-I have suffered the ultimate humiliation.  The final, demoralizing blow.  The definitive low point in the spectrum of twentysomething life.  That’s right, I’ve moved back home with my parents.  Fuck me.

-Now, before you feel too sorry for me, I must disclose that this was actually a voluntary decision.  Since Brian, my roommate of three and a half years, was moving out and our lease was ending, I had two choices: spend the month of December scouring the freezing streets of Manhattan with some dipshit apartment broker wearing too much Drakkar cologne, or sack up and move to LA.  Both are a fate worse than death.  Instead, I took the third option: move in with the ‘rents for a couple of months.  So here I am on Long Island, writing this column in the room I grew up in, staring at posters of John Starks and Kathy Ireland.

-I do have some responsibility around the house, though.  Like I have to take out the garbage and wash the dishes.  And I don’t even get allowance.  Think you’re discouraged about the lack of upward mobility in the job market?  Look at me.  I’m twenty-five years old and I have the same job I had in junior high, plus I took a 100% pay cut.

-Of course, the number one drawback to living at home is the increased difficulty in meeting chicks.  Luckily, with a girlfriend I can visit on the weekends, I don’t have to deal with this problem.  Otherwise, I don’t know what I would do if I was picking up girls in bars: “Hey, why don’t we go back to my place?  Yeah, um, there’s a 3:44am train out of Penn Station.  Oh, and I sleep on a twin bed with football helmet sheets.”

-Thankfully, my buddies in Manhattan still stay in touch.  My friend Chi happens to call every night just as I’m sitting down to dinner with my parents.  He’s like a telemarketer.

-In my old apartment, my life revolved around DVR.  Upon moving home, I discovered that not having DVR in the house exactly duplicates the symptoms of PMS.  Trying to watch all my shows live makes me tense, irritable, and fatigued.

-So even though I’m not getting allowance, I immediately went out and bought my parents DVR.  My mom was so proud when she first started using it.  She was like, “Honey, guess what?  I’m taping two shows tonight!”  I was like, “Mom, that’s great, I’m taping fourteen different things.  Oh, and by the way, you don’t have to stand right next to the box…that’s kind of the whole point.”

-Seeing my mom’s glee, my now former roommate Brian got DVR for his parents as well (who, ironically enough, now live much closer to me than Brian does).  Brian’s mom promptly called him up and asked him to how to tape an episode of “Lost” from two weeks ago.  Brian was like, “Mom, it’s DVR, not a time machine.”

-Though it’s only been three weeks or so, living at home has thus far been bearable.  I’ve learned a lot about my parents.  For instance, if they go to the movies, no matter what they thought of the plot or acting, invariably their only comment is, “It was too long.”  And that’s precisely the sentiment I want to avoid about my stay here.  I hope to be out of here soon enough.  But not before I ask for a raise in my allowance.  I really need to buy new sheets.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-This New Year’s Eve, instead of spending 200 bucks to go to some club that I wouldn’t even go to on a normal night if it was free, Girlfriend decided to throw a party in her apartment.  It was very exciting.  Not because I saved so much money, but because this was the first time in history I kissed someone at midnight that I didn’t meet only 45 minutes earlier.

-The day after having a party at your place involves a lot of cleaning up along with the requisite freaking out that you can’t find some of your shit and assuming someone must have stolen it.  And you always find yourself making up bizarre reasons why someone at the party would have taken things until you figure out where you put them:  “Well, what if someone lost their glasses, and happened to find my glasses in the drawer, and they just happened to have the same prescription and…oh wait, I’m wearing them.  My bad.”

-The end of the year is also the time to tip people, which Brian and I dutifully did to the employees of our apartment building.  I always find it ironic that the people who get the most tips are the people you’re not sure did anything in the first place.  Like our building had a porter.  A what?  Who is this guy?  We never needed anything, uh…ported.  Bam! – he gets fifty bucks.  And the people who do deserve it don’t get anything.  Like the deli guy down the block who every Saturday morning had to put up with Brian ordering three eggs but only one yolk.  Now that’s dedication.

-The most awkward moment in television has to be toward the end of the nightly news, right after the weather, when the sports guy, the weather guy, and the two anchors banter and kibitz with each other for like fifteen seconds about nothing.  Never have more bad jokes been told or more people looked out of their element at one time.  All that hairspray must be going straight to their brains.

-Does Bowflex give you bombs?  I keep seeing these infomercials for Bowflex, and all the gourmet chicks using the machine have huge breasts.  Infomercials wouldn’t dare stretch the truth, would they?

-I think that all reality show contestants should be required to say in the first episode, “I didn’t come here to make friends.”  Might as well get it out of the way because you’re going to say it eventually anyway.  Please save us the time and energy of DVRing past your boring ass.

-And, finally, many of you are probably wondering what’s become of Brian now that we’ve gone our separate ways.  He moved in with his girlfriend and he’s doing just fine.  In fact, after a long week of living with my parents, I came in to the city the other day to hang out with Brian and check out his new place.  It’s really nice.  They have a loveseat.  And coasters.  And they’re getting a cat.  It’s very homey.  His girlfriend served us some iced tea while we sat in the living room chatting.  They told me about their upcoming dinner plans with friends and about the last movie they saw, which they thought was way too long.  And then it hit me.  It felt just like…living with my parents.  Fuck me!

HOME

-Three and a half years is the natural limit for heterosexual males to live together.  And so, after thousands of arguments, hundreds of rolls of toilet paper, dozens of pre-games, three girlfriends, two apartments, and 42 months of living together separated only by a thin, temporary plaster wall, my roommate Brian is finally moving out.  It is a time of sadness and of joy.  But most of all, it is a time for retrospection.  This one’s for you, man, the most absurd roommate of all time.

-Here’s an argument typical of the Karo/Brian Experiment.  Our apartment building has a garbage chute in the hallway.  Since we rarely, if ever, take out the kitchen trash, I usually throw food waste directly down the chute.  Brian refuses.  He insists on throwing rotten bananas and leftover tuna fish in the kitchen garbage, saying, “Karo, it’s a garbage can, that’s what it’s there for.”  Dude, garbage cans only work if you empty them.  If you don’t, it’s not a garbage can – it’s just a filthy hole next to the fridge.

-What else has made the Karo/Brian Experiment so unique?  We taunt each other in song.  That’s right, instead of making fun of each other like normal male roommates, we put our insults to music.  Here’s the soundtrack: I say I’m really tired from writing all day and Brian sings “Cry Me a River.”  Brian complains that he used to be in much better shape and I sing “Glory Days.”  I yell at Brian for throwing garbage in the garbage can and he sings “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”  Brian tells me he’ll be spending his 42nd consecutive night with his girlfriend and I sing “She Drives Me Crazy.”  I say that I’m going on a second date with a girl and Brian sings “You’re Still the One.”  I figure any friendship that spans from Springsteen to Shania Twain must be a good one.

