s" was unneccesary) or how that same dog can make you feel like a doting parent one minute and an enraged, blood-thirsty hammer-murderer the next or feeling socially retarded and completely unattractive to the opposite sex in a new city in which one knows no one or talking on the phone with a wise, wise friend from San Fancisco and questioning her previously unquestionable wisdom has she suggests match.com or dropping twenty pounds and cycling like seven hundred hells through 15 degree whether in lycra and how the loss of fat and scarcity of clothing do nothing to prevent a rapid freeze of every body part (EVERY part) or even the effects of a solitary eight hour work day on...cogent thought.

What I can touch on briefly to gentley reacquaint myself with the cold, deep pool of the blogdom are my initial impressions of the Midwest city I now call my home. In short, it's nice. I like it. My mind had plenty of time to form misconceptions during the eighteen hour drive to Middle America. Polish sausage. Brain sandwiches. Nasal accents. Smoke stacks. Obesity. Republicans. Guns. NASCAR. Flatness. More flatness. Wind. A steel mill. The humor of my bleak visions is that I was moving from Texas, a state I love dearly, but one with an over-abundance of more than a few of the aforemetnioned "bad things".

I have been pleasantly and shamefully surprised. Trees. Flowers. A river. Cyclists. Soccer. Sushi. Health food. Trader Joe's. Booze at the grocery store. Dog parks. Environmentalists. A hike and bike trail. Girls on that hike and bike trail in hemp bikinis (seriously). Museums. Parks. People who will talk to you in the grocery store. It is flat though. I now love to ride "hills" on the bike because they make me feel like a freakin' billy goat.

The best part is it's starting to feel like home.

Contemplating B.O.

So, I remember watching this documentary on the Soviet KGB when I was a little kid ( I was kind of a weird kid that way), and in it they showed this huge room with row upon row of floor to ceiling shelving hidden away somewhere in the recesses of the KGB's Bat Cave. The shelves were filled with what looked like over-sized mason jars each numbered and sealed with a single burnt orange cloth no bigger than a dish rag.

The dish rag was a person.

Each jar contained the scent of a person identified by the KGB as a possible threat to state security. The narrator of the documentary, filmed after the collapse of the USSR, treated this somewhat dismissively as an example of Orwellian paranoia run amock, but failed to explain why it was that the first Western television crew allowed in the secret vaults of the KGB was filming the still carefully maintained and preserved collection of human B.O. right now. Was it being kept for posterity sake? Was it the governmental equivalent of a baseball card collection that had been outgrown but still sat proudly in the recesses of guest room closet because it simply required too damn much effort to compile? Or, more likely, was the new Russian government, comprised of the same old Soviet beaureacrats, keeping that Tony Eusebio rookie card around just in case it one day spiked in value?

As a ten-year-old, I wasn't contemplating these possibilities. I was staring saucer-eyed at the catalog of human scents listening to a scientist explain to the television audience in a thick Russian accent how we all, just like dogs, emit a unique scent that could be used to track us down should the need arise. I sniffed my skin and thought about the utter impossibility of escaping someone who was tracking you by scent. In terms of evil, my young mind could only equate the Soviet government to the Emperor in Star Wars or Cobra Commander from GI Joe. A government crazy enough to maintain a library of the human bouquet was a government not to cross. Stop signs required a full stop. National Anthems were to be sung with ear-splitting effort.

Oddly, I've thought about that documentary and the people on those shelves with fair regularity since I initially saw the program. What happened to them? And by "them", I don't mean the jars or the cloths, but the actual people. Did they ever know their scent was filed away in the black brain of a totalitarian state? If they did, were they fearful or did they brag about it over shots of vodka at the local bar, sort of like war wounds? If they're dead and gone, are their scents still there? If their relatives were allowed in the recesses of the KGB, just like the Western film crew, could they unscrew the lid of one of those mason jars and inhale deeply of their loved ones long gone? Maybe their scent is all that's left of them. Could something so delicate be all that's left behind?

