Mice

A few months ago, my household was blessed with the arrival of a new baby. I am of course using the word "blessed" in the loosest possible sense. In any event, my roommate's "sister who isn't his sister" (I have no idea) recently gave birth, and apparently decided that this event merited moving into my apartment four days a week. This then resulted in her "mother who isn't really her mother" (still don't know) telling her that if she was going to be gone so much, she could just stay gone, which she then promptly did. Or at least, from a certain perspective she did. From the vantage point of an irritable tall man, it would seem that she was instead staying put. After spending a further month helping my living room live up to its' name, she and the baby finally managed to acquire lodging in a shelter. Fortunately for all, the shelter is fairly near my apartment, so she and the baby still come by every day to hang out, watch TV, and generally bathe in my sink.

I like to think of myself as a rather kind-hearted person, one who is generous enough in spirit to boldly declare that a single mother living on the street is a bad thing. I'd even go so far as to say I'm firmly in favor of offering someone assistance in their hour of need. However, I'm also a terrible human being, and firmly against babies being within shrieking distance of me. Lately I've been having some difficulty trying to reconcile these dual tendencies towards altruism and misanthropy. And when you come home every day to be freshly reminded of the fact that constant jet traffic from LaGuardia is not the single most bothersome sound you could have in your home, it's easy for misanthropy to gain favor.

On a more positive note, the arrival of the baby came with the arrival of an unaffiliated transient cat. Unfortunately, this cat has also brought an as yet undetermined quantity of freeloading mice to our attention. He has caught two so far, and his continued infatuation with the scurrying sounds from the radiator suggests that there are more to come.

So I've decided to do what any reasonable person would do: I'm going to buy the baby a pair of Mickey ears and give it Pavlovian cookie every time it squeaks. Hopefully we'll get at least one problem solved.
-TC

Diastema

I have a rather sizable gap between my front teeth. This gap is in fact so sizable that it is not unheard of for me to occasionally whistle as I speak. Growing up, I was mortified by the prospect of having to recite the tongue twister "Sally Sells Sea Shells by the Sea Shore." This was not a result of the common concern that I would be unable to perform the lingual acrobatics involved in correct pronunciation, but rather out of a fear that listeners might mistakenly think that I had adapted the work into a musical performance piece for piccolo and voice.

Thanks to my recently kindled love affair with This American Life, I discovered today that my dental shortcoming has an official medical name: diastema. It is very reassuring to know that if anyone brings up the subject of my front teeth, I will now be able to say that I am a diastematic. Telling them that I suffer from Rescue Ranger Dale's Syndrome is getting a bit embarrassing.
-TC

Dull, Dull, Dull...

When I first started this blog, I had intended to use it as an impetus to write on a regular basis. I figured that I might not have something interesting to say every single day, but that I should be able to come up with a pithy observation about life in big city (or how much I hate my own life in the big city) at least once a week. However, in making this assumption, I hadn't accounted for one tiny detail: I'm an extremely dull person who thrives on a healthy mixture of monotony and tedium.

The other day, I called my grandfather to wish him a happy 90th Birthday. After the conversation had drifted to a lengthy analysis of which foods taste good with salt on them, it struck me that this was probably the most interesting discussion I'd had all week. The stage set, we upped the ante by moving on to naming states we'd driven through but not stopped in, and fans of witty banter everywhere rejoiced as the art form was was taken to a whole new level when my grandmother chimed in with an annotated oral history on how much more expensive onions are than they used to be. The riveting revelations just would not end.

I live in one of the busiest and most exciting cities in the world. I'm constantly surrounded by all forms of culture, debauchery, and insanity that the mind can conjure. You'd really think I'd have more to show for my day to day existence than the ability to avoid eye contact with performance artists. Perhaps I need to get out more. Or talk to strangers more. Or talk to people I know more.
-TC

Woodside Story

Something unusual happened the other night while I was enjoying a leisurely stroll home with some Pakistani take-out that I hoped to get very well acquainted with. As I neared my house, I saw a group of young, urban toughs moving rather boisterously in my direction while speaking Spanish. Ordinarily, I would think nothing of this. I've lived in the city long enough that such sights aren't uncommon, my neighborhood isn't a particular hotbed of violent crime, and I'm large enough to fool most strangers into thinking that I might not be the single biggest coward in the history of time. Plus, having been raised by hippies, I've had the importance of not judging people based on appearances drilled into me since birth.

However, in spite of all this, I suddenly found myself overwhelmed with the feeling that I was about to be mugged. I don't know what made me so certain of the inevitability of my fate, but there was no doubt in my mind that things were about to get ugly. I didn't know what to do, but I was relatively certain that dropping my dinner and running away as I shrieked like a schoolgirl with a frog in her dress would be at very least undignified, if not actually counter productive. So instead I decided to proceed to my front door as though nothing was wrong.

What felt like a very long, very tense moment passed as I walked on and tried to remember the exact series of muscle movements involved in looking cool. I was about to turn and walk up the front steps of my building when suddenly and without warning the gang linked arms and began Wizard of Oz-style skipping down the street.

At that moment in my life, I was prepared to be mugged, and I was prepared to not be mugged. But I was definitely not prepared to walk into an impromptu reenactment of West Side Story.
-TC

The Continuing Adventures of Oatmeal Girl

I woke up the other day and found my house infested with young people. I wasn't especially thrilled about this development, as I dislike youth on principle, what with their vitality and hope for the future and all. But I assumed they belonged to my roommate somehow and thought nothing of it. After a quick shower, I wandered into the kitchen to get some water and found myself confronted with a young girl, maybe 16 or 17, who as best as I could tell was wearing nothing more than a blanket. I think she was my roommate's sister, who I'd only met once in passing when it was very dark out, but I didn't have time to confirm this suspicion. As I entered the room, she held out a bowl and asked, "Is...is this what you use to make oatmeal?" Extrapolating from the packets of oatmeal on the counter and the almost boiling pot of water, I read the intent of this question as "is this what I should eat oatmeal out of?" Horrified by the prospect that I was in the same room as a half naked and potentially underage girl who hadn't mastered such complex concepts as how a bowl works, I said "it could be," and left.

That was my first encounter with Oatmeal Girl. The next day, I was getting out of the shower when I heard the bathroom door creak open slightly. Again, I thought nothing of it, as the door hasn't closed enough to latch since I moved in, so I figured a draft must have nudged it a bit. But when it creaked further still, I decided to have a peek outside to make sure nothing was out there preparing to murder me or sell me encyclopedias or anything. Peering around the edge of the door, I found myself face to face with Oatmeal Girl, who appeared to have been spying on me as I was toweling off. She apologized and asked for a bar of soap, which I awkwardly handed her while hiding my shame behind the door.

When you realize that the only person to have seen you naked in the last few years is quite possibly the dumbest, unskilled, underage voyeur alive, it's difficult to argue that life is going according to plan.

-TC

Hockey

Last night I joined some friends in watching the Olympic gold medal hockey match between The United States and Canada, and I must say I found myself astounded. Just when I thought sports couldn't get any more boring, I was amazed at how incredibly little I could manage to care on the highest of international stages. It took many years of hard work and dedication, but I think I have finally reached the apex of human achievement in putting on such an unparalleled display of herculean disinterest. If only there was a medal for that.

-TC

Snow Storm

I lived in Phoenix for about eight months, and it was probably the most consistently awful eight months of my life. I had no friends. The ceiling in my cockroach infested apartment leaked rusty algae from time to time. My job involved destroying people's lives by looking at pictures of backed up toilets and decapitated horses all day long. I went on a single blind date with a woman who turned out to only have a single leg. In short, I came away with absolutely nothing positive to say about the American Southwest.

And yet somehow on days like this when I never see the sun, can't control the heat in my apartment, and am plagued by an ever increasing number of wet socks, I can't help asking myself, why did I leave the desert again?

-TC

Valentine's Day 3: Day Harder

When I was a boy, Valentine's Day was a day for friendship as much as for love. We'd tape brown paper bags to our desks, and walk around giving Ninja Turtle themed cards to anyone we could stand. I'd always open the package of cards, pick out the second best card for my best friend, keep the best one for myself, and divvy up the rest amongst my classmates, less as an exercise in appreciation for the people I gave them to than an exercise in spite for the people who weren't even worthy of false sentiment.

But oh, how times have changed. As adults, Valentine's Day is exclusively for the purpose of showering appreciation on people who have low enough standards to take their clothes off for us in hopes that they will continue to do so. If you're in a relationship, it's a day of love, sex, and rapidly depleting cash reserves. For me, it's usually a day of twiddling my thumbs while I have no one to talk to because no one else in the world seems to be single. But this year, I don't want to be left out of the festivities, so I've been trying to come up with a series of activities for one that will be both productive and romantic so that I may make the best use of my alone time without feeling like I'm the only person in the world who isn't in love.