-As if you couldn’t see this one coming, Brian is of course moving in with his girlfriend.  This is really not much of a change, since Brian and his girlfriend basically live together in our apartment right now.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  I calculated that over the past 100 days, his girlfriend has spent the night roughly 95 times, he’s stayed at her place three times, and twice they slept apart.  There are just so many jokes I could make about those figures, but I have a lot to get to in this issue, so I’m just going to move on.

-OK, I can’t move on.  I just don’t get it.  Brian and his girlfriend go away for ten days on vacation.  They come back after a really long flight and his girlfriend comes over directly from the airport and stays over for the next week.  Don’t you need a little break from each other?  Don’t you want to unpack?  What the hell is wrong with you people??

-And when they are in the apartment together, they are always touching.  Sometimes lightly caressing, other times massaging, maybe even a little tickling, but definitely always touching.  Hello??  Do you see me?  I’m right next to you two on the couch.  Have a little decency for the love of God.  I’m about to throw up in the garbage can and you know it’s just going to sit there.

-I can’t even picture what the two of them are going to be like when they move in together.  I mean, Brian is already twenty-five going on forty-seven years old.  I can only imagine him and his girlfriend reading in bed together every weeknight, a lamp on each of their night tables glowing while they hold hands under the covers.  Then on the weekends, they’ll sit on the couch with mugs of coffee and the Sunday paper.  Actually, I can’t imagine any of that.  Brian doesn’t read.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-You know what, fuck that, let’s just keep discussing Brian as a roommate.  After all, this is the last time I’ll ever get to do it.  And just to be fair, he gets plenty of shots in at me, too.  For instance, he recently overheard me talking on the phone to a sorority girl who was organizing an upcoming performance of mine at a college.  I was making small talk and I said something like, “Oh, you’re in Tri Delt?  They were like the third best sorority at my school.”  As soon as I got off the phone, Brian was like, “Karo, you graduated three and a half years ago.  Are you still ranking sororities?”

-Brian’s current girlfriend is actually his second serious relationship in the time we’ve lived together.  When we first moved to the city, Brian was still dating his girlfriend from college.  She totally ran his life.  Once, when she was between apartments, Brian let her move in with us for a whole month without even asking me.  The weird thing is that she actually lived here and was still in the apartment less than his current girlfriend is now.  How is that even possible?

-After the college relationship finally fell apart in a flaming wreck, I was happy to see Brian single for a little while.  It was a drunken, assless time for him, but at least there was more room on the couch for me.  Then he met his current girlfriend.  I’ll be honest, I did my best to stop the impending relationship after they started hooking up.  I told him not to call her.  I told him not to see her.  I was the typical single, asshole roommate.  But it was too late.  Brian’s parents came to the city for dinner one night and took him and his girl out instead of me.  And that was basically it.  Not only was I losing my friend, but I was missing out on free meals as well.  And that hurt.

-Eventually, Brian and his new girlfriend fell in love.  They love each other.  And that’s just great.  But I don’t think Brian understands that just because you love someone doesn’t mean you have to say “I love you” at the end of every single phone conversation, voicemail, email, text message, and Post-it note.  It’s OK not to say it.  I don’t think she’ll forget – you’ve been in physical contact for sixteen consecutive hours.

-And, finally, Brian and I are childhood friends and, ironically enough, our parents live so close to each other that our houses are actually architecturally identical.  In fact, the only difference is that his layout is the reverse of mine.  In a way, that sums up our friendship.  We are so similar, yet so opposite.  We both have girlfriends – he’s about to get engaged to his but I haven’t seen mine in three days.  We both have passions – I’m hooked on my iPod but he knows the words to every single McDonald’s theme song from the past twenty years.  And we have our weaknesses – he’s pretty much dysfunctional when it comes to dealing with women but I can’t take a bra off with one hand.  But in the end, we got along incredibly well these past few years.  We laughed, we drank, we had a blast.  I’m happy for him and his girlfriend.  But for me, the Karo/Brian Experiment will always be our Glory Days.  And so I bid you farewell, roommate.  It’s been real.  Oh, and Brian, don’t forget the trash on your way out, just for old times’ sake.  Fuck me.

HOME

-To me, true success is not marked by scoring that big promotion or landing that sweet apartment, it’s whether you can still stay out until last call.  I think that shutting down the bar is like the triathlon of twentysomething life – you need to have the money to spend, the ability to drink, and the stamina to stay awake until 4am.  Last call is also a great time to meet chicks.  After all, what’s a better time to pick up women than when they’re poor, drunk, and tired?

-I’ve noticed that you have to be really vigilant at the bar these days, otherwise the busboy, waitress, or bartender will swipe your drink away before you’re even finished.  And they always hold the bottle up to the light to see how much is left before handing it back to you with a smirk.  Hey, I paid eight bucks for this fucking beer.  If I want to lick the moisture off the side of the bottle and then eat the label, I think that’s my prerogative.

-Drunk guys sure like to exaggerate.  I was out boozing when the Pacers-Pistons brawl broke out last week, so over the course of the night I heard a series of accounts of what happened from several increasingly inebriated guys.  By the time I got home, my understanding was that the incident lasted three and a half hours, the fans and Pacers had engaged in West Side Story-style choreographed fight sequences, and Ron Artest had invaded Iraq.

-I have friends who, when I call to see if they’re ready to go out, always say something like, “Yeah, I’m just putting a shirt on.”  Yet, somehow, they don’t show up for forty-five minutes.  Unless “putting a shirt on” is the new slang for beating off and taking a shower, in which case I’m way out of the loop.

-The other night, when positively describing a new bar that had just opened up, my friend Chi mentioned that the place only serves pints of really good beer.  See, that’s the opposite of what I want.  I’d like a bar that only serve cans of really cheap beer.  And not Coors Light, mind you, I’m talking about Natty Light, Keystone, or Schlitz.  Beer so cheap it’s clear, only costs a dime, and has a label pronouncing it “World’s Greatest Beer.”  The kind you don’t really mind if the bartender grabs before you’re finished.

-Last month, I performed at the University of Florida and then after the show went to the Swamp, the campus bar.  I had a kick-ass time.  The only disconcerting thing was that all the kids were ordering drinks I’d never even heard of.  I felt old.  Then again, if taking fuzzy Mrs. Doubtfire shots is what’s cool these days, then I don’t want to be young.

-At this stage of the game, there is no reason that, at any point in the night, the word “list” should be mentioned.  Seriously, I’m twenty-five years old.  We’ve all been through this countless times.  The list does not work.  The list will not get you in.  The list does not get you comped.  The list does not exist.  But, um, you know what…why don’t you just put me on anyway.  You know, just in case.

