What About Mom?

I'm terrible, I mean God awful, at buying gifts. The only person who I seem to get things right for is my sister. If that's not the case, she's one hell of an actress and deserves a lifetime achievement award for the performances she's put on every Christmas morning. But even when it comes to buying things for myself, I'm the absolute worst. I'm sure some of you out there could give me a run for my money (It's mine! You can't have it.) and you're probably right. At least I can get my sister the right things.

Mom has always been the toughest person to buy things for. It's not because she's a cold hearted woman with the emotions of a boulder. She's the exact opposite of that, but this doesn't help me buy gifts for her. The thing that makes my mom the toughest person to buy a gift for is that she was born on Christmas. Christmas! How am I supposed to find the right gift that says "Happy Birthday, Mom! You weren't upstaged by Jesus in the least bit"? So far, I've resorted to jewelry and spa days. 

It just sometimes feels like I have to make up for the years that I couldn't afford gifts while I was hanging out in the playground. Honestly, the thought that my Mom shared a birthday with Jesus on Christmas never really hit me until I was making a decent living. I guess I just took it for granted that my mom had dealt with it and moved on. But now was my moment to make her birthday and Christmas two separate events. Not to mention, I was completely wrong about her "dealing with it." No one would.

My sister and I, mainly my sister, hammered that fact home two years ago. We had decided to throw Mom the biggest party she'd had in years. The significant part of this event? It was going to be at the end of January as to keep it far away from Christmas and the holiday season. The party went off better than expected and planned! She was completely surprised and had a blast. The night was filled with dancing, drinking, and lots of laughs. Seriously, what more could you ask for in a party?

So, that had settled it. As of that night, I was able to separate my mom's birthday from the holiday season. Too bad it didn't help me with picking out gifts, though.

Give Me Them Digits, Girl.

Someone please explain to me the miracle that is the cute girl hanging out with the dude "playing in the minors." You've got this guy; bearded; glasses; really long, stringy hair stuffed under a crappy cadet hat; wearing cargo khakis with a pull over sweater that looks like it might have some bong water stains, and the absolutely cute chick who is a third the guy's size; wearing a cute plaid skirt; nice skin; and great make-up. 

In my head, this scenario NEVER works out for the ugly fat dude and the cute girl leaves without giving the underdog another shot. Secretly, I'm pissed at the guy because in my head, I could have been the next "underdog" she decided to give a shot, but now that's ruined. Thanks a lot, fatty cargo ass! 

That's when I realize that I'm not the underdog and I'm not playing in the minors. I'm playing for the big leagues and on the winning team. Unfortunately, I'm also not taking any shots (switching it up to soccer). I've been spending most of my time just passing the ball along and not driving it at the keeper. To be honest, had my love-life been an actual player, I'd make excuses that he's creating opportunities for other players before I truly hated him for never crushing the ball when the opportunity showed itself.

Now, I'm not actually upset with myself about my love-life. If anything, I'm pretty proud that I haven't put up with any BS since college. Seeing some of my friends go through the crap they dealt with this past year really raised my confidence in that decision. It's been one that I've stuck to, but it's sometimes the one in which I wonder if I've put too much weight on. Seems like I've decided not to deal with any BS that when I get even a hint of it, I immediately write a girl off and move on to the next one. Unfortunately, the 'next one' tends to take her time.

Playing in the top league does mean that I have to really start playing like I know I belong there. I've got my friends cheering me on; telling me I'm awesome; reassuring me that I deserve the best, but I still have a tough time believing them. The worst part is that I'm absolutely terrible when it comes to picking up on a girl's hints. I'm pretty sure this has been mentioned in a post before, but if it hasn't, you've probably heard me say it in person. I'm completely oblivious to them.

A few months ago, I wrote a post where I called myself a "green beret of vagina". This title has never helped me out when it comes to women. Something in my brain shuts off when I'm talking to a girl I dig and I can't tell if she's into me. Sure, I can strike up a conversation with any person in a room (Nazis excluded from that list) and have a really good time, but I can never tell if I should ask for a girl's number. It's a weird feeling knowing that I can talk to someone with such ease, but not know if a girl would be into continuing the conversation over dinner. Maybe I'm just too polite and focused on having a good time. One thing that's for certain is that I'm ready for my chance to smack the ball into the open net and hear the roar of the crowd - or just hearing my friends say "cool." 

