I'm about six hair follicles and living with my parents away from being George Costanza." Me, to my wife the other day.
I am currently unemployed. Yes, I have gotten messages and texts from some of you over the past several months about how hard it was for me to land that job and then I just up and quit.
Maybe it's because at 38 years of age, I've decided getting yelled at by people that don't touch my fun stuff is not as appealing as it once was. I'll get into more about that at some other time, but suffice it to say that it was a wake up call about what I do, or rather did, for a living.
Since law school, I've worked the typical 8-6 routine. I rarely took vacations. Yes, I'm going somewhere with this. Anyway, it's absolutely amazing to me how life goes on between 9-5. I guess I figured when I hopped in my car every morning and headed to work with visions of 'how can I murder my boss and some of my co-workers and get away with it' I just assumed life just kind of stopped.
Boy, was I wrong. So now I'm Mr. Mom. I vacuum, cook, clean the bathroom and take care of a whole host of things that you never get around to when you're working 'full time.' The sad part of it is I find it far more fulfilling than anything I ever did in 'my important lawyer job.' Taking a step back from it all has been an amazing experience. And a very good one for me. So here are a bunch of random thoughts I've had over the past couple of months, and I won't pretend there's any connection between them other than they're thoughts I had:
1. Adding the word 'consultant' to your job title increases your pay by about 50% and decreases your hours worked by about 70%. I have a friend that does this, and it floors me. He makes his own hours, generally puts up with some aggravation, and is well compensated. This has totally changed how I view work and I am exceedingly jealous of this friend. I see him as a modern day Jesus, and well, at some point, someone is going to have to bust out some nails and find some wood because his nature threatens the status quo of the current worklife existence and we can't have that type of guy running around, can we?
2. The amount of public urination that goes on is astounding. It's like a goddamned epidemic. I live next to an empty lot and I'll often stand on the roof and have a smoke. In any given week, I'll see at least 5-8 people urinating in this lot. Including chicks. Assuming that the amount of public urination is a constant, extrapolating how long I'm outside to witness it, I'd say there's at least 50-80 people peeing in the fucking alley. I used to think that those public urination tickets that got doled out were such bullshit. Now, not so much. Seriously, I'm so grossed out I'm tempted to wrap my dog in Saranwrap before she goes out. It's fucking disgusting. To fight this, in my own small way, when I see people doing this I begin yelling 'Hey everybody, look at Mr. Small Bladder. Apparently, indoor plumbing is not good enough for piss-boy' or some variation of that. It helps that I'm forty five feet up and behind locked doors. Man, people sure do get pissed when you point out they're pissing.
3. I'm a bigger asshole than I previously thought. That's saying something.
4. Fuck Mark Twain. I was far smarter at 18 than I am now. I don't know what happened, but somewhere along the way I stopped listening to my gut, or 'that little voice' that Magnum used to talk about. Speaking of which, Magnum was fucking awesome. Anyway, I used to trust myself a lot more than I do now, and when I look back at many of the mistakes I've made, I knew they were coming, but let them happen anyway. It reminds me of this class I took many years ago, we were discussing probable cause. There was a cop in our class, and he was a real good guy. "You have no idea what probable cause is when you're on patrol. All I can tell you is you see and take in things that you're not even aware of at the time. You can't articulate it, but you know." Normally, this type of talk from a cop would scare the bejesus out of me, but I know what he meant.
So back to trusting my gut and we'll see how that goes.
5. I must be a good lay, because the world never seems to pass up an opportunity to fuck me. So now that I'm unemployed, I figured that I would end up watching ESPN a lot. It figures that when I get the chance to, the only fucking thing ESPN runs is World Cup Soccer. Soccer is one of the most poorly designed sports ever. The first day of this worldwide extravaganza had two games that ended in a tie. A fucking tie? No sport should ever end in a tie, it's wholly unsatisfying, and indicates the designers of the sport did a poor job. I fell asleep and a soccer game came on, woke up, saw the score was 0-0, fell back to sleep and woke up an hour later. What was the score? 0-0. And the announcers were going on about what a great game it was. Bullshit. Nothing happened. Dumbass sport.
Like it couldn't have been wet t shirt week? Man, I love boobs.
6. Most people think their jobs are important. Little do they realize that most work is no different than those stupid workbooks we had when we were in grade school. And the funny thing is you knew at age 8 that this was bullshit, but somehow doing the same bullshit at age 28 makes you Bill Gates. I assure you, it doesn't. You were right at 8 and now you're just lying to yourself. You can thank me later.
7. People are largely unable to walk correctly. This fucking baffles me. For most folks, you've theoretically been walking for the majority of your life. Yet you still suck at it. Sadly, and I hate to throw anyone under the bus here, my wife is one of the offenders. My wife's method of walking is picking a spot 100 yards ahead, and walking in a straight line. I mean really fucking straight, like you could make a ruler out of that line. Now, this sounds like a good idea, because that's how many people learn to drive (i.e. you pick a spot in the distance, not look right in front of you), but falls apart quickly in practice. Where my wife's method falls apart is that she does not seem to account for any structures, people, or anything that is on the imaginary line. She just bowls ahead. Invariably, something is in 'the line' and this drives my wife nuts. I won't lie. I find it funny, because she will inevitably bust out the 'can you believe these clown-asses?' I just nod and smile.
8. Never, under any circumstances, allow your significant other or spouse anywhere near you with a pointy object. I've always known this, but for some reason I fail to listen to my own advice. Recently I had what can only be described as Mount Vesuvius on the back of my leg. So, being me, I freaked. I told my wife to look at it, and the next thing I know I'm getting stabbed to death in the leg. I barely survived. I also had gas the other day and thought it was a hernia, so I could be exaggerating. Maybe.
And finally, random quotes I've become attached to:
If I had a good rack, I'd rule the world. - Me, at lunch last week with a friend.
If our dogs were people, Sam would have been an accountant, and Dahlia a coked out stripper. Me, with my wife.
Believe me, if I didn't love tits and ass so much, I wouldn't put up with the crazy either. Me, to my friend (who happens to be gay).
All women are crazy. Yes, they are. And all men are assholes. So for women it's about finding an asshole you can tolerate and for men it's about finding a crazy you can deal with. Me, at lunch. I'm not 100% sure I came up with this quote, so if someone else did please let me know via e-mail or comment.
I like being married fine. Why did I get married? I'd like to tell you that I did it because we saw each other from across a windswept meadow and "Crazy for You" was playing in the background while an audience cheered and we moved in slow motion towards the center of the meadow to passionately embrace. Unfortunately, that couldn't be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is you get tired of dating because you just know at some point, the odds are going to catch up to you and you're going to wake up bound and gagged in a basement sitting on a kiddie chair having a tea party with some bitch saying 'Now you can never leave me like all the others' and you figure 'fuck it, the crazy I know is better than the crazy I don't know.' And thus you stop dating and get married. Romantic, ain't it? Me, to an unmarried friend.
Uh, were you the drunk guy? - A friend of mine, upon entering his bar at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday to find the bartender passed out in a booth, and whom upon waking said that some drunk guy came in around one a.m., knocked over a bunch of glasses and left so the bartender locked up and passed out in the booth.
It's not that I dislike the homeless per se, but they could dress a little better, don't you think? Me, showing my sensitive side.