-Of course, the polar opposite of shutting down the bar is what’s universally known as a “slow night.”  The slow night can strike at any time.  Maybe there’s a light drizzle.  Maybe the night before was pretty wild.  Whatever the reason, forces conspire to create a night where nobody wants go out.  Nobody except for you.  But hey, a night without going out, getting wasted, and staying up late is good for you, right?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.  Hold up, I’ll join you.  Just let me put on a shirt.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Is it weird that I only like riding elevators by myself?  When the doors open and someone’s in there, my heart sinks.  The elevator ride is happy alone time for me.  I don’t want to spend it looking down at off-color tiles in awkward silence.  It reminds me of taking a shit at work.

-Two of my buddies, Jason and Jeremy, just passed the bar exam.  Now they’re real, live lawyers.  I’ve never been friends with a lawyer before.  I’m psyched.  Now I can make bad jokes about them at dinner parties and everyone will laugh.

-Three of my med school friends, Adam, Christina, and Triplet #3, all have girlfriends or boyfriends that are also in medical school.  I don’t buy the excuse that med students often date other med students because they spend all their time in the hospital.  I just think that misery loves company…socially awkward company wearing lab coats.

-Think that’s an unfair jab at med students?  Recently, I asked my single med school friend, Seth, if he’d ever, you know, examined a naked dude.  He said, “Karo, I’ve seen more penises than you could ever imagine.”  Now, would you date him?

-Ever send a text message and, right after you hit send, realize you might have sent it to the wrong person?  Since cell phones have no outboxes, you have no idea where your text may have gone and you can only imagine what your mom or boss will think when they get a text that says, “i m taking a huge shit at work right now.”

-I experienced a true New York City moment the other day.  I got hit by a bicycle.  I was knocked down but was luckily unhurt.  It was very surreal.  I was stunned.  Bystanders were stunned.  The bike messenger who hit me didn’t even stop.  It was a hit and ride!  I couldn’t get a license plate number but I’m pretty sure it was a Schwinn.

-I haven’t done anything in the past few days except watch Seinfeld on DVD.  It’s kind of like when you get a gourmet new porno and don’t want to leave the house.

-How come whenever I go to Hooters, my table always gets the one ugly waitress?

-How come whenever I get out of the shower, I can’t remember if I put deodorant on and end up sniffing myself like a dog?

-And, finally, I recently had to move down a notch in my belt.  Not in the good direction, in the fat direction.  That’s always a sad day, isn’t it?  You spent the past month ignoring the warning signs (i.e. the crease in your belly every time you took your jeans off) but now it’s time to face the truth.  You vow to get back that notch but know in your heart it may never happen.  I guess that’s what I get for sitting around watching Seinfeld all day, eating at Hooters, and getting hit by a bike…instead of riding one.  Fuck me!

HOME

-Last weekend, my cousin Rob proposed to his girlfriend at the finish line of the New York City Marathon.  My reaction: “Proposed?  I don’t even like sleeping in the same bed as my girlfriend.”  My friend Shermdog’s reaction: “Girlfriend?  I can’t remember the last time I hooked up with the same chick twice.”  My friend Cat’s reaction: “Marathon?  I don’t even have a gym membership!”

-Meanwhile, I’ve been dating Girlfriend for eight months now, moving her into second place on my all-time longest relationship list.  The eight-month mark is usually the time when boyfriends start to let themselves go.  I’ve gotten really lazy.  I don’t work out as much.  I barely leave the house.  In other words, if Girlfriend ever reaches first place, it won’t exactly be a Hank Aaron-like moment.

-Recovering frat boys like me who have girlfriends are often confronted with the “grass is always greener” dilemma.  In simplest terms, a lot of guys think they’d be better off without a girlfriend because then they could run around spreading their seed at will.  We are so dumb.  I was single for four years before meeting Girlfriend.  I did pretty well during that time.  But it was hard work.  And tiring.  And I still crapped out pretty often.  The grass is definitely not greener.  It’s brown and wilted and in some spots it’s just cement.

-And in reality, for guys, hooking up really doesn’t matter all that much.  It’s telling your friends a good story that’s the real fun.  I would venture to say that I get more pleasure from telling and re-telling a good, crazy, wasted hook-up story than from the experience itself.  I don’t even think I need the actual hook-up, just the memory of it.  Like the movie “Total Recall” but with blow jobs.

-On the Saturday night before my cousin proposed at the marathon, I was trading text messages with my fraternity buddy, Joey.  He was out boozing in Miami.  A few hours later he texted me, “I’m engaged!”  I wrote back, “Dude how drunk R U???”  It turned out he had proposed to his girlfriend of several years (and only got drunk afterwards).  But that makes three out of twenty-four of my fraternity’s graduating class that are engaged.  That’s 1/8 of the wildest, dirtiest bastards I know.  I never would have expected that.  I do know this, though: none of those guys have ever run a marathon.  Combined.

-Recently, Girlfriend and I tried planning a vacation.  But the first time we can both really get away is February.  This makes planning the trip a delicate situation.  After all, we’ve only been dating for eight months.  February is four months away.  In essence, when I put down a deposit for the hotel, I’m also asking for a 50% advance on my relationship.  Given my past credit history, that might not be such a smart move.

-Girlfriend is a craigslist whore.  She roams craigslist like a lion stalking its prey, except she’s only looking for a used DVD burner.  She likes to sell her stuff on craigslist, too.  The best part is that she makes me wait in her apartment when buyers come over to inspect her stuff to make sure they don’t attack her or anything.  I’m like, if anyone is strong enough to lug around the armoire you just sold them, I’m pretty sure he won’t have much trouble beating me up.  Unless he’s had a girlfriend for more than eight months.  If he’s that out of shape, I might be able to take him.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-When I was thirteen years old, never did I think that, twelve years later, I’d still be using pimple cream.  I have pretty good skin now but I still have the same acne-cleansing routine before I go to bed that I had a decade ago.  And I’ll probably use it until I never have a pimple again, if that ever happens.  I guess the saying is wrong.  There really are four certain things in life: death, taxes, Clearasil, and Oxy.

-Don’t girls just love their cute, little digital cameras?  Listen, I think they’re cool, too, but there is no reason to take 600 posed pictures every time you go to dinner with three or more people!

-Why do we Americans insist on embarrassing ourselves?  For instance, if I ever meet someone who is from anywhere in Europe, I invariably say, “Oh, cool, I studied abroad in London.”  Who the fuck cares?  That’s like me telling a Spaniard that I’m from the United States and him saying, “Oh, bueno, I spent a weekend in Cleveland once.”

-I happen to enjoy “Joey” on NBC.  One thing really bothers me though – Joey wears his shirt tucked in but no belt.  I can’t get past the no belt thing.  Maybe the chick from “The Sopranos” never notices because she can’t see around her breasts.

-The other day, I ordered toilet paper on the Internet.  Greatest fucking thing ever.  It was soft.  It was cheap.  And I didn’t even have to leave the house.  If I could get them to deliver it to me in my actual bathroom, my life might be complete.

-Someone asked me the other day if you have to be crazy to be an investment banker, since so many of my friends went through that hell.  I said no.  You know what job you really have to be crazy to do?  Fraternity house chef.  I have never heard of a frat house chef that wasn’t either completely wasted all the time or clinically insane.  I’ve also never heard of a frat house chef that actually knew how to cook, but that’s a whole other issue.

-Girlfriend has a back problem.  Her roommate has a heart condition.  Yet they both still insist on running around, bending to pick stuff up, and exerting themselves when they damn well know they shouldn’t.  They’re like my grandmas.

-And, finally, women just freak me out sometimes.  A few months ago, I told Girlfriend that I just don’t like the beach.  I don’t like getting sand in my crotch, I burn easily, and sitting in the hot sun on some uncomfortable chair all day reading John Grisham novels is just not my idea of fun.  Girlfriend, a staunch beach-lover, was upset about this for a while, but when the weather got colder, the issue seemed to disappear.  Or so I thought.  The other day, at about 7am, I happened to stir awake, and when I did, I found Girlfriend wide awake, just staring at me intently.  Before I could even get my bearings, she whispered to me sadly, “Honey, how come you don’t like the beach?”  I don’t know, maybe because you’re completely psycho!  Fuck me!

HOME

-If you’re anything like me, this weekend you’ll spend both nights going to six different bars to celebrate ten different people’s birthdays.  And what’s weird is that I’ll go weeks and months without a birthday party, and then all of a sudden I simultaneously get a dozen Evites for various shindigs, blowouts, and the occasional bash.  This Clustered Birthday Phenomenon (or CBP) is without any logical explanation.  It just seems as if, even though my friends come from varying backgrounds and geographic locations, all of their parents happened to have fucked during the same February weekend in the late 1970s.  CBP is a dangerous epidemic too, usually resulting in exorbitant amounts of money being spent at annoying bars with people I don’t like.  Every Evite should come with a disclaimer that says: “Warning, this party may suck.”

-Last weekend, which was thankfully birthday-free, I had a pretty wild Saturday night.  But when I woke up the next morning, I actually didn’t feel that horrible, only slightly horrible.  I rolled out of bed, made a piece of toast, and promptly devoured it.  About half an hour later, I was in the bathroom vomiting Exorcist-style with no regard for life, limb, or porcelain.  When I finally recovered, the first thing I said to my roommate Brian was, “Dude, I think I have food poisoning.”  Isn’t that just so apropos of the twentysomething mentality of denial?  We go from bar to bar ordering beer after beer and taking shot after shot, and then when we throw up the next day, what do we blame our sickness on?  Toast.

-I was out a few weeks ago with Triplets #1 and #3.  We were having a bite to eat and some beers at a local bar.  After we ordered drinks, the waitress asked us for ID.  As twenty-five-year-olds, we weren’t really insulted, more like bewildered.  We were like, “Wait a minute, underage people actually exist?  And they come here?  That’s impossible!”  I think that, soon after you turn twenty-one, you block out all recollection of ever being underage.  For me, the only reminder of that time is the picture on my driver’s license – in which I look about eleven years old.

-I have a girlfriend.  But if I’m going to a bar with some of my boys, the first thing I ask is, “Are there going to be any hot chicks there?”  Why should I care, since I’m not going to hook up anyway?  Well, some people like bars with dim lighting and cool paintings on the walls.  I like bars with hot chicks everywhere.  It’s just for atmosphere.

-I think that if you went to college anywhere with a direction in its name, you drink way more heavily than anybody else.  Think about it.  University of North Texas.  Western Carolina.  Central Florida.  These people get really fucked up.  I don’t know if they feel inferior because their school is so far in the middle of nowhere that a directional name is necessary and they have to compensate or what.  They might as well call it University of South Holy Shit I’m Plastered.

-About a year and a half ago, I emceed an event at a bar in New York.  A few days ago, I found out that two people who went to the event because they were fans of my column met each other, and are now engaged.  Oh my God.  People are getting married.  Somehow I feel responsible.  This can’t be good.  Seriously though, Rob and Lori, I wish you the best of luck.  May you one day have many beautiful children whose birthdays I am not invited to.

-On a personal note, as I sat in the stands at Yankee Stadium the other night, watching the Yankees lose Game 7 of the ALCS to the Red Sox, I could barely believe my eyes.  My team was completely choking.  To the fucking Red Sox.  I still can’t believe it.  But, hey, we lost.  You guys won.  And I’m pretty sure that David Ortiz is my daddy.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Do you think that construction workers ever get woken up really early in the morning, get up, look out the window and think, what the hell is all that racket?

-I can’t wait for this presidential election to be over.  Not so much because I hate politics, but because I hate stupid, uncreative advertising that uses an election theme.  I do not want to choose a president of beers or listen to a candidate who sells Internet access.  If I wanted the droning repetition of focus-grouped slogans, I’d pay attention to the actual election.

-My buddy Chi is the king of hyperbole: “It’s the nicest day out ever.”  “That was the greatest half-hour of television I’ve ever seen in my life.”  “These are the coolest jeans in the history of the world.”  Hey, Chi, how about this – you’re the biggest idiot of all time.

-My buddy Claudio is That Guy Who is Always Late.  I’m a very punctual person, so never in my life have I been able to fathom the Late Guy.  Why are you always late?  You’re like a chick.  Just leave earlier for God’s sake.  And the worst part about Claudio is that he doesn’t even think it’s a big deal when he shows up so late.  He’s like, “Why is everyone so pissed off?”  And I’m like, “Claud, the party was yesterday.”

-Throughout the years, I have commented numerous times on my roommate Brian’s strange quirks.  But I’ve never mentioned his most salient characteristic: his quasi-speech-impediment.  First of all, for some reason he pluralizes words that shouldn’t be pluralized.  For instance, he’ll say, “Knock on woods” or call his girlfriend “Babes.”  Once when I asked him who was hosting Weekend Update, he said, “Colins Quinn.”  Where he gets that extra “s” from, I have no idea.  He also has a tendency to fumble upon common phrases.  He’ll say, “I hunked the horn” (honked), “They’ve very tight-knitched” (tight-knit), “I was thrown through a loop” (for a loop), or even “She gave me the fifth degree” (third degree).  And when you correct him he’ll say, “Odviously that’s what I meant.”  And I’ll say, Brian, you’re my boy for life, but the word is “OBviously.”

-And, finally, how great is being invited to a party that you have no desire to attend and actually having a legitimate excuse of why you can’t go?  You’re always like, “Oh, man, I’m sorry dude.  I wish I could come to your birthday…but I can’t.  I was really looking forward to it but my second cousin is getting married in New Jersey and I obviously can’t miss it.  But thanks for the Evite, man, and have a great birthday!”  And just when you’re done feeling all smug for getting out of another birthday party, you realize, wait a minute – I have to go to my second cousin’s wedding in New Jersey.  That’s even worse!  Fuck me.

HOME

-During the first few weeks that a guy starts seeing a girl, or the first few weeks after a guy and girl break up, if you ask the guy if he thinks the girl is hooking up with anyone else, he’ll always say, “No.”  It may be completely incorrect, but in our minds, we cannot fathom the possibility that a girl has other romantic interests besides us.  A guy could be invited to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding, watch her exchange vows with her fiance, and turn to his buddy and say, “Dude, she’s totally still into me.”

-Nothing defines the difference between men and women more than our relationships with members of the same sex.  A woman moved in across from a girl friend of mine and my friend tells me, “Oh I hate my new neighbor, she’s so thin and cute.”  Can you imagine if a guy moved in next door to me, and my roommate Brian was like, “I totally hate our new neighbor,” and I was like, “I know, his hair is so perfect!”

-Girls carry umbrellas around all day long in their gigantic purses.  Guys refuse to leave the house with an umbrella no matter what the circumstances: “It looks like it’s about to rain.”  “Oh, it will clear up.”  “But the weather report says it’s going to thunderstorm.”  “Come on, they’re always wrong.”  “It’s pouring right now.”  “I’ll take my chances.”

-I was on my way to the drugstore the other day when Girlfriend called and asked me to pick up some feminine products and other shit for her.  As I warily made my way through the skin care aisle, I could not believe how many ointments and gels they make just so girls will look better than their next-door neighbor.  I actually saw something called de-ageifying lotion.  I don’t even think that’s a word!

-When I’m walking with a bunch of guys and girls, inevitably the guys will stop at a corner, look back, and see that the girls are nowhere to be found.  Why can’t girls walk faster?  And it’s not like they’re half a block behind.  They’re like six blocks behind.  And we only walked four blocks!

-My girlfriend walks so damn slow…yet she goes to the bathroom twice as fast as me.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  After we go to the movies, we’ll both go to the bathroom, and when I come out, she’s waiting for me.  You know how embarrassing that is?  Obviously, in our relationship she wears the pants…and I carry the umbrella.

-I think the most drastic change in my life since I started dating Girlfriend is that masturbation has become a special time for me.  It used to be such a common occurrence.  Now it’s so rare that I find myself with seven minutes of alone time in my apartment that I have to savor it.  I dim the lights, I light some candles.  All I need is some de-ageifying lotion and I’m good to go.

-A few weeks ago, I was talking to this girl in a bar who had recently moved to New York from California.  Soon after I commended her on her excellent judgment, I wanted to retract that statement.  That’s because she then told me that although she loved the city, she felt that the one thing the bars were lacking was enough guys.  I said, “Honey, in the all the many years I’ve lived here and all the many bars I’ve been to, never in my entire life have I ever heard anyone say, “You know what this place could really use?  More dudes.”

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Way too many things are made with honey mustard these days.  Honey mustard dressing.  Honey mustard chicken.  Honey mustard pretzels.  Let me be the first to say it – honey mustard is played out.

-Someone recently asked me if, when my parents come in to the city or we go out to eat, do they pay for everything.  I was like, are you kidding?  I don’t even bring a wallet!

-I hate people who wear nice clothes on Saturday afternoon even if they’re not going anywhere.  If I look around, guys are wearing dress shoes, khakis, polo shirts.  Why?  It’s Saturday.  Afternoon.  I’m not even wearing socks, let alone something with a collar.

-I’m quite sure that there is nothing worse than being in the middle of working out and realizing you have to take a shit.  You try to do another rep but quickly come to the conclusion that the thrusting is counteracting your clenching.  Just about the only good thing about having to take a shit at the gym is that it’s pretty much the only viable excuse why you only worked out for eleven minutes and then had to leave.

-My roommate Brian continues to develop astounding idiosyncrasies.  Before they go to sleep, he and his girlfriend must have a glass of water by the bed.  But instead of simply refilling the same cup, Brian takes a new one every night, thereby leaving dozens of half-empty glasses lying about.  His bedroom looks like the end of the movie “Signs.”

-Do you have that one friend that still doesn’t understand how to use email?  And when you send an email to all your friends about something important, you always have to add at the end, “Will someone please call Shermdog and tell him because I know he won’t get this.”

-Have you ever gone out, gotten bombed, gone home with someone, and then woken up so late the next day that when people saw you doing the walk of shame, they probably just assumed you were going out for the night…again?

-And, finally, in the past few months, in rapid succession, came Brian’s birthday, my birthday, Girlfriend’s birthday and Brian’s girlfriend’s birthday.  For my birthday, my first since we’ve been dating, Girlfriend got me an iPod mini.  My first thought was, woah, she really set the bar high.  So I had to go out and spend double what I was originally planning to spend on her.  Then, shit got even weirder.  Brian and his girlfriend got my girlfriend a birthday present.  Where the fuck did that come from?  So now Girlfriend and I had to turn around and get Brian’s girlfriend a birthday present.  Meanwhile, Brian and I have been friends for almost twenty years and I’ve never gotten him anything.  I’ve known his girlfriend for two years and all of a sudden I’m out buying wrapping paper.  I should have just put two words on the card: “Fuck me.”

HOME

-My apartment is somewhat small and awkwardly designed. As such, the distance from the couch to the television in the common room is about three feet. And in that tiny chasm lies the epicenter of twentysomething life: the coffee table. If you think about it, your coffee table is where you sit hunched over to eat take-out for dinner, it’s what you gather around while pre-gaming with friends, it’s where you rest your feet after a long day and what you clean puke off of after a long night. You probably utilize your coffee table no differently than my roommate Brian and I do. Except ours is less than twelve inches wide. And you know what they say about guys with small coffee tables – HUGE bookshelves!

-Living with Brian and his girlfriend, a frequent visitor, is like living with an old married couple. She makes his lunch every day and they go to bed at about 9:30pm. I think the only thing that keeps him going is watching rerun after rerun of “King of Queens.” When I question him about it, Brian says, “Karo, leave me alone. I live my life in syndication.”

-You know when you get off a long flight, you’re kind of jetlagged for a while and sometimes you can’t fall asleep? Brian is immune. The kid is tired 24 hours a day and can sleep at will. He once told me, “You know, I’d to go to bed at 7pm if it was socially acceptable.”

-While Brian will soon move in with his girlfriend, sometimes I wonder if, in his mind, he’s already married and living in the suburbs. The other day, I borrowed his keys and noticed that on his keychain were rows and rows of those little, plastic barcodes that you can swipe at the drugstore, the supermarket, Price Club, etc. People are always telling me that I’m turning into my dad. But I never realized that Brian was turning into my mom.

-One thing that Brian’s quasi-married life has not diminished is the friendly yet intense competition between us. But in any argument or disagreement with me (or any of our friends for that matter), Brian has a distinct advantage. Some prodigies excel in chess or in their ability to recall the great texts of English literature. But Brian’s power is far stronger – he knows all of our GPAs and test scores going back to seventh grade. Lame as it may sound, it’s pretty difficult to argue about the check with someone who knows which calculus exam you botched when you were fifteen years old.

-Thankfully, Brian has long since left investment banking to work for a company I’ve never heard of doing a job I only vaguely understand. He does seem a lot happier, though, so that’s good. But I can’t help wonder if this was destined to happen since Brian majored in something I’ve never even heard of: biometry. That’s right, biometry – a strange mix of math and biology that I guess Cornell invented for confused high school kids who couldn’t make up their minds. Have you ever met a biometrist? I didn’t think so. So maybe this new job is perfect for him after all.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-The other day I noticed a new sign in my gym locker room that I think, in not so many words, says that having sex in the steam room is against club policy. I was totally shocked. I didn’t even know there was a steam room!

-My friend’s father recently had a mild heart attack. I told my mom and she was like, “Wow, it’s an epidemic.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Well,” she said, “Your friend’s father, this woman in my office, and Clinton all have heart problems!” I’m like, Mom, I’m pretty sure that two people that don’t know each other and the former President of the United States doesn’t qualify as an epidemic.

-You have to love New York. Where else can a beer cost eleven dollars in a bar, a turkey sandwich cost nine bucks in a deli, and then a guy on the street tries to sell you a package of 36 AA batteries for a dollar. When I asked him how they could be so cheap, he was like, “It’s wholesale.” Sure it is, buddy.

-Well, like clockwork, the city is swarming with them. Overdressers. Why is it that when the weather drops five degrees all of a sudden everyone freaks out and whips out their sweaters and winter coats? I plan on wearing shorts for at least another month. Oh, and ladies, I don’t care how cold it gets, please keep those Uggs in the closet…forever.

-How come I have to tip the handyman in my apartment building to make even the most minor of repairs? That’s not very handy.

-I walked into the lobby of Girlfriend’s high-rise apartment building the other day and saw an old friend of mine who I never knew lived in the same building. When I told him I was there to see my girlfriend, who he doesn’t know, he said, “Oh really? What apartment is she in?” Why ask me this? How could this knowledge benefit you in any way? You’re not going to visit her. Unless you sometimes roam the hallways at night aimlessly looking for a door you recognize, you’ll probably never even step foot on her floor. People ask too many stupid questions these days. Now that’s an epidemic.

-The other night I was out partying when I saw something I’d never seen before: a guy so drunk that he tried to start a tab – at an open bar. I was like, dude, if you keep drinking like that, next time I see you you’ll be selling me batteries in the street.

-And, finally, this is the true story of how my VCR broke and, as a result, I had to buy Brian a new DVD player. Here goes. The VCR in my room broke and to replace it my parents gave me an extra DVD player they had in their house. So far, so good. But Brian objected to this because, although his VCR was working fine, his DVD player was in the common room for us both to use. Thinking this arrangement was no longer equitable, he insisted I put my DVD player in the common room instead. I objected, since then I would have nothing in my room at all, while he would have both a DVD player and a VCR in his. The only way to solve the impasse was for us to split a third DVD player and put that in Brian’s room. When I asked Brian how he’d managed to convince me to buy him a new DVD player just because my VCR broke, he said, “It was easy, I knew you took a class in negotiations freshman year and only got a B-.” Fuck me!

HOME

-You know who I think the ultimate wingman is?  Grandma.  Seriously, the next time you go to the bar, I think you should take your grandma.  Think about it.  Your grandma will go up to anyone and just start talking.  No one will make an excuse and walk away from your grandma because that’d be rude.  And who better to hype you up to a chick than your grandma – who literally believes you are the greatest person in the world?  Plus, your grandma will give you money for drinks and you won’t even have to pay her back.  But best of all, grandma is the best wingman because chances are she won’t try to make a booty call and bail on you in the middle of the night.  I mean, all the guys she knows are asleep…or dead.

-When I’m taking the elevator down to the lobby with a bunch of buddies after pre-gaming and getting ready to go out for the night, I’m always amazed how chivalrous my friends are.  We’re holding the door for girls, we’re making sure they all get out first, we’re being generally polite and friendly.  Then we get to the bar and immediately forget all sense of tact and discretion as we get as drunk as possible and offend every woman within a twenty-foot radius while vainly attempting to take them home against their better judgment.  I really believe that guys would be much better off if we never left the elevator.

-When it comes to getting inside an exclusive bar, guys suddenly lose all their abilities to estimate.  You know when you call inside the club and the dude who is going to help get you in asks how many guys and girls you’re with?  You quickly survey the eleven guys and one girl that is your crew and then say, “Um…it’s like two or three dudes and, uh, like six girls, six or seven girls.”  Then you frantically try to start recruiting groups of stray chicks to join you.  Of course when your friend comes outside to get you in, he’s not too happy with the total sausagefest you’ve produced.  So your one girl friend gets in and totally leaves you all pathetically standing behind the velvet rope.  Who’d have thought grandma would be such a dick?

-I’ll never forget that just before the final stage of the old school video game Marble Madness, the words “Everything You Know is Wrong” flashed on the screen.  I remember those words every time someone asks me if I want to buy a bottle in a club.  Because in the world of bottle-purchasing, everything you know is indeed very, very wrong.  Let me explain: at some so-called hotspots in the city, the only way you can get in or, once you’re inside, actually sit down, is by buying a bottle of alcohol.  The prices are, I’d say, a little out of whack.  For instance, a bottle of Absolut (retail value: $35) costs $250 inside the club.  Then you get to sit in a cramped booth while people you barely know stop by to make small talk and slyly make themselves a hearty drink then take off before the bill comes and you’re shamed into giving a 30% tip to the waitress who did nothing more than bring you a few straws and a carafe of lukewarm tonic.  Again, much better off staying in the elevator.

-As the hour grows later and later and you and your friends grow drunker and drunker, you need to become increasingly vigilant about suggestions of which bar to go to next.  Because I know that as soon as it passes 2am, I always start suggesting bars closer and closer to home.  I’ll be like, “How about that lounge at 35th and Park?  No?  OK, what about that new place on 31st and Lex?  No?  OK, OK, how about that bar on 29th and 3rd?  How about that, huh?”  And my friends are like, “Karo, there’s no bar there.  That’s your apartment.”

-I’m sorry, but wasted Saturday night plans must be confirmed.  Ever run into a friend you haven’t seen in a while at the bar on a Saturday night and in between shots of tequila and your twentieth beer, you make plans to get lunch or something the following week?  And then your friend gets mad at you for standing him up when you don’t show.  I don’t think that’s fair.  Standing someone up implies you knew you had plans and chose to ignore them.  But having no recollection of meeting the person in the first place should absolve you of all wrongdoing.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-How come babies are never born in the afternoon?  Every time I hear that someone had a kid, it’s always at like four in the morning.  I mean, I was born at 8:10am and I haven’t gotten up that early since.

-In previous columns, I’ve written that I hate the questions, “How was your trip?” and “How was your test?” because you know the person you’re asking has told the story about fifty times already and could care less at this point.  I’d like to add to that list “How was your flight?”  That’s a great one isn’t it?  The answer is always, “Actually, not too bad.” or “You won’t believe what happened…” and then they launch into some horror story.  And what about this classic: “How was the funeral?”  How the fuck is anyone supposed to answer that question?  Ironically, though, the funeral usually goes better than the flight it took to get there.

-Never, ever tell your parents that you’re expecting to hear news of any kind.  When you do that, you’re effectively giving them free reign to call you every twelve hours to ask if you’ve “heard anything.”  That’s usually followed by them incessantly asking, “How come you haven’t heard anything yet?”  Soon, they find it necessary to tell you they “thought you would have heard something by now.”  And when you finally get the good news, you’re less excited about the news itself than the fact that your parents will finally stop asking you about it.

-Do you have friends that still have like five roommates?  It’s amazing how the astronomical rent in the city will force grown people to live in basically the same conditions as they did in summer camp ten years earlier.  Several times this year I’ve even met girls that not only share a room, but that share a bed as well.  That’s so hot.

-And, finally, I flew to LA for some meetings last week and you won’t believe what happened.  First, the cab driver that dropped me off at the airport took off with my luggage still in the trunk.  It took me four hours and three missed flights but I finally managed to track him down, but only after he tried to get me to pay him to bring the bag back.  Then on the flight, the guy next to me choked on a nut and the flight attendant had to give him the Heimlich maneuver.  The expectorated cashew hit me square in the Saucony.  Then my return flight got in to New York so early that we had to taxi on the runway until we were late instead.  When I finally got off the plane and called home, my mom said, “Welcome back, honey.  How was your flight?  Have you heard anything?”  Fuck me.

HOME

-Thank God the Summer Games are over.  For the past two weeks I have become a raging Olympics-whore.  I couldn’t go to bed without the soothing voice of Bob Costas lulling me to sleep.  When I was up late, I was watching skeet-shooting qualifying on Telemundo.  And you know you’re getting too into the Olympics when you can no longer become aroused without the sight of scantily-clad women’s beach volleyball players embracing in the sand.

-Memo to American medal-winners: perhaps learning the words to the National Anthem should have been part of your training regiment.  You guys lip-sync worse than Milli Vanilli with a speech impediment.

-Memo to all Americans: should we be concerned that there were at least a dozen countries competing that none of us had ever even HEARD of?

-When I wasn’t watching the Olympics, I was closely following my beloved Yankees.  Since I was forcing my girlfriend to watch hours of baseball against her will, I figured it would be worthwhile to teach her a little about my team and its players.  I’ve discovered that Girlfriend is learning about baseball at almost exactly the same rate as my three year-old cousin Daniel.  My conversations with the two of them are remarkably similar: “OK, who’s up at bat now?  No, not A-Rod, but close…  Hi… Hid… Hidek… That’s right – Hideki Matsui!  Good job!  And what’s his nickname?  Come on, I know you know this… Godzilla, right again!  Good girl!  Now let’s get you some ice cream.”

-My girlfriend is an unrepentant party animal like myself.  However, no one gets drunk and embarrasses themselves quite like I do.  The other day, when Girlfriend claimed she is a bigger idiot than me when wasted, I actually took offense.  I was like, “Are you saying that if we were equally drunk, you could out-embarrass me?  No way!”  And she’s like, “But Karo, if I’m drunk and someone tells me to do something stupid, I’ll do it.”  I said, “Darling, if I’m drunk, I come up with the stupid ideas myself AND execute them.  I’m like a one-stop-shop of embarrassment.”  That really put her in her place.

-My buddy Claudio is seeing this chick with a very strange policy.  She will only meet him in the middle.  If they’re going out for dinner, she’s only willing to go to a restaurant equidistant from their apartments.  If they’re both out at different bars and want to meet up, she’ll only go to a third-party bar in between.  Last time they hooked up, I asked Claud how far he’d gotten.  He said, “Halfway.”

-Back in my single days, I was hitting on this girl in a bar when she asked me a strange question.  She asked, “If you take a shower before bed, do you put deodorant on?”  Being drunk and wanting to hook up with this girl without having to answer brain teasers, I avoided the question.  She wouldn’t have that and we ended up getting into a huge fight over this seemingly innocuous dilemma.  Eventually she stormed off in disgust.  That experience taught me two things: psycho women take the fun out of being single and you should always shower in the morning.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Speaking of deodorant, or lack thereof, I was in the pizza place down the block a couple of weeks ago when a couple of Phish fans walked in.  They were nice guys and they told me they were just stopping by on their way up to Vermont for the band’s farewell concert.  Then I looked down and realized they were barefoot.  In a pizza place.  On Third Avenue.  It was quite possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.  I mean, I know you want to be one with nature and all, but what happens if you step in gum?

-Even with footwear on, New York City can be a rough place.  In a story that I couldn’t have made up if I tried, my buddy Jud moved to the city to go to business school at NYU.  Two days after moving in, his apartment was robbed blind.  Seeing how upset he was, I tried to comfort him.  I joked, “Hey, you’re going to business school, right?  You’re going to learn all kinds of things that will help you earn the money to replace all your belongings.  Just take good notes!”  “Karo,” he said, distraught, “They took my pens.”

-I think the television networks are going a little overboard with the weather advisories they scroll incessantly across the screen these days.  It’s always a condition I don’t care about in a place nowhere nearby.  I know we all want to be prepared, but is it really necessary to advise me of a drizzle warning in Connecticut?  Besides, I’m watching women’s beach volleyball here and the scroll is covering their asses.

-There’s nothing worse than someone you know stopping to talk to you while you’re running the treadmill at the gym.  First you just smile and nod because you think they’re going to walk by, but when they stop you’re now forced to remove your headphones and attempt to carry on a conversation without hyperventilating and just when you think it’s all over and you get back to your workout, the person passes by again, again stops to talk, again you have to annoyingly take your headphones off and try to speak without wheezing and soon you start to wonder whether pressing the person’s face against the tread while you do two miles will cause permanent damage.

-I recently left the fancy gym I’d been working out in since graduation because they raised my rates astronomically.  Actually, they finally figured out that my corporate discount should have expired two years ago, but that’s a different story.  So now I belong to a new, not so fancy gym.  What a different world.  The personal trainers are all fat and smoke cigarettes behind the building.  The towels are stiff and dirty.  The televisions seem to only play music videos from artists who died in the late ‘90s and the ancient fluorescent ceiling bulbs are positioned in such a way that if you lay on your back to bench press, you’re virtually blinded.  One day, I wore a t-shirt from my old, fancy gym to my new gym, hoping that would gain me some respect among the overworked staff.  I walked in, the guy at the desk took one look at my shirt and said, “Hey man, you think you could get me a job there?”

-And, finally, as I mentioned in Ruminations #42, my friend Claudio is a bad-introducer.  He never introduces me to anyone he meets, even when I’m standing right there.  I, on the other hand, am an over-introducer.  When I go out drinking, I embarrass myself by introducing everyone two, three, four times.  Partying with Claudio is strange because as bad-introducer and over-introducer, respectively, I end up introducing him to his own friends who I’ve only just met.  Did you get all that?  Good!  Now let’s get you some ice cream.  Fuck me.

HOME

-Hey all!  Well, it’s been a while.  I spent the summer writing my new book, “Ruminations on Twentysomething Life,” which will be published next year, but now Ruminations is back!  One small change that I hope you’ll like – the column will now come out every other Monday morning as opposed to only once a month.  Yeah, I knew you’d like that.  I also turned twenty-five over the summer, which was, you know, a bit depressing, but now that I’ve snapped out of it, let the ruminating begin!

-Five of my closest friends are in med school and they are all now entering their fourth years.  Which means the whining never fucking stops.  Because apparently this is the time to choose a specialty and basically decide the course of the rest of their lives.  The worst part about it is that no one has chosen anything useful…to me.  I remember sitting around with my buddies having some beers after they took the MCATs, and they were all like, “Some day, Karo, all this work will pay off and I’ll treat you for free.”  Yeah, except you just decided to become a gynecologist and totally screwed me.

-The other night I was at a party and pulled an Amstel Light out of the fridge.  Like six of my friends whipped bottle-openers out of their pockets.  And not sophisticated bottle-openers mind you, I’m talking about the big, round keychain ones with half the paint chipped off and a University of Michigan logo on it.  I thought that was kind of pathetic.  I mean, we’re twenty-five years old.  What’s the cutoff for carrying bottle-openers these days?  Next thing you know, my dad will be doing kegstands.

-There was this chick at the party who was so annoying.  Why?  She’s an abbreviator.  These are the girls that give everything an annoying little nickname.  Like they call the show with Sarah Jessica Parker “Sex and” or refer to the island east of Manhattan as “LI.”  You can spot abbreviators at a young age.  They’re the ones that watched “Melrose” and “Bev” religiously.

-My buddy Chi is that guy who always misses his flight.  I’m sure you have a friend like that.  We were both getting pretty fucked up at this party and then all of a sudden I asked him, “Wait, aren’t you going to California tomorrow?”  And he’s like, “Yeah, my flight is at 5am, so I’m only gonna have a few more drinks.”  Then he calls me the next day like, “Dude, I’m still in the city.  I overslept and missed my flight.”  And this happens every time he flies.  I think the airlines should have a special section for people like him.  It should be First Class, Business Class, and Dumbass.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-I hate when singers rhyme the same word twice.  Like Beyonce: “I’ll be your naughty girl.  I’m calling all the girls.”  No, no, no.  I’m sorry but you can’t rhyme “girl” and “girls.”  I mean, come on!  Throw a twirl or a pearl in there or something.

-When someone asks me if I’m good with computers, I say yes.  Then they proceed to ask me to help them with such an absurdly technical procedure that only a rocket scientist from MIT would be able to accomplish it.  It’s like if someone asks you if you’re good in bed and you say yes, and then they ask you to impregnate their infertile wife.

-I think that everyone’s parents have that one friend of yours that they want you to end up with, even though it’s never going to happen.  For my parents, it’s my friend Marcia.  My parents are not even subtle about it.  They’re like, “How’s Marcia?  What’s Marcia up to?  Have you spoken to Marcia lately?  You should have sex with Marcia.”

-A few months ago, in my last column, I wrote that I had recently entered into my first serious relationship after four years of single debauchery.  I’ve chosen to refer to my girlfriend in this column simply as “Girlfriend.”  So, I’m happy to say that Girlfriend and I are still going strong after six months.  She’s hot, treats me well, and is absolutely thrilled about me sharing the details of our lives with tens of thousands of strangers around the world.  OK, maybe not that last part.  Anyway, the one major difficulty I’ve been having as a neophyte boyfriend is that when Girlfriend’s um…you know, “cycle” comes around, I get completely thrown off.  The thing is, I can’t remember the last time I dated anyone for more than 28 days, so I’m really not used to handling such unannounced hormone flux.  All of a sudden you’re dealing with a completely illogical woman who is so convinced she’s right, you begin to question yourself.  And as a guy, I think that’s what’s so amazingly powerful about menstruation – it actually makes ME feel crazy.

-Last week I was at a bar with Girlfriend and some of my buddies when I spotted a couple of really cute girls sitting by themselves.  My friend Triplet #1, who is single, wanted to talk to them but our other buddies were nowhere to be found.  So I asked Girlfriend if I could try hitting on them, just to see if I was rusty or not.  She laughed and stood back to observe as I completely crashed and burned.  You know how embarrassing it is to get shot down by a chick in front of your girlfriend?  Because you know she’s wondering, how the hell did I fall for that bullshit?

-Girlfriend only uses Mac computers.  Those Mac people are a stubborn bunch aren’t they?  They’re like politicians.  If you’re from the rival party (i.e. PC users), they’ll defend Macs to death, even if their arguments make no sense.  To test this theory, ask a Mac user why their mouse has no right click button.  You’ll probably get some convoluted explanation that ends with, “Well, um, well, it’s just better, OK!?”

-And, finally, the thing about Girlfriend is that she’s a textbook Serial Monogamist, you know, the type of girl that goes from boyfriend to boyfriend without ever dating in between?  So I’m always asking her about her long line of ex-boyfriends.  As the typical jealous boyfriend, I can’t imagine why she would have dated anyone before me.  So she says to me, “Well, ex-boyfriends are like internships.  I learned a little bit about myself from each one and then I moved on.”  So I said, “Well, how do you know you’re not an internship for me and I’m not going to move on?”  She’s like, “Karo, I saw you at the bar the other night.  You move on and you’re going to be unemployed for a long time.”  Fuck me.

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