I've had friends and relatives and girlfriends who seemed to leak from my memory and then suddenly reappear in high mental definition with one single waft of a perfume or perfectly replicated odor. There's nothing like a smell to jolt you back into a grandparent's house or a childhood Christmas or a girlfriend's arms. My mind has its own KGB vault of odors and I have forgotten most of them until a shelf is bumped and a mason jar crashes down onto the roof of my mouth and there a person stands; speaking, smiling, yelling, crying.

Pablo Neruda, Relationships, and Dog Poo

This will be convoluted and and schizophrenic.

I feel like an emotional bandit every time I hear or read someone else's words and think, "Exactly! That about sums it up." I guess that's why I have never been much of an artist or creative writer, but I like to think I have a well-developed appreciation for the good stuff. And so it is with Pablo Neruda. "Tonight I can Write," has long been my favorite poem and is even more so now that my own emotions are echoed in its words.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
Ans the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As my kisses before her.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Ah, Pablo. I finally know how you must have felt. I obviously continue to wrestle with the break up and to think of it in alternating terms of clarity and confusion. That's what I like so much about Neruda's poem. There's confusion and ambiguity with concern to the lost relationship, sometimes in the same breath:

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

For the speaker though, there's a difference between his feelings about the relationship and his understanding of his future with concern to it:

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Though this be the last pain she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

The loss and lonliness that is experienced at the end of a relationship is conveyed through the persistant references to the night and distance. Any proximity to the speaker is written about in terms of stillness and isolation.

I guess this is more analysis than epiphany or new thought, but it has helped to re-read this poem and to talk to my brother-in-law about a significant previous relationship of his that ended in a similar fashion. I think all people get some sick feeling of comfort in knowing that someone else has felt similarly, it's just rarely expressed as well as Neruda has expressed it in this instance.

I think about her as much as Neruda must have thought about his "her," but more so I wonder about the future. My brother-in-law broke my heart when he told me he had stayed up at night after his break up asking his female puppy why she was the only girl who loved him, but he told me this from the perspective of a happily married man in a committed, functional relationship. I look forward to having what he has as I realize how far I still need to go. I do miss her, but I'm finding that I do not at all miss the constant wondering, guessing, and emotional limbo that comes from committing to something that has been perpetually set aside until the time is right.

For now, I'm good. Ironically, my female puppy has become the woman in my life and has taught me a lot more I suppose I still needed to learn about maturity, commitment, and reponsibility. There is no "setting things aside" with a puppy. I tried that one morning at 5:30 and Mazzy crapped all over her crate. She'll continue to have accidents and I'll continue to learn, but I made a 12-15 year commitment the second I bought her and I look forward to getting our imperfections right. At some point I'll have to ante up to real women again . . . but not yet.

Christ With Your Pizza?

I couldn't make this up.

Hello, thank you for calling Domino's Pizza, the number one pizza delivery company in the United States. We are currently hiring motivated and responsible people to join our delivery team. Please stop by the store for more information!

If you would like to hear our daily specials, please stay on the line. Otherwise, press 1 for the first available customer service representative . . .

Today we are offering one large one topping pizza for six dollars with the purchase of one order of blazing buffalo wings for six dollars and one order of breadsticks for six dollars. There is a three order minimum to make this offer valid.

We are also offering the Domino's five, five, five deal. You can get one medium one topping pizza for five dollars and each additional medium one topping pizza will cost you only five dollars. There is a three pizza minimum to make this offer valid.

Not that hungry? You can get one large three topping pizza for $12.99 or, as long as you pick up your order, one medium one topping pizza for $5.99.

Lastly, if you would like a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, please call 1-888-NEEDHIM.

Thank you and please hold for the next customer service representative.

Does Christ count as one of my toppings on the large three topping pizza for $12.99?

I have to move.

Who's Going to Watch Me Die?

My girlfriend and I have broken up . . .

The actual event seems weird and far off even though it happened only a little over a week ago. She showed up on my doorstep unexpectedly. I hadn't seen her in over two months as she was out of the state on an extended business trip. She had no overnight bag. Her parents were supposed to be getting off a plane 300 miles away and she was supposed to be picking them up. I was supposed to be driving to see her that weekend to have dinner in celebration of her birthday. This was supposed to be a happy time with hugs and gifts and kisses and laughter. Instead, we needed to talk.

What was said in her short visit is for the two of us and any recounting of it would turn what I want to say into reportage. There's no comfort but false comfort in reporting the facts and I have a feeling I'd be fishing for allies. My reaction has surprised me and I want to make sense of my thoughts now.

Which are what, exactly?

I don't feel like someone who has just lost the love of his life, although Emily has certainly been that. I've felt both shockingly cast aside and euphorically liberated. I'm stuck in a tiny Texas town replete with a Sonic, Dodge 3500s, and a palatable absence of young, intelligent females. But I don't have to wait for Emily anymore. I don't have to wonder anymore.

In feeling this way, I have to concede things weren't right; at least not as they should be for two people contemplating marriage. We have broken up before, and at that time I couldn't experience anything beyond my own loss. My meltdown was nuclear and the ensuing panic has left me with memories I would rather forget. I have been much more philosophical this time and much more willing to grieve a relationship that ended for the right reasons.

I was listening to a song today and one of the lyrics is, " Love is watching someone die." I thought about my mother and grandfather and the long months they spent with my grandmother as she slipped away. My grandfather, the cavernous and intimidating voice of my youth, stooped for hours over my grandmother in her last days and whispered to her in a tender and vulnerable voice as he gentley helped her drink from a sponge. My mother became my grandmother's mother and attended to her in the same selfless and loving way she attended to me when I was young and ill; stroking her forehead and adjusting her pillows.

I thought about the car accident I witnessed when I was in college and the urgency I felt to help. I thought about the girl's head I held in my hands and the pieces of her skull I tried to keep in place; about the blood around her and how thick and fake it looked. I thought about how I whispered to her, even though I knew she was dying, "You're going to be alright, Sweety" because that's what my mom would have said to me. I remember thinking, years later, I have never loved anyone as much as I loved that girl in those few minutes and I didn't realize why until I heard the song today.

I thought Emily would be that person for me and I would be that person for her. I suppose there's a difference between thinking it and wanting it. Did I want to be that person for her and did she want to be that person for me? I don't know. I'm not saying I didn't love her or that I don't love her, but you have to be sure. Love is watching someone die.

Which begs the question . . .

Canadian Fake Hippy

So, I just got back from Maui.

I know that sounds ridiculous, like I have WAY more money than I know what to do with and just go around lighting cigars with hundred dollar bills, abandoning BMWs on the side of the road when they run out of gas, and throwing away giant, meat-filled crab legs because it just required too much effort to get at their succulent goodness.

The truth of the matter is that my insanely talented and driven girlfriend won a trip from the bosses of her massive computer company -- people who seriously have WAY more money than they know what to do with -- and last friday I was fortunate enough to ride her coat tails the entire eight hour flight to Maui. The trip was actually supposed to start on the following Monday but we were both ansty to leave our respective small corners of Texas and partake in the whole paradise thing, so we left early and stayed in a hostel for three nights.

If you've never stayed in a hostel, you are missing out on one of the most entertaining and potentially bizarre rites of youthful travel. Now, before we get too far into this I have to disclaim a little. I'm sure it's possible to spend a few mundane and unspectacular nights in a hostel, so I would hate for you to take the communal plunge based on my advice and come up with nothing but boring stories of milquetoast acquaintances. But I have to say, in my experiences, hostels act like a cultural petri dish attracting the most happily wayward and comical caricatures of vagabond life from across the globe. They thrive in the bulletin board messages, grimy shower floors, and harlequin appointed kitchens and revel in telling tales with practiced nonchalance of wander lust sated. I love it and it's hugely entertaining.

Cases in point: In a Buenos Aires hostel I met three shopping bag draped Ecuadorans who had gone to Argentina to take advantage of a suddenly weak economy and, as they said in broken English, "To make fuck with the Argentine womens." In that same hostel I met a Chinese guy who lived in Little Rock, spoke English with a choppy hillbilly twang, and spent most of his time in the city's sprawling parks reading books on physics and advanced mathematics. These random encounters are as good as gold and they don't happen at hotels where everyone's weirdness is sequestered behind a private door.