The crazy part about the scene I described up top is that the guy was the bored one. That pompous jerk.

All Up In My Business

Over the past few months, I've gotten to know a lot of Apple employees. It's not at all because my computer has been breaking and I needed to stop in so frequently that I learned their names. I'm typing away on a MacBook that was put out in '06 and it still works like a charm, which is more than I can say for any clothes that I owned at that time (man, I've got to lose weight). I've come to know them because two of my closest friends have started working at the same store and we end up hang out together. But it's not just those two. I currently know five people who work for Apple that I've known before their time there.

What stinks is that my budding 'friendships' with their fellow employees has caused me to see how small the Apple world actually is. I could literally see the phrase "a few bad apples" come to life if I wanted to. Within this small circle, news travels really fast and that means I need to watch where I step. For instance: I started talking to a really cool girl who is an Apple employee - not even the same store my close friends work at. Before the week was over, it was known throughout a few stores that we hung out over drinks. I felt like a guy trying to squeeze out a fart in an elevator; no matter how hard I tried to keep it under wraps, everyone would soon find out. This didn't have any bearing on my thoughts about the girl, but it did make me question what the rumor mill would be like.

There is also the case of actually hanging out with my friends and their co-workers. Every get together's conversation has been dominated by the going ons of their job, usually leaving me and some others out of the loop, scratching our heads because we don't know who they're talking about. When the conversation finally dies off, it's always followed up by the taking out of iPhones and checking their social networks. It really made me self-conscious about the number of times I checked mine. I do have to say that it's actually gone down since I bought a watch, which I made the excuse of never wearing one because the time was on my phone. At least now I don't look like I'm addicted to my phone by constantly pulling it out of my pocket (what was the equivalent term of 'crackberry' for the iPhone?). Let's face it, whenever we check our phones for the time, we always forget what it is and have to pull it out again. So, I'm extremely thankful to my wristwatch for not making me look so addicted, which I guess is the same feeling heroin junkies have towards the veins in their legs during winter time.

Now the question is how do I interact with this community? I think I've come up with a solution. Get them drunk! Get them so drunk they stop talking about work. This method actually worked the night before Thanksgiving. There we were at our local bar, talking about everything under the sun except the latest gossip at Apple. Oh the good times we had. I also attribute it to the fact that most everyone in their social networks were present at the bar. No need to check Facebook if your status updates are all coming from the same location, right? And if anyone was posting pictures on Instagram, chances were that you're in the photo being shared (you can 'like it' when you got home).

So, that's my advice: forget about it all and become the 'bad apple' yourself.

Now, I know these friends are going to read this entry (you better or we're not friends!) and you should all know I love you. I just can't stand hearing about so and so who blows up the bathroom every day in between ping-pong matches in the break room (note: not an actual person).

Doppelgänger My Eggos!

I walked into my normal coffee shop this evening and the barista takes one look at me and shouts out my order before I even get to the counter. There I am standing, a bit in awe, contemplating how often I actually frequent this shop. That's when I realize the order she shouted out is similar to mine but not how I like it. Then I notice that I rarely ever see that barista and wonder how she would know what I order. I speak up and make my changes to the order and she looks up at me. "Oh, you're not who I thought you were," she says, "you look exactly like another guy who comes in here. You two could be brothers." I pipe up, "yeah, but I'm probably better looking than him." That's when another barista behind the counter just looks at me and her face tells me I'm wrong. 

I can't count the number of times I've been mistaken for someone else. How about the time I went out for a walk and a van pulls over (I immediately think of the crazy scenarios involving vans and strangers on the side of the road)? The driver gets out with a huge smile on his face, makes his way towards me and stops about five feet before reaching me, no longer smiling. He starts to laugh because he thought I was a close friend of his. It's all cleared up with a hand shake and he climbs into his van and is on his way. Now, this guy was way older than me and I wondered how old I must have looked in order for this guy to think I was his friend. If he's hanging out with people my age, he's definitely a creep, but his getting out of the van pretty much solidified that thought in my head.