Thankfully, another flash of inspiration struck when I woke up this morning. I live in New York City, where the opportunities for romantic activities are endless. But one of the time honored traditions for young couples in this city is the good old fashioned horse drawn carriage ride through Central Park. So, as a token of appreciation for myself, I'm going to get gussied up, head on over to Central Park, rent all the horse drawn carriages in the city, and pay them to run over anyone they see holding hands.

And then, if I'm in an especially jaunty mood, I might steal their chocolates.

-TC

Valentine's Day 2: Electric Boogaloo

Since I am lucky enough to be single this Valentine's Day, I've been planning for how I will spend my day. Pretty much no one I know is single, so I won't have to worry about regular social obligations. And as I am blissfully unattached, I won't have to worry about some chocolate and rose crazed harlot trying to have her lustful way with me again and again all night long until the sheer repetition of it causes me to pine for the fresh originality of the tenth season of M*A*S*H. Instead, I'm trying to come up with romantic yet productive activities for one to keep me busy while the rest of the world is engrossed in gazing lovingly into each others eyes. Thankfully, another flash of inspiration struck today. While all my friends and neighbors are out enjoying fancy dinners, carriage rides, or whatever it is that people in love are supposed to do to avoid conversation, I'll put on my fanciest suit, light a few candles, then break into their homes and steal their stereos. The proceeds should be more than enough to buy a Valentine's Day hooker.

What can I say? I'm a hopeless romantic.

-TC

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is this weekend, and like most single people, I'm trying to come up with plans for how to make the most productive use of my time while everyone else is stuck sitting through tediously romantic dinners, exhausting romantic walks, and unnecessarily passionate love making. As I'm not unfortunate enough to have my life fettered with such humdrum obligations, I'm going to have the quintessential single man's Valentine's Day. I'll be going out in search of the most romantic restaurant filled with the most happy young couples, and I will be setting it on fire. It's a sparse itinerary, but I think it will be a rewarding one all the same.

-TC

Maple Candy

My first job out of college was in a maple candy factory, perhaps the most successful application of a liberal arts degree to date. Now, as a good Vermonter, I am a huge proponent of all things maple. Maple syrup, maple candy, gay marriage licenses notarized with a maple stamp, you name it. I lived and died by the code of maple. That is, until I got the factory job and ate maple candy non-stop for the better part of a year. My shameless gluttony coupled with coming home every day in maple soaked pants (not to mention working with a drug dealer who regularly threatened to stab me) was enough to make the very thought of maple candy absolutely revolting to me.

When I went home for Christmas, I bought a maple leaf from my old factor as a little present for someone, but it never got delivered. So I've been looking at this maple leaf on my dresser for a few weeks and wondering, is four years enough time that I can finally put the past behind me and stomach the idea of maple candy again? Well, today my sweet tooth got the better of me and I decided to give it a shot. The verdict? The sickening sweetness of the candy was only offset by the bitter memory of folding thousands of these boxes as I opened it.

Maybe in another four years...

-TC

State of the Union

I was a bit disappointed with yesterday's State of the Union Address. I mean, really, it's just a giant iPod touch. What were you thinking, Obama?

-TC

Avatar

I finally broke down and saw Avatar last night. I'll only say two things about this movie. First...unobtainium? Really? This must have been a total Poochie moment in the writers room, if ever I saw one.

Second, at exactly what point in the course of human evolution do we start feeling the need to equip our giant, walking battle robots with hunting knives? "Sure they have machine guns and missiles, but you gotta give 'em a blade, 'casue you never know when they'll find themselves in the midst of a robot whittling contest."
-TC

An Important Lesson

My dad's toilet hasn't worked properly for a couple years now. He has neither the money nor the skill to have it fixed, so he's just sort of let it be, filling up the tank by hand with jugs of water whenever he needs to use it. So I decided that as part of his Christmas present this year, I would buy whatever parts need to be replaced and fix it for him. I like to think I learned a valuable life lesson from this experience. If someone says "I'd like you to fix my toilet, please," you say no. And if they say, "I'd really just as soon you didn't fix my toilet," you don't insist.

On the upside, after a good seven hours of effort, it does in fact work.

-TC