It was in this deliciously peculiar communal habitat that my girlfriend and I first became acquainted with Canadian Fake Hippy. We were on a hostel sponsored outing to hike through Maui's Haleakala National Park in a group that included the following:

Three German girls out to travel the world before going to university.
One British girl whose father was building Arsenal's new soccer stadium.
One gracefully aloof and impossibly well-proportioned French girl (Aren't they all?).
One traveling, multilingual male historian also from France.
One gullible, blonde Swedish milk-maiden.
One dancing Spaniard and his dancing Slovakian girlfriend. Both hilarious and energetic. Both living in Las Vegas. Both in the employ of Celine Dion.
One frumpity, earth-toned art student from Vancouver who spoke in vapid tones from atop multiple piecemeal soapboxes. I am referring, of course, to Canadian Fake Hippy.

Canadian Fake Hippy, so dubbed by my reluctantly cute girlfriend who likes to come up with three word, oddly arranged phrases for everyday items (ex. "Smelly Good Stuff" for any type of lotion or bodywash), revealed her nationality to us upon first introduction. Her ode to Vancouver was expressed with an unmistakable Canadian accent and was signed with a crinkled nose and thinly veiled look of disgust when I proclaimed myself to be from Texas. The "Fake Hippy" part of her true identity took several days to fully germinate into the realm of the obvious, but first began to sprout soon after our pirate van of foreign travelers started the long, winding ascent to Haleakala's summit.

Canadian Fake Hippy, like any legitimate hippy, guided the group's conversation in directions political, economic, and narcotic. She genralized in all of the right directions -- Socialism= Good; Capitalism= Bad; Bush= The Devil; Drugs= Enlightenment (as long as they are organic) -- and just when you started to tune her out as a throwback hippy, she would say something that rang out like a fart in church because it didn't quite jive with her worldly tumblin' tumble weed image. For example, after generally espousing some non-specific benefits of socialism, she railed on the Canadian system of socialized medicine because she was in the highest tax bracket and had to pay the medical bills of, "all the homeless meth-heads around Vancouver." Hippies aren't even supposed to be in tax brackets, are they?

Just a few mountain switchbacks later, Canadian Fake Hippy was praising the merits of "true capitalism" because, she explained, it requires citizens to give money to social projects like welfare. Adam Smith probably shit himself in heaven when he heard that one and the previously disinterested multilingual French historian cocked his head to the side like my golden retriever does when he's confused by something new. Nothing was safe from Canadian Fake Hippy's ridiculous claims and horribly misinformed generalizations. Nothing. When the dancing couple started to talk about Vikram yoga and how much it helps them in their profession, Canadian Fake Hippy, in an airy and slightly hopeful tone, asked if they got to do drugs during the class, man. As the other trip participants politely stifled laughs, Canadian Fake Hippy backpedaled seeking common ground as she claimed to do Pilates every day. But as everyone knows, hippies don't do Pilates. There's nothing "Hippy" about spandex and crunches. Hippies do naked, sandy yoga like the guy my girlfriend and I saw on Maui's tenuously tolerated Little Beach, downward dogging his happy weathered self as his balls dangled freely for all to see. Canadian Fake Hippy was blossoming before our eyes and the full form of her bloom was riotously entertaining.

Everyone was capable of appreciating Canadian Fake Hippy's buffoonery and her regular moments of unintentional humor provided healthy comic relief for our miniature United Nations. My girlfriend and I were secretly able to disregard our shared fear of being the obnoxious Yankees of the group and fully relax into the camaraderie of our tripmates safe in the knowledge that there was one more odious than we could ever be. I suppose it was due in part to the efforts of Canadian Fake Hippy that we were reluctant to leave the mildewed little hostel for the comforts of an extravagantly posh Kaanapali resort. In truth, we probably would have been reluctant to leave anyway as neither of us is the "resort living" type, but we found it especially difficult as one does not often happen upon such a reliable fount of guaranteed hilarity . . . but, twist my arm, the bosses of my girlfriend's massive computer company were footing the bill.

Imagine our surprise then, when strolling through an outdoor mall next to the extravagantly posh Kaanapali resort, we spotted none other than Canadian Fake Hippy hurriedly darting in and out of the Fendi, Louis Vuitton, and Tiffany's stores in decidedly less earth-toned duds. All suspicions, were there any remaining, were fully confirmed in this one glorious moment. She was Canadian and she was most assuredly a fake hippy. God bless hostels and the folk they attract.

Sweet Jesus, I'm at Prom . . . Again

I always thought the prom I attended my senior year in high school would be the last prom of my life. This didn't strike me as too terrible an eventuality. In fact, I never gave it much thought until I found myself, last Saturday night, a faculty wallflower, observing the ridiculous spectacle of a rural, Texas prom.

Oh, the humanity.

It is Monday evening now and my experiences at the event have just begun to germinate into timid sprouts of cogent expression, such was the barrage on my senses. It's not that my own contextual reference for "prom" was so violently different - I twice attended prom at another high school not too far removed from the one at which I presently teach - but it was just different enough to make my most recent experience seem indefinabley off kilter, sort of like the Seinfeld where Elaine falls in with a new group of friends nearly identical to George, Jerry, and Kramer . . . but not quite. Think of it as Bizarro Prom.

Compounding this vague feeling of unease was my own self-conscious role as teacher/chaperone. Both of those words - "Teacher" and "Chaperone" - carry with them connotations of all things uncool. What could be more frumpity and mortifyingly unhip than chalk stained shirt sleeves, bad clothes, and that wide-eyed willingness to act like a total douchebag that seems to characterize an inordinate percentage of public school teachers. And that's just the "teacher" part. "Chaperone?" What is that? Every chaperone I have ever had the displeasure of meeting seems to perform their job with an almost vindictive, Puritanical glee that can only be attributed to sexual frustration.

So there I stood, chalked stained and sexually frustrated, from 8:30pm to 10:30pm watching the endless parade of awkward adolescents enter what has been hammered into their minds as the crown jewel experience of The Best Days of Their Lives. Tuxes hung loosely from bodies unaccustomed to the fit of finer clothes, necklines plunged in defiance of even the most lenient high school dress codes, and doting parents voyeuristically co-opted one more prom experience from their coolly detached children.

The cowboys wore ridiculously creased and starched nut-huggers, bright red and blue shirts to match their dates' dresses, and what must be the cowboy version of a tuxedo hat. The gangsters (Yes, even in small town Texas!) wore peach colored Nehru tuxes with baby blue pinstripes and matching top hats. Popular accessories included glass-balled canes and large, mirrored sunglasses. The male students comprising the spectrum between these two fashion poles ran the gamut from traditional tuxes to brightly appointed zoot suits that would have better adorned an Asian triad king-pin.

Don't get me started on the female students. Let me put it to you this way, my date to the senior prom bought her dress at a popular Austin lingerie store. Her risque choice in apparel looked positively Mennonite in comparison to some of the strips of fabric that were passed off as dresses on Saturday night.

Once my two hours of service to the school had been completed, I bolted to the door. Things were just getting too weird. I had seen dates who must have been my age or older (Sergeants in the Army!) accompany girls with braces into the chaos of rap, country, flashbulbs, and confetti. The teacher standing next to me, a little too nostalgic for prom nights past, began to dance The Sprinkler and the Roger Rabbit. Someone did the worm . . . and meant it.

Waking up Sunday morning, I felt a lot like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, but there was no one bedside to reassure me that I had had a fever. What a spectacle. I'm not sure I can take my students seriously anymore. What if Dorothy's uncles, instead of a Lion, a Scarecrow, and a Tin-Man had been a Pimp, a Stripper, and Bozo the Clown? That kind of dream scars forever.

Men Play Football; Intelligent Nit-Picky, Wise-Ass, SOBs Play Soccer

In relating the following story I am reminded of a t-shirt that enjoyed considerable popularity among US soccer-philes of the mid-nineteen nineties. The shirt came in different colors with different fonts, but always said, "Men play football . . . Intelligent men play soccer." In retrospect, I see how sport snobbery like this did more to guarantee soccer will never be the People's Sport of the United States than it did to attract new fans to the game, but I also have come to believe that, regardless of how much it sounds like something Little Lord Fontleroy's mother would say, it actually touches on a kernel of truth.