So, how many times have we done this ourselves? We're out and about and come across someone we think is a friend. If you're me/a creeper, you follow the person for a little to make sure that your suspicions are correct. Sometimes you'll text the person to see if they check their phone. 9 times out of 10, I won't approach the person. I'll just let it go by and bring up the "encounter" the next time I see that person, ignoring their advice of approaching them next time. I don't care how sure I am, if there's a shred of doubt it's not you, I'm not saying anything. But, I have started to walk close by just in case, though.

What I wonder is if I actually look like these people. There was only one time I actually thought I was in a picture with a group of people I had never met in my entire life. It was during the silver age of Myspace and I stumbled across someone's profile. In their pictures was a shot of a guy who I could have used as a double had I been born a Hussein. I shared the pictures with friends and even they were convinced that this guy was me.

But my favorite story is about how I came to work for Urban Outfitters. It had been just a week or two since I moved to Denver and I was in need of some cash. I've come to accept the fact that I wouldn't make much money if I were to sell my body on the corner. So I did the next best thing; I found out where people I knew worked and asked if they were hiring. After getting a call to come in for an interview, I sat down with a manager and I noticed him staring at me and sometimes laughing. As I filled out some paperwork, another employee sat down next to me and struck up a conversation. He was laughing at times also. After a few weeks of being there, they came clean as to why I was actually hired. Apparently I looked and sounded exactly like someone they all loved who had left the store a few months before I arrived. There was even a test to prove this theory.

This guy's ex-girlfriend walked into the store and the same co-worker who sat next to me while I filled out paperwork told her to shut her eyes. He got me and told me to say hi to her. There I was, standing in front of a girl whose eyes were closed, being told to speak to her. It was a little weird, but when she heard my voice, her eyes shot wide open and she couldn't believe I wasn't him. We looked so alike that it took her a second to realize I wasn't actually her ex-boyfriend. I stood there hoping their relationship ended on a good note and that she wouldn't attack me.

There are plenty of other stories like these; ask me the next time you see me and we'll swap some 'gang' stories. Just make sure it's actually me.

Not me.

Who Inspects the Inspectors?

Something most New Yorkers have to go through is getting their car inspected. Since my first car, I always had this fear that mine wouldn't pass inspection and I would have to spend hundreds of dollars repairing something that I wasn't even sure needed to be fixed. It wasn't so much the fear that I would have to spend a lot of money but the thought that someone could possibly take advantage of me. I'm not completely clueless about cars, so that fear has subsided a little over the years, but there's always the lingering feeling that it would still not pass.

What has also helped was that I had cars that were better than the last. I'm not talking about expensive cars. I currently drive a Mazda Protege (not the hatchback) and it's probably the "nicest" car I've owned. It's completely reliable and great on gas, but I wish I had power windows. Still, the second car I ever owned was a Ford Explorer, which I purchased after being involved in a crash. I was scared of small cars because the one that was totaled in the accident was a small two door sports car. So, to get over my fear of tiny cars, I thought I'd buy the biggest car I could afford with the money the insurance company gave me. Boy did I make a huge mistake with buying that Ford.

The very first inspection I had done on the Ford cost me over a grand in repairs. I was only 19 at the time and my dad slapped the back of my head so hard that I'm sure my 39 year old self felt it, and I'm not looking forward to experiencing that pain again. This is definitely where my anxiety of car inspections stems from. 

Hopefully I'll be a successful writer one day and I won't have to deal with that. I'll be able to purchase a car that I know will pass its inspections. On top of that, the cars had better be new, and if they're not, they damn well better be gorgeously restored sports cars. I'd like to think no one in their right mind would fail a '69 Mustang Fastback. Now that's a Ford I wouldn't mind owning.

"What your mom buy you a 'puter for Christmas?"

Imagine what this world must look like to a guy who stepped out of a cryogenic sleep chamber, after being frozen for years. If you're like me, you immediately think of the movie Forever Young starring the sometimes controversial Mel Gibson. He plays a World War II era dream boat pilot who signs up to be part of an experiment for his pal. They forget about him and he wakes up in the 90's, not knowing what happened. Long story short, he meets a budding actor by the name of Elijah Wood and learns about the things he's missed.

