Item #11 - Attend the Ballet

One of the great things about growing in the Detroit area . . . . hmmmmmm . . . . . one of the things that's nice about growing up in the Detroit area . . . . ummmmm, OK, one of the saving graces about growing up in the Detroit area (yeah, that works) is that it's just across the river from Windsor. Windsor is in Ontario. Ontario is in Canada. And since Canada has their heads out of their asses, they've set the legal drinking age at 19.  So not surprisingly, my summers as a 19 and 20 year old, the time back home living with my parents, included weekly caravans across the river to get drunk. 

And lucky for us, back in those days, the exchange rate was a godsend. $1 American got you $1.50 in Canadian.  Add in the fact that Canadian beer is like moonshine (oh Molson XXX, you were such a delight), and that as a 19 year old your tolerance isn't exactly at it peak, and you could get destroyed for $20. Ahhh, those were the days. And we used to walk over the bridge to Canada in our barefeet through 4 feet of snow, uphill, both ways, and that's the way it was and we liked it! 

OK, maybe not. But on a Friday night at 9pm, the bridge and tunnel to Canada was 98% full of idiot Americans making they're way to Windsor to get loaded . . . and at 2am, it was full of idiot Americans puking out their car doors while waiting to get through customs. And remember, this was pre-9/11. When the customs agent asked you "what was your business in Canada?", and you/your driver responded with "we went to Bentley's and Woody's to get drunk and find slutty girls", rather than of getting searched, you were more likely to get a high five.

I know Manhattan-ites have the term "bridge and tunnel club" for all the Jersey folk that make their way over to Manhattan, effectively killing any coolness that may still reside in a bar. But I now wonder if the Windsor canucks had a similar term for us stupid Americans, who swarm like locusts on weekend nights, consuming all the available Labatt's?

So like every other suburban Detroit kid, Canada gave me my first true taste of the bar experience. But being as that they're such a giving country, the legal age to get into a gentleman's club is only 19 too. And since my friends and I came from a Catholic background, and since we went to an all-boys Catholic school, lord knows we had more than enough pent up hormones, so you're damn right we took advantage of that opportunity as well.

And as I learned about my tolerance for alcohol during my bar experiences, I also learned about my tolerance for boobs. Yes, there is such a thing. The nudie (nudy?) bar is is a fantastic thing, especially when you first get there. I mean, there's boobs . . . and they're all over the place. But like all things in life, you can have too much of a good thing. And the longer I'm at a nudie bar (which is actually pretty damn rare), the more my excitement wains, until it's finally passed the point of indifference.

Then, it's time to go home. 

But, there IS a way to have my excitement curve stretched out just a bit more (wow, after typing that, I just realized that sentence may not be the best wording for a story about nudie bars, but whatever. It stays). There is a way to push out that point of indifference. And it's even a little surprising to me - to have girls that are actually good dancers. 

Now granted, I'm not talking about classically trained ballet, but rather the ancient art of the pole. But it DOES make a difference. If a girl is showing some energy, some moves, and actually looks like she's having a good time up there, it honestly makes a difference (and actually, you can probably make the same argument about sex in general).  For any show really, in any walk of life, if the performer is legitimately good at what they do, no matter how exciting or boring you may think the overall material is, their skill will impact your enjoyment. 

And those nudie bars, those delightful Canadian dens of debauchery? Well, in Detroit, one of the most well-known euphemisms around is that if your going to Canada to go to the strip clubs, you just say your going to the "Windsor Ballet". 

So attending the Slutcracker last week was kind of like seeing the Windsor Ballet's brother from another mother. The Windor Ballet is a whole lot of nudity with a little bit of decent dancing thrown in, while the Slutcracker is a whole lot of legit dancing, performed by people who majored in dance, who just, well, don't mind taking their clothes off while doing it. And since co-worker Daemeon was creating a documentary on the Slutcracker, Sarah, Katie and I came out to support him . . . and to see some naked ballet.  

As you can probably tell from the name, the Slutcracker is pretty much the Nutcracker . . . . with sluts. Actually, it's pretty darn close to the Nutcracker. Same score, same dancing, same story . . . with a few tweaks (at least that's what I'm told. I've never seen the real Nutcracker). SPOILER time!

• Instead of a nutcracker coming to life, a dildo comes to life
• The main character struggles to choose between the aforementioned dildo and her new fiance
• Before making a choice, the main character certainly makes the most of her time with the dildo
• A 10 foot penis that spews confetