Can't touch this?

i'm a weirdo. on many levels.

sometimes i don't even realize how much of a weirdo i am until something alarming happens because of my weirdness.

i have "space" issues. i don't like being touched, especially by strangers, but even by friends and family. without going into a heavy does of psychoanalysis, i am aware of this issue and where it comes from but i've never thought it necessary to do anything about it. i don't like being touched. don't touch me, and all is good.

but most people won't let this be. they try to talk me into being okay with it. I'M NOT OKAY WITH IT. do i need any more of a reason? do i have to defend myself every fucking time someone wants to hug me for more than 2 seconds? this is MY space, isn't it?

oddly, my distaste for being touched has always been tempered by my ability to touch and be touched -- in moderation -- within a relationship. sexy time seems to trump my uncomfortableness with being touched. with girlfriends/lovers i've never had a problem with intimacy, as long as it's been in context (sneak up on me and touch me and there might be problems though).

it's been well over a year since i've been in a relationship, and i don't get touched very often otherwise, so nowadays when people do touch me -- whether by accident or on purpose -- it freaks me the fuck out.

i just don't like it. even hugging family members has become an issue lately. i can't go for the big hug. i'm not a hugger. i feel uncomfortable after a few short seconds and pulling away happens instinctively, and that became apparent after the holiday, when folks kept wanting to hug me and i surely offended them by pulling away too quickly.

i wish i could break myself of this issue, but i don't know how. i can't help that space invasion causes me to freak out and i don't want to have to explain myself for now and forever when such instances occur.

maybe i should just wear a sign around my neck.

Happy xmas and all that shizz

no need for me to lay out my jaded position on how an historically suspect hippie's birth is reason enough to dictate what everyone should be doing on december 25, nor is it necessary for me to make clear just how much i despise the wicked religion of the masses. y'all know that.

i'm no delusionoid, but i do like the idea of having a specific time set aside exclusively for being with family and friends, giving each other gifts, reminding people that they matter and looking at cool lights while trudging through a foot of snow.

i ain't no bah-humbug, but for me -- and most of the learned folks of this earth -- i'd say that's a reasonable stab at what xmas really is anymore. well, that and the idea that it's a great way to sell shit that people don't need.

anyway, i'm gonna be with family this year. hopefully you're with people you like too.

also, i find beagles in santa hats to be quite irresistible.

HOLLA!!!

Kids and their total recall

it's easy to forget how damn smart kids are. don't forget, they're learning a BUTTLOAD of shizz on the real, every day.

visiting with my 3 1/2 year old nephew recently and out of the blue he said, "you silly, don't be a broken record!"

i nearly fell outta my chair.

about four months prior, he and i were having a conversation where he would ask me a question, i would answer it, then he would reply with another question: "WHY?" this went on for some time before i said, "what are you? some sort of broken record?"

i'd nearly forgotten about it, but he didn't.

and that made my day.

Kentuckiana: land of the deranged (yet polite!)

spent another weekend at my sister's in louisville recently. man, jeebus is alive and IN YER FACE down there. everywhere i looked was jesus this and jesus that and pray for this and pray for my gonorrhea to go away. and even the religious moderates (the worst of them all in my opinion for they don't challenge what they KNOW to be insane) seem to be okay with letting the delusionoids dictate ALL.

but everyone is so damn polite, so i guess there's that.

my sister and her fam are pretty cool about not shoving that shit down my throat, but they (much like most of the kentuckianans i've met) make sure it is known that THEY are believers and THEY will not back down, which, in a way, is just as judgmental and elitist without precedents as trying to convert me and tellin' me i'm goin' to hell.

i really like the area, but man it'd be tough getting used to all that crazy if i were ever to move there.

50 kilometers

50K. that's what's on my mind today.

on saturday, i'll be taking my first shot at running the 50K distance. i'll be running on trails, in a warm climate and my pops is gonna be there to make sure i don't die.

haha. just playin'. 50K (31 miles) isn't much more than a marathon, so i know i'll be just fine. still, since this is my virgin voyage, i can't help but acknowledge that i do have some nerves piling up.

i've decided to not race it, to just take my time and enjoy the journey, wherever it takes me (hopefully not off course!)... and in making that decision i realized that my plan is quite the cliche metaphor for life.

well, shit, things become cliche because they're RIGHT, right?

right.

:-)

The selfish jeebus

whew. jeebus on the brain this week. oh well. shit happens.

jeebus has me down today because, well, long story short: his followers can be real selfish creeps sometimes!!!

one of my sisters got a tatt on her wrist that says "believe" in honor of our late grandmother who always reminded us to believe in ourselves. my sister posted a pic of the tatt on facebook, and a bunch of folks commented, yadda yadda yadda. but the comment that irked the shit out of me was from one of our aunts -- the grand master delusionoid of our family's religious faction -- as she wrote, "i like the 'believe' part but only believe in jesus".

what the fuck?!?

instead of letting my sister have her moment with her dead grandma online, aunt delusionoid has to come in like a wrecking ball for jeebus and put in her xtrian edged vitriolic bite.

she does this to me too. all the time in fact. and i'm fucking tired of it.

i'm tired of crazy trains thinking it's okay to tell others how they should fucking live their lives and not be called out for their lunacy.

black sheeped as i may be, i won't fucking standing for it.

That ain't no "candy dispenser"

growing up with six sisters, i certainly visited my share of women's restrooms. for those of you fellas not in the know, they are (generally speaking): MUCH cleaner; EXPANSIVE; FULL of furniture, including couches, daybeds and chairs; and YES, they have these... things... that LOOK like candy dispensers.

but they ain't.

just sayin'.

(p.s. our graffiti art, men, is far superior)

Ready for "epic"

running means a lot to me. it's my drug, my escape, my happy place. without it holding me up the last couple of years, i'm not sure where i'd be.

and it's a strange sport, this running. i mean, what other sport has its elite athletes toe up on the same start line as amateur joes, weekend warriors and the virginally crowned couch-to-5Kers?

this weekend i will put the exclamation mark on what has been the absolute best 16 weeks of training i've ever gutted through by running the coveted chicago marathon. i'm stoked as hell as this will be the my first marathon since my st. louis letdown back in april, where i ended up injuring myself and shelved for six weeks.

this time i trained smarter. i didn't marry a chart, rather, i listened to my body and pushed it when i could, eased back when i had to, and most of all, i tried to remember that THIS SHIT IS FUN!!!!

and realize as i may that no one really gives a fuck how fast or how slow i run a marathon, the competitor within me is dead set on running sunday's race as fast as i can with all of the effort i can muster, no holding back. that's what running is about to me: seeing how far i can go, seeing what i -- as a mortal human fucking being -- can really push myself to do.

I CAN HARDLY WAIT!!!

my pops is coming to run it too. and so is one of my brothers-in-law. i hate to steal one of those kid-cliched interweb memes to describe the potential, but i cannot resist saying it's gonna be EPIC.

Um... gonna hafta try harder than that

on it's own, this cartoon would probably warrant a slight chuckle; however, i received it from a full-fledged delusionoid family member who is "extremely worried" about my "godless soul".

it seems she is offering this to me as a possible explanation for something she cannot explain otherwise.

sorry.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH

I cannot help myself

i truly believe that higher consciousness requires admitting one's weakness.

so i admit, i cannot stop laughing at this classic photobomb. no matter how much time passes, this will always crack my shit up.

(image via ihmp)

In case you were in need of a good ear bleeding with my commentary

yikes. that was tough to sit through.

my grandma lois (she died in 2004) was a straight shooter skeptic. even though she was surrounded by "the lord" and "his people" her whole life, she never let on like any of it was for real. in fact, in private she used to tell me what she really thought: that it was all hogwash.

and she was right.

though an aunt of mine recently told me that during her last days she was pressured into "being saved" by her peers. there was little she could do to thwart it. a victim of several strokes, she could barely speak those last several weeks and she was rendered completely immobile.

those folks are just lucky i wasn't aware they were stomping on her fucking deathbed door.

HOW FUCKING SELFISH THESE DELUSIONOIDS ARE!!! IT'S ALL ABOUT THEM, WITH NO REGARD FOR REASON, LOGIC OR EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE.

they can't even let a woman die in peace!

FUCK THEM! FUCK THEM ALL!

Outnumbered, silenced and jaded

while off in delusionoid city this past weekend, i was reminded just how much of a minority i really am.

oh sure, i'm still a middle class white guy, but at a party my sister threw i was a) the oldest person in the room b) the only one without a mate c) one of two who was not married (the other was engaged) d) the only one without a child e) the only one who does not own a home or a car made within the last decade.

other than my sister and her family, i didn't know any of the folks at the party and upon meeting all of them it seemed the only things they cared to know about me were: are you married? do you have kids? what do you do for a living? their reactions to my answers to all of the above told me they all felt sorry for me. SERIOUSLY!!!

and, even worse, they were also all delusionoids! one woman spoke openly about why she and her husband did not use birth control: "because god doesn't make mistakes".

oh. m'kay. then why bother putting all that makeup on, you stupid fucking bitch!?!?!?!

Off to delusionoid city!!!

well, it's that time again... time to visit with the delusionoid side of my family. i'm lucky in that this particular family member is pretty good about not shoving the xtrian jeebus thing in my face because she knows i can hardly stand it. she knows she'll never prove to me that her god exists. she knows that trying to do so will only make everyone uncomfortable (i've made her cry a couple times, not on purpose, but because i was "slandering" JEEEEEEsus).

though it does bother me that she and her husband are quite delusional, i must say that they still are very kind people (despite being insane) and i love them to death (even though they believe in fairy tales).

so this will be fun.

Does he look like a bitch?

i saw this pic on skull swap and LOL'd my ass off.

first, it's jules winnfield in his post-brain clean-up baby blue tee... second, he's playing one of my favorite childhood games (guess who) and finally, "bitch" is always funny when said in jules' bible-thumpin' voice.

for those of you who might remember guess who, i realized later on in life how sexist that game is. i mean, if you draw a female card, you're fucked. (if you've played the game, you know what i'm talkin' about.)

HOLLA!!!

What would grandma think

"dude, v.r. just retweeted a tweet i wrote about josie's tech blog."

"that's sweet. you should d.m. him to see if he'd wanna check out the tumblr too."

REAL CONVERSATION.

it happened the other day. then my buddy and i both looked at each other and i said, "imagine if our grandmas just heard that exchange. what would they think?"

"mine would say 'the world moves too fast'," he said.

(image via skull swap)

Don't know how my pops does it

as a man, i am really, really, REALLY glad i don't have a daughter. with six sisters, i've already had my fair share of uber-nasty run-ins with would-be suitors, guys talkin' about what they'd do to them, and just plain dickfucks who've needed a talkin' to every now and then.

but being the father of someone whom half the planet really just wants to fuck, well, that don't interest me one bit.

i have a buddy who has two daughters and he is already paranoid about what the future will hold.

i don't envy him. i don't envy him one bit.

(image via ihmp)

Vomiting area

i love beer, but i don't drink much. i mean, i don't drink to get drunk. on average i probably have three drinks a week maybe... more if i'm out, but that's not a regular occurrence these days.

but the last time i got shitface-ripped-to-shreds was memorable. i mean, it was memorable up to the point i blacked out. i was with a buddy of mine and my brother-in-law, who was in town for a conference. my sister asked that i "take good care of him"... so my buddy and i got him full of whisky, tequila and a whole lotta beer.

we had fun (so i think)... and then all of the sudden, at about 3 a.m., we're all sitting at the late night bar, staring at each other, barely holding our heads up. i looked at my bro-in-law and said, "uh oh" then RACED for the bathroom.

i puked. bad. lots. everywhere. it was gross.

as i'm walking back out he is racing in, passed me, then i hear his wretched vomiting.

he comes out and says, "uh... that wasn't good. we better get outta here."

but then i had to piss, so i walked in the bathroom and then realized why he wanted to go so fast... between the two of us we fucking repainted that bitch with projectile vomit the way a child might paint a room if you gave him buckets of paint and a case of red bull.

we got outta there quick.

i am not proud of that story... but it is funny.

what's even funnier is that it took us a few days to actually remember the vomit-decorating happened. we pieced it together, bit by bit. like bros often do.

Free stuff

another sister of mine is getting married, which means i have to buy them some stuff for their house. i don't mind getting them a gift. that's not a big deal.

but i gotta admit having just a tad bit of jealousy for all the free schwag they're gonna get.

i mean, looking around my house, a lot of my shit is old and falling apart. i could use a new toaster, coffee maker, microwave, dishes, silverware, wine glasses, t.v., coffee table, dining table, sheets, bed, etc. all my shit is... old.

and since it's highly unlikely that i'll ever get married, i wonder what my friends/fam would think if i sent out invitations to some event and had a registry for it, y'know, so i could get in on some of that fun stuff that married folk get. if we can celebrate and congratulate folks on being conformists to the marriage realm, why can't we celebrate and congratulate folks like myself who don't fit such labels?

besides, if you saw my toaster you'd wanna get me a new one.

Appy-polly-loggies!!!

if i had kids i'd be doin' shit like this all the time.

right now i'm plotting to dress my uber christian delusionoid sister's kids up like carl sagan and richard dawkins next time they come visit.

don't judge me, you heathens. you'd do the same.

INFIDELS UNITE!

(image via ihmp)

Keystone?

growin' up, this is what my hillbilly sisters slammed down their throats at every single house party. they made fun of me 'cuz i'd spend $8 on six-pack of bell's oberon, then they would make pukey faces when trying a sip.

there's something peanut-butter-and-jelly-esque about backwoods country worldviews and keystone beer.

ick.

like drinkin' horse piss! not that i would know anything about horse piss.

stop judging me.

;-)