It's allergy season again, and here I am nervous like I stole something waiting for good ol' Mother Nature shoot a facial of pollen up my nose. How is it that I can go through life without a springtime care in the world, only to enter my 20's counting on feeling like shit at least twice a year.

The irony of the situation is that allergies are a lot like date rape. I'm like, "Oh! Springtime, what a lovely time of the year." I proceed to don my favorite pair of denim cutoffs and cut my mustache short so that the parts of my upper lip covered by the wintertime mustache may enjoy the nice weather as well. And wouldn't you believe it, as soon as I let my guard down Springtime takes our gentle flirting to a whole new level hate-banging my face with loads of smarmy pollen. Silly flowers! Don't you understand? My nose is no stigma, my face is no snizz - you cannot physically impregnate me; I'm human. Needless to say, the abundance of flower jizz in the air makes me feel like shit, and I'm bitter about it.

Fuck the weather.

The following is the redacted version of an e-mail I wrote to the g/f today...and her response:

(Me to g/f) -

Alright, so funny story. I walk into Vilas to finally go drop a hard copy of that paper, that is over 1.5 weeks late, into Pan's office and get this thing out of my hair so that I can write another paper for him due a week from today. Well, I walk into the building hit the button for the elevator and who's standing there all smart, disarmingly philosophical, and alone in the elevator? Fucking Professor Pan, that's who!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgh!

And on top of it? I go to class and he proceeds, in the most eloquent fashion humanly possible, to deliver a lecture penultimately wading through the subject matter of my book, spoon-feeding me what should have been the theoretical basis for my argument within the book review that I had handed to him no less that 10 minutes prior! I mean, he covered roughly every base, while drawing the conclusions that I should have pulled from the pages of the most dense book on the planet. God, he's fucking smart. And I feel like a procrastinating spaz, holding a brick in his hand, tears in his eyes, wondering why the fuck his head hurts so bad despite the brick-sized dent in his head. "Fuuuck-tard", (sung lyrically). Whatevs, I'm over it...kind of, (*sigh*). Get drunk tonight?

Alright so that's the shitty story of the day. I'm going to be online pissing my day away...come chat when you'd like!

Creepy me.

(g/f to me...she's such a cheerleader. which, i guess, means she's totally bangable) -

that is quite the story...very funny...i can't believe you saw pan on the day you finally turn your paper in, and then he proceeds to lecture about your material. whatev. that is funny, however. well..so what are you doing today? i should just wait until you get online and then talk to you then..why are you pissing your day away online again? don't you have a paper due tomorrow? you should write it right now. come on!!!! do it! clap your hands and say yeah!

okay..get online quickly and i'll chat w/you and then you can go do homework.

In kitten news: Everyone! Everyone, please pay attention. I have an announcement. A big congratulations to Squirrel who, in her nearly two years of existence, has finally learned how to relinquish her semi-rational/semi-retarded brain into mindless pleasure induced kneading. Using her clawed feet as happy instruments of torture, the cat has finally succumbed to, or learned, instinct; turning my thigh into squishy bleeding bread-dough.

Oh, day of days, I guess I always knew that Squirrel would grow up. But as any proud parent would say, I wasn't prepared for the day when she would graduate from a steady diet of purring and face rubs, to the oh-so-mature pleaure-mauling. Needless to say the g/f and I are quite proud of our little bundle of fat-sack'd fur. Don't get me wrong, she still begs for apple wedges when I'm slicing one up, and stares at me with eyes half-lidded when she poops in the laundry room. But now some of the innocence has gone.

I would say, with some confidence, that we've got a wily teenager on our hands. I can tell because she has started throwing fits for attention and suffers drastic mood-swings. Scrambling noisily, back-arched, she bolts from room to room, her eyes giant, alluding to the copious amounts of natural dopamine coursing through her teeny-tiny little animal brain, which resides in a head that is all cute and covered in fur and big ears. God! She's so cute you could just eat her. Don't you just want to stuff her in your mouth, squishy fur and all?!

In other kitty news, the g/f and I have come to the conclusion that Squirrel was in fact, prior to our acquisition of her, a polish jew surviving in the ghettos of Nazi Germany. We have decided this for the following reasons:

1) She hides diamonds in loaves of bread, which she then breaks and rolls up into little balls and eats.

2) She regularly responds to the name Itzahk Keetenstein.

3) Squirrel is small in stature, has long dark hair, a long-ish nose, and a polish accent.

4) She is petrifide of box pianos, the German language, men with names like Hans/Sigfried/Rainer/Adolf, and Swastika armbands.

I can only hope that these fears and habits will subside as she adjusts to the civil inequalities and "rally around the flag" fanfare of post-Second World War American society. God forbid she turns out to be a migrant Mexican worker only pretending to be a Holocaust survivor in order to stay North of the border, picking fruit for $5.37 an hour...I would be devastated to have to report her to the Department of Homeland Security and pay all the back taxes for the domestic work she's done for us. That would be so Zoe Baird of me...

Now I'm going to go creep it up while Squirrel hides from the vacuum cleaner.

It's true! And I am no longer going to deny or ignore this fact. Hiding my shame with continuous athletic exercises to shift attention from my groin and onto my active lifestyle will not do. I wish to bring this issue forward, making the conversation both public and acceptable. After all, roughly half of the global public is wang-and-nut-enhanced, and I would wager that a fairly large portion of that be-nutted public has experienced the excrutiating insecurities of flaunting the well-defined outline of their junk when wearing sweat-pants.

In fact, it is in the public interest, nay, PUBLIC NEED, that I commence this discussion of cock-and-balls-itude on the principle of galvanizing men worldwide against their fears of showing a little too much nut. Whether in the gym, at a Saturday afternoon football game, summer barbecue, or a lazy Sunday morning brunch, the outline of your perky package should be the least of your masculine concerns. "Brothers!", I say. Do not be ashamed of your flacid and flexible manhood. Wear it proudly, just as a woman adorns her beautiful boobies with bedazzlement, gaining attention from her neighbors of either sex while, at the same time, earning free drinks and catcalls at the bar, display your pocket-rocket in all its profiled glory. Despite cold days, lesser endowment, or undie type, let your junk dangle proudly for the world to ogle, draped in the fleecy cotton of your gym-wear.

I, for one, will proudly wear my piece like the prize exhibit it is, swinging in boxers or bundled in briefs. If I am feeling frisky, I might even release the twig and giggle-berries into the greater polyester wilds of my favorite track pants, uninhibited by the bunching seams of my gitch. "Men!", I exclaim, let us be proud of our family jewels! Let us rejoice in our hanging bits, breaking free of the "size does matter" chains that bind us, allowing our ships to set sail with the "motion of the ocean".

Hey folks.

Check out the ol' sidebar action. It's as close to neon pink and green as I could make it. For those of you who don't know, my favorite pair of shoes are black, white, and neon pink and green; hence the font color change. Yeah, I'm so 90s that when VH1's "I love the 90s" come on I scream, "Fucking Posers! You don't know shit...", and begin to cry hysterically because they just don't, (and never will), understand the 90s like I do.

I get all teary just thinking about it. Corporate pricks.

Poopy pants attitude aside, I added some links to your right, (That'a way --->). Sorry for the distinct lack of Mid-western street art and culture representation. I'll put more up when I can find it. By the way, does anyone know where I can find some local street art and culture stuff? It seems to be that all the hippies that made this area cool have grown up, had kids, and have been voting irresponsibly for the last 20-odd years. I'm not talking the, "I'm so depressed because I hate my dad, and life is a total crummy sham that the fascist-capitalist-scum are enforcing upon us", kind of stuff. I mean pop art! Because it is so much better.

I speak sarcasm. Fluently.

I'll add more Crappola when I find it. Speaking of emo-kids and fascists, check out this quote.

"Fascism will come to America in the guise of National Security."
- Jim Garrison, District Attorney of Orleans Parish, La., 1967

Creepy, huh. I keep it like that. Cupcake out.

So, it was the g/f's, (should that be capitalized for reasons more legitimate than brownie points?), birthday this weekend. We headed down to Chicago, being that it is the destination city of choice in the Mid-west. Living where I do has it's perks and all, (ready access to cheap alcohol, 'hills' to which I could escape to post-felony, and even a local university to provide me with a false sense of security in that most of the world is sane, respectable, and just as liberal as I am), but running around the ol' college town is starting to get pretty lamecore. I must admit that I heard that somewhere, 'lamecore'. What a good word to describe the exact opposite of 'hardcore'; meaning cool.

For obvious reasons, mainly the ones manifested in my girlfriend, young drunken co-eds do not have the appeal that they once had when I visited Madison in the mid-90s. Then again, at that time I was 16 and anything with tits and a pulse was fair game for my boner-driven infatuations. So I must also admit that I, like fine wines, have matured somewhat, cultivating class and an appreciation for women that extends beyond their outward physical appearance and attributes. Speaking of, have I mentioned that if you are nice to them, and 'appreciate' them on a deeper level, that they let you see them naked? If someone would have just told me that when I was sixteen!...I would have died from Gono-herpa-syphal-AIDS by now. That said, it is now my firm belief that I should be thankful for my tapered wisdom and women's abilities to shirk a horny boy from their presence with European engineering-like precision. But I digress.

The g/f and I headed down to Chicago for the evening to celebrate the day of her birthing. After nearly four years of relationship, we've never really had the chance to 'go big' for a birthday so we took advantage of a little overage mistake by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue and I blew my over-inflated tax-return on a weekend trip to Chicago! After all, 'finders-keepers' and 'you can't give back what you don't have!', right?