Now, if I ever find myself in that type of situation, I wouldn't wait to hear about new technology. I'd want to find out if holograms existed and if people are actually having sex with robots. Maybe nano technology took leaps and bounds and disease is cured with a robotic army attacking viruses, but I have a feeling the common cold will still plague us. I would do all this after mourning the loss of my family and everyone I've ever met, of course.

Well, while I was sitting down at the coffee shop I over heard some older gentlemen say, "something box."

"Xbox?"

"Yeah. That's it."

I thought to myself if that's how I would actually turn out in my old age. Everything I mentioned up top was the follow up to this thought. It's, honestly, more of a declaration that I wouldn't turn out to be like these gentlemen. But, the above situation would also happen while I was still 28 and frozen then thawed out fifty years from now. So, would we become like our grandparents, handing over our new cell phones to our grandkids because we can't figure out how to work the damn thing?

But, the question that I keep asking is how hard must it be to not take notice of new technology around you? Did we take a huge leap that it created this rift between people who kept up and those who didn't? Looking back fifty years from today, the world was completely different. It's hardly a shadow of its former self. Rather than growing the guts to walk up to a girl, guys are fawning over women from behind a computer screen. They don't pick up the phone and call, they send texts, which led to "sexts", which prove that technology is now in the bedroom, and how can you ignore that? Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against flirting via texts, but there's a problem if your only interactions have been based in text.

What weirds me out the most is that kids are insanely competent with new devices. I can't watch a toddler play with an iPhone before they've learned how to properly wipe their own butt. A friend of mine told me about how is kid would take his phone and play around with it. They knew how to take pictures, access them when done, how to play games, and how to avoid deleting applications. Granted, he has two of the smartest kids I've ever seen in my entire life. In fact, one of them speaks better english than I do after a few beers, and he's only 2. (Please don't read that as the two year old drinking beer.) But, something about watching them makes even me feel a little obsolete.

Then I think back to grandparents. I want to be the grandfather who takes things away from my grandchildren in order to get it right, and to be what internet speak defines as L33T (elite). I always want to be right there, on the edge of what's new. From what I've noticed in my day to day life, it isn't that hard of a challenge.

Ricky, Don't Lose That Number.

Quick! What's the telephone number to your best friend's house? Ok. Now what's the number to their cellphone? If you're like me, you can probably remember the answer to the first question, but can't answer the second one to save your life. Back in my day (I can't believe I'm using those words), there was nothing but a piece of paper that helped us remember someone's phone number. The same could be said about their address.

Recently, I was helping my mom move some things around. In one of her old purses, I found a personal phonebook with the numbers and addresses of almost everyone I remembered from my childhood. What shocked me more than the fact that it was held together with tape was that it was completely up to date. There were names in there of people who had recently come into her life and I found myself asking myself if I had that kind of information about my own friends.

Sure, I could remember the number to my best friend's home, my mom's job, sister, our house, and even the ever popular Jenny of Tommy Tutone fame. What I couldn't remember was my dad's new cell phone number, best friend's cell phone, anyone's cell phone for that matter. Throw into the mix that I don't know their addresses either. Like most people, I know exactly how to get there, but I don't know the name to all of the streets. Thinking about it, the only address and number I actually remember memorizing, as of late, were to my current job.

If you're like me, you pop a new number into your phone and never look at it again. You trust that when you tap their name, your phone will do all the work and soon the two of you will be connected. Sometimes you don't even see a number. Instead of calling, a text will be sent and the only information you see about the receiving end is their name. And how many times has that bit you in the ass, accidentally sending a text to the wrong Angela? You know? The one who has a nice personality, but you never want to see her again, but you forgot to get rid of her number? Congratulations, you're the embodiment of false hope and it's all because you don't know their numbers and forgot to differentiate when you put them in your phone's contacts.

What I find funny about all of this is that it's coming from a society that is terrified of giving out personal information, yet willingly post it on Facebook for most everyone to see. The world can figure out where you are at an exact moment because people became obsessed with "checking in" to places. Even more, pictures are taken to further prove that they were at said establishment, and they were completely wasted. But, Lord help them if they ever need to call a friend for a ride and lost their cell phone.