Eustress

The weekend is upon me (I don't work on Fridays out of principle) and I am once again faced with many a tough choice. Let's review them, in no specific order:

1) Go to San Diego to spend some time with my mom for Mother's Day. Surf good waves, eat good food, lounge around.

2) Go to Vegas with some friends to stay in some comped suites, drink comped booze, and likely engage in a brief and meaningless albeit satisfying liaison with a delightful young woman.

3) Stay in LA, party with friends all day Saturday, surf around here and enjoy the sun, play kickball and go bowling on Sunday.

I hate these kinds of choices. Sometimes choices are easy, like blondes or brunettes (brunettes), rights or lefts (lefts), light or dark beer (dark), ass or tits (ass). All of my options look pretty solid at this point and I am dreading the doom of this decision.

Shhhlinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo sequence of events:

9:02 am - Arrive at work.

9:04 am - Ready to leave work, perhaps go drink a beer

5:15 pm - Leave work, stop at FedEx to ship a package and there is a hot Asian woman in line in front of me, early 30's, great body, the day is already looking better

6:00 pm - Arrive at Cabo Cantina in Venice via bicycle. It's packed, I need a drink, I find my friends from my kickball team and get 2 beers for the price of 1.

6:45 pm - My beers are gone, so I order 2 more and a burrito. My friends order a margarita that comes in a glass a midget could bathe in.

7:00 pm - My third beer is gone and knowing how long the line will be, I head to the bathroom. I had several large gulps of said margarita and am feeling pretty good.

7:10 pm - I'm in line for the bathroom and shooting the shit with another dude in line. We are talking about how I am a genius for thinking of the idea of bars having a wall for its patrons to piss on.

7:30 pm - My fourth beer is disappearing, my burrito, its spicy salsa and my friends' margarita are rapidly making their way down my gullet, the sun is going down, but it's still 95 degrees in our booth.

8:00 pm - I head to the bathroom again. The line is long and full of chicks, but my friend is in the front of the line, so I go to the front of the line.

8:15 pm - My burrito is gone, my beers are gone, and I am poaching from the bevy of margaritas on the table.

8:20 pm - I order a margarita of my own - and make that a double, please. The guy sitting next to me and I are throwing ice and limes at our friend across the table. I am hitting her in the face like Kobe hits jumpshots. Every damn time.

8:25 pm - She dumps the ice from her finished margarita on me. It's hilarious to all, including me. I begin to plot my tactful revenge.

8:45 pm - I finish my margarita, but in our hot booth the ice has all melted. My friend sitting next to me is an accomplice in our plan to get said woman back. He gives me the ice from his margarita, distracts her, and I dump the ice down her shirt. If you can't take the heat then get out of the kitchen. I am too drunk to realize or care if she is offended.

9:00 pm - I am cross-eyed drunk, slurring, and need to leave. I exit without telling anyone. I can't read the combo on my bike lock, but I manage to unlock it. I get on my bike and ride home.

9:15 pm - Back at home my room mates and some friends are having a mellow cinco by drinking and making beer and eating some Mexican food. I go put on some sweatpants and lay in my bed. My room is spinning so I decide to leave my bed to avoid ralphing in it.

9:30 pm - Our neighbor is telling us about how he used to be married. I am surprised since he isn't very old. I also feel the urge to let some of this alcohol out in vomit form. I puke a little but not enough to be satisfied.

9:45 pm - I go try to puke again and I am more successful.

10:30 pm - My room is still spinning but I manage to fall asleep.

I hate you, Kings of Leon

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Moooove bitch, get out tha way!

Ludacris is from Los Angeles. How else would be have penned such appropriate lyrics? Our midwestern transplant friends, though nice and cheery, need to learn how to drive in the interest of avoiding a drive by shooting or being run off a freeway overpass.

What possesses people to slam on the brakes suddenly, drive slow in the middle of a wide open (but one lane) road, change into the fast lane to go slower, swerve without warning, or the like is unbeknownst to me. You can go left right when the light turns red, and you can turn right on a red light in California. These must be illegal in Sheboygan. Even if they weren't illegal here it wouldn't matter because no cops want to sit in traffic so nobody gets traffic tickets.

Underpinning this is the great irony of the metropolis. It's great to live around a bunch of people for the variety, but it sucks when you just want them to get the fuck out of your face (or lane).

Got an original slogan?

Remember that great Got Milk commercial from about 10 years ago? It was a work of genius, but it has spawned something so horrible that it must be killed immediately. Despite the fact that this commercial is pretty old, and even the milk processing board doesn't (or shouldn't) even use this slogan any more, people still think it is a viable and - get this - creative way to promote something.

These are all real:
Got Acai? Got Wax? Got Hope? Got Sand? Got Wolf? Got Net? Got Ketchup? Got Music? Got Drums?

They're endless. Even Southwest Airlines has done its own spinoff with its "Gotta get away?" spots. Is this what America has come to? Beating a dead horse with a concept that should only exist on "I Love the 90's?"

Waves, Women and Wine

"It's hard to get hold of and hard to let go..."

So quoth Modest Mouse in their most recent album, and I tend to agree. We wait and try hard to get things we want, but when we reach them they are gone, destined to live in eternal cycles of prospect and retrospect with an ephemeral refractory period.

Take my three favorite things, usually in this order: waves, women and wine. We anticipate the great feeling we get from them, but they are quickly ridden (waves and women) or swallowed. We try to savor the taste and feeling, but this is futile.

This is where one must learn to let go of that of which he has tried and tried to get hold, I suppose. I can try to get my last wave, woman, or sip of wine back, but short of a miracle, it is not going to happen. And would I really want it back? Do I want to relive my life's best experiences or forge ahead to create new ones?

We tend to resist change because it brings the unknown, but perhaps that which we resist most is that which sets us free. Perhaps change is the only thing we can count on. Everything we know of exists in the past, even what you just read. You can read it again, but it's will then re-enter the past.

Is it easy to get hold of or to let go? Probably not, but for me this inextricable pair is necessary to my survival.

Deja Vu

I don't really know how long this has been happening because it all seems to repeat and I am losing track of time, but I get deja vu at least a couple times a day. Unfortunately it isn't anything too exciting, like deja vu of a gorgeous woman with perfect breasts trying to seduce me. Everything is much more mundane. Walking through my office, driving and seeing certain signs, conversations with people...I'm may be losing it.

My exquisite French skills tell me that "deja vu" means "already seen," so have I already seen these things? I was stoned and I thought that maybe deja vu happens when a given number of objects in sight are common. I told you I was stoned right?

I guess it would be useful if I could do something with this deja vu blessing. I would be able to predict what someone is going to say, say it, and make them feel really awkward, or know that the 405-10 interchange is going to have a lot of traffic at 5:30PM and somehow find the perfect alternate route.

Anyone want me to read their crystal ball?