With any sport, I believe the relative IQ of its participants (coaches or players) can be roughly estimated in observing their interactions with officials, especially when the participants believe they have been hosed on a call. Football players punch referees and clutch at metaphoric migraines; baseball players kick dirt and invade personal space; basketball players throw chairs and wince at perceived injustice; and hockey players throw sticks . . . eh.

It's not that soccer players do not act like morons as well. Certainly, the wild gesticulations and impassioned expressions of innocence witnessed at the average soccer match have their own unique pathology of idiocy, but the following nears litigious genius and could only have happened on the soccer pitch:

A coach approached a referee after a match to "discuss" how horribly the coach believed the match to have been called. Very calmly and in a concerned tone, the coach asked the referee, "Excuse me, but what would you do if I said you were the worst fucking referee I have ever seen?"

Responding in an equally calm but matter-of-fact tone, the referee said, "Well, I would have to issue you a red card for profane and unsporting dissent."

"Hmm," grunted the coach. "And what would you do if I thought you were the worst fucking referee I have ever seen?"

The referee paused for a moment, and, in a Holier Than Thou display of wise-ass button-pushing, responded,"Well, sir, your thoughts are your business and I certainly cannot reprimand you for having them."

"Ok then," said the coach, "I THINK you are THE WORST FUCKING REFEREE I HAVE EVER SEEN!"

No red card. No discussion.

Some Thoughts On People, Dogs, Cars, and Falling Apart

So, as far as people and dogs go, most people would say dog owners have a tendency to resemble their dogs. Whether this means the owner and the dog bear some physical similarity or that the entirely too chipper and bouncy sorority girl has an entirely too chipper and bouncy yip-yip dog is beside the point. Emotionally or physically, we are supposed to reflect some dominant aspect of our dogs' being.

I have met too many exceptions to this heart-warming rule to continue to count myself among the believers. For instance, my friend Genevieve has a huge, black Great Dane. My friend Genevieve is neither huge or black and is certainly not from Denmark. Also, her dog is a little on the dumb side and Genevieve is a bonafide college grad.

Lest you think one example insufficient to disprove the rule, I shall continue. My friend Deniz is fit, moody, and Turkish. He also has, at times, an obscenely long and ridiculous goatee. He runs marathons, does push-ups for fun, and was probably a trapeze artist in a former life. His dog, Fluffy, God rest her soul, was a snow white miniature poodle. Fluffy had not an athletic bone in her body, barked incessantly, and seemed primarily concerned with finding toes to lick. The longest hair on her body grew around her butt and had a tendency to ensnare little bits of turd. I find it difficult to draw relevant similarities between the two.

I could go on and on, but my point has yet to be made.

My point: (Ahem) People are less like their dogs and more like their cars. I certainly feel like my car and can think of more car/person examples that fit than I can dog/person examples.

My brother-in-law drives an agile, butt-warmed, super-charged highway rocket with a purring engine and God's Hands brakes. The thing is adorned, inside and out, with all of the little techno-geek amenities that make gear heads swoon. There's a freakin' batmobilesque toggle switch that has the power to increase the internal combustion rate to ludicrous and leave smoldering streaks of rubber on deserted country roads. By the way, he's a former Eagle Scout and soon to be fighter pilot in the US Navy.

I, on the other hand, drive a nineteen ninety five Buick Park Avenue with 150,000 miles to its weary, creaking credit. Instead of super-charged, hard-braking, surround sound, ass-kicking, the BPA (that's "Buick Park Avenue" for the not sufficiently down) is equipped with peeling paint, wonky wipers, soft brakes, and a tape deck. I know next to nothing about the inner workings of anything remotely mechanical (i.e. an automobile), and once famously quipped, after standing awkwardly listening to my dad and aforementioned brother-in-law discuss the technical aspects of a nineteen fifty four Ford Farlane, "What about that turn signal, huh?"

So how does a twenty five-year-old resemble your grandmother's old car? Well, I, like the BPA, am falling apart.

The BPA is losing its paint. I am losing my hair.

The BPA guzzles gas and accelerates poorly. I'm screwed if I'm not in bed by 10:00pm.

The BPA has soft brakes and a loose steering wheel. I have a wonky knee and can no longer cycle and play soccer in a manner befitting any self-respecting twenty five-year-old who used to be decent at both.

The BPA has a floppy windshield wiper. My vision is deteriorating.

The BPA has a creaky door. I have a trick jaw.

The BPA has a squiggley pinstripe. I have a freakin' varicose vein in my leg!

I'm twenty five and gainfully employed and should feel like a million dollars. Unfortunately, the Kelly Blue Book predicts my value more realistically around the twelve hundred dollar mark . . . and falling. Hopefully, all of this will change soon as I am planning on purchasing a new car and getting my knee fixed by summer's end. The one necessitates the other. Who am I to mess with the car/person order of things? How could I drive the BPA with a new knee and well-muscled legs? That would be like my brother-in-law ripping across the sky in an F-18 and then driving home in an Astro Van. It's just too odd to fathom.

But what kind of car to get next . . .

Friday Night Lights and Soccer Fags

Coaching a European sport in the Texas hinterlands is a little like being a French chef in a restaurant staffed by backyard barbecuers. It's not that the backyard folks are not good cooks, but that there is no such dish as beer-can foie gras.

In Texas, there are more football special teams coaches who coach soccer than soccer coaches who coach soccer. This is precisely the reason why soccer has found an uneasy niche in the budget allocations of many Athletic Directors. Who cares if the school has to pay for a bunch of fruity kids running around kicking a ball and bouncing it off their heads, Jim Bob gets to keep his obscenely large staff of specialist coaches, and the hierarchy of power is more clearly defined. If you are the soccer guy, you are getting the donuts and coffee on Thursday night when the offensive and defensive coordinators are taking last minute looks at game film . . . unless the girls' soccer coach is there also. Even then, you may have to rock, paper, scissors for the honor.

If, on the other hand, you are a soccer coach who has a soccer background and who was hired to coach soccer, you are pretty much left to yourself. There are numerous reasons for this, but to name a few:

1) Nine times out of ten, soccer and football coaches come from completely different backgrounds, contextually speaking.

2) How do you talk about a sport you do not understand? "Hey Coach D., I saw the soccer game last night. Your guys really kicked the ball into the goal thingy well . . ."

3) The soccer guy's teams are probably beating the bejesus out of the teams coached by the special teams guy who bought Soccer Coaching For Dummies. Aside from putting up with the occasional gay joke around the coaches office ( My favorite goes like this: What's the worst part about telling your parents you play soccer? Answer: Telling them you're gay. Hilarious!), there generally exists a level of respect for anyone who is successful as a coach. Everyone loves a winner, even if that winner strikes you as a little light in the loafers.

On the flip side, most soccer guys know they are the outcasts of the athletic department. The special teams coach thing goes both ways.

Head football guy needs a special teams coach.

Can't afford to hire someone new.

Get the soccer guy to do it!

Then there's the whole "gay" thing. That's tough to miss.

There is, however, a camaraderie that exists between soccer coaches in this great football state and one of the sacred rituals performed to sanctify this bond is to make merciless fun of the football guys (also called pointy ball coaches) who find themselves foreigners on the sidelines of a soccer pitch. And, oh, is there fertile ground for fun-making.

Some of my favorites (yes, another list!):

1) At the kickoff: "Stay in your lanes guys!"

2) While giving a team talk before the match: "Go out there and pop somebody in the mouth!"

3) In protest of a call: "Referee! Did you not see that interference!"

4) On a corner kick: "Alright boys, post up!"

And these are just the quotable one-liners. There are countless other examples of football bafoonery I have witnessed on the sidelines of a soccer match that are not so easily conveyed. For instance, there is the coach who, in a playoff match, instructed his players to, "Defend the field!", even when the ball was well within shooting distance. Instead of compressing the field of play, his players sprinted to the sidelines just in case the attacking player decided the area fifty yards from DEAD CENTER OF GOAL looked to be a more compelling target.

Then there was the pointy ball guy who teamed up with another pointy ball guy and decided to relay information about my team's "scheme" from pressbox to sideline via walky-talky. In a sport like football where fluidity of play is non-existant and timeouts, injuries, and changes of possession all warrant a stoppage, this makes some sense. In addition, football offenses and defenses try to disguise pre-snap formations through movement and spacing so a bird's eye view has its advantages. Soccer is a game of constant movement where eleven players are both offensive and defensive depending upon the situation. I can tell from the touch line when Little Bobby is getting done up and why. The thought of having someone else make a special call to tell me who is sucking at a particular moment is redundant and obnoxious. Plus, when you're on the same sideline as the opposing coach (and you are at a soccer match) you can hear the cackling critique of the walky-talky just as well as he can. A lot of time and effort could have been cut out of the equation if the coach had just walked over and told me his game observations.

Similarly, there is the coach (and I chalk this one up to idiocy, not football) who suggested in friendly conversation while scouting the same match that he would like to get the team with excellent speed on a large field so that he could neutralize their speed. Even the neighborhood fat kid knows he doesn't stand a chance once the freeze tag game is moved from inside to outside. Maybe after they run all over you they'll be winded and you can pull a few back. Wow.

Sometimes, when I get really frustrated coaching my players (and it happens regularly with 14-18 year old boys), all I have to do is look down the sideline at the guy wearing the plum-smugglers and stand-alone mustache and things have a tendency to assume their proper perspective.

Per Lahm: The pride of Snyder, TX

Let me tell you about Per Lahm . . .

Per Lahm is the greatest thing to happen to US soccer since the Men's National Team qualified for the 1990 World Cup. Per Lahm is the most complete US goalkeeper ever, and he keeps getting better. Kasey Keller, Brad Friedel, Marcus Hanneman? All solid American goalkeepers, but they may as well be Swiss cheese in comparison to Per Lahm. Per Lahm can stop shots blindfolded and his goalkeeping prowess allows his manager to employ the oft under-used 0-0-10 formation. That's right, one goalkeeper and 10 forwards.

So who is Per Lahm?

Per Lahm is the cowboy goalkeeper. He was born in Snyder, TX in June of 1985. Soccer was not a natural choice for most young men in Snyder, but Per was introduced to it by his Danish parents who had been prompted to move to the United States (Snyder specifically) by their love of Clint Eastwood and Spaghetti Westerns. The names Beckenbauer, Cruyff, Pele, and Banks were often uttered by Per's parents in the same breath as the names Wayne, Eastwood, McQueen, and Pickens.

Per's childhood was no different than any other Snyder boy's - except they played football while he played futbol. Per's adolesence was a musical montage depiciting his surprising development into a world class goalkeeper and culminating in his discovery by Leeds United of Leeds, England. After tearfully deciding to leave Snyder, TX (it grows on you) Per braved the move to England and has quickly become one of Leeds' biggest stars. His performance on the pitch is surpassed only by his quick wit and incredibly quotable press conferences. The following are considered Per's most quotable quips:

At the press conference announcing his signing: "Just flew in today . . . arms sure are tired! Hoo-weee! That's a little joke my daddy said'd be good to break the ice."

At the press conference announcing his salary details: "Pounds! Y'all are gonna pay me in pounds! What if I have to buy somethin' expensive! How in tarnation am I gonna lug all them pounds around!"

When told to put his on 'boots' in order to get ready for his first match: "My boots? How the hell am I gonna play with my Tony Lama's on?! I got Adidas for that."

At the press conference following his first 20 save shut out: "Well, it was nothin' really. I just figured I'd bail the team out like the good old U-S- of-A bailed you fellas out in dubya dubya two!"

Upon being told by his agent in hushed and hurried tones, 'Per! You can't say that!': "Can't say it hell! It's in the history books!"


Per Lahm has no equals in the art of goalkeeping.