In all of our years of togetherness we have been unfairly accused of nearly sprinting towards a little white picket fence and 2.63 children in the 'burbs, but never has the g/f been assaulted with as many unfounded accusations of my intent to wed than when she announced to her new co-workers at the monkey-testing-lab that I had made reservations at a fancy-pants restaurant at the top of the Hancock tower. I can just see it now, "He's totally going to propose!", squeals the fat never-to-be-married pig from accounting. What is it about hopeless unmarried women that leave them to senselessly dream of marriage for other young women? Don't they know what marriage does to men; like making them old and fat?! Don't get me wrong, I'm not a complete ass, I have been telling the g/f for a long time now that she's the best girlfriend I've ever had, and I mean it. In fact, I'm so sure of this that I've told her repeatedly that she's got a good lead in the race to be my forever girlfriend. Pretty ballsy statement, I know, but she's a good girl and puts out pretty regularly.

Anyhow, piggy was dead wrong. Ha! I had no intention of proposing to the g/f. I just wanted to take her out for a nice night out on the town, and show her a good time. It's her friggin' birthday for Christ's sake, can't a guy just be a gentlemen for one night without all sorts of ruthless and false acumen? Besides, does anybody understand what kind of naked a guy gets to see when he drops approximately one metric assload of cash on dinner, drinks, and a sweet hotel room? Let me remind you, that's some serious naked.

So dinner on top of the Hancock building was pretty nice. The old jazz duders to our left looked properly loaded, and I am pretty sure that one of the them stoned out of his fucking mind. That makes for happy musicians which makes for good music and a lovely bourbon-soaked night. Outside of the fact that it was the foggiest night in the history of foggy nights in Chicago, virtually negating the view that I was paying a hundred dollars a head to see, the meal was pretty good. The g/f and I had a great time getting half-cocked on wine and scotch before dinner, and it was pretty smooth sailing aboard the S.S. Inebriation from there.

After dinner we boarded the death-rocket, (they called it the elevator), down to sea level and I hobbled my broke-assed leg to a waiting cab. For those of you who haven't ever been to Chicago, it is steadily turning into a haven for lost post-college douschebags. Aside from date-rape, these guys spend a strong majority of their time searching for bad fashion sense from douschebag meccas such as Miami and Los Angeles, (the not ghetto parts), which they use to impress the streetwalkers of Chicago. If I never see another twenty-something asshole desperately trying to fondle fake tits and bad nose-jobs I'll die a happy man. What I am trying to say is that we went to a jazz club which was conveniently located in the basement of another club, this 'other club' - the above ground one - had the following entrance requirements: One collared shirt, complete with Fleur-de-Lis/Paisley/Skull detail; one pair of machine distressed wash-of-the-month semi-premium denim; one inexpertly executed faux-hawk, doused with egregious amounts of hair-lubricant; and one pair of over-priced designer knock-off shoes (color optional). Needless to say, I was more than ready to mail-bomb the place at the drop of a hat. But the jazz set was pretty good.

The hotel was pretty nice, and the two-person jacuzzi tub was totally necessary. All in all, birthdays such as the g/f's are indeed harder to pass up than it was for that asshole brother from 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' to turn down Turkish Delight and not sell out his flesh and blood. If you don't get the reference you should try reading something more than a shit-stained Reader's Digest. I now conclude this post for lack of motivation.

Creep out.

Well Hello!

I am having some security issues these days, along with a mid- mid-life crisis. There is something about hitting a quarter centery that is rocking my little boat. I understand, you're saying to yourself...didn't he start writing this blog because he turned twenty-five and he felt that in some way narcissism was justified at this age. Like, I survived my teens and now I am totally qualified to explain to everyone out there why yellow mustard is totally inferior to any other sandwich topping, except when smearing it on McDonald's™ hamburgers, then it becomes the reason for ordering the sandwich in the first place.

I say this because in my efforts to write a blog that is worth reading I started to read other blogs that were actually worth reading. It's like when the people who write Reader's Digest started writing it. At first they read other credible, or at least entertaining magazines, and then tried to mimick what they saw. Speaking of Reader's digest...to any editor of said magazine, is it really that necessary to distinguish yourself from the other magazines by making your magazine so much smaller. If you were trying to make it easier to hold the magazine in one hand while reading it, you failed miserably. It's so small that when I hold the magazine open with one hand, in any conceivable position, I end up covering nearly half of the article with either my thumb or those other two fingers - you know, the ones at the other end of the hand. Just make the magazine regular sized and I will simply lay it out on my lap or a nearby table. This will keep the magazine from continually exploding like a deck of cards in my hand when I read it, consequently knocking my cup of coffee out of the other hand, which in turn scalds my testicles with burning hot liquid. What I'm trying to say is that I think that Reader's Digest magazine is a poorly executed publication and kind of a piece of shit.

Reader's Digest's stupidity aside, after studying so many other blogs I have decided that my writing ablilities pale in comparison to those of my contemporaries. This has led to my decision that I must now dedicate more of my blog-time to coordinationg the 'Links' section of my blog, making it more eye-catching and attractive to potential readers of blogs other than mine; i.e. everyone.

In other words, I concede my loss in the battle of talent. Go out you fine readers, enjoy someone else's blog. I go now to wallow in my self-pity.

PS. I've got some really funny shit stewing in the old 'Draft' bin...keep an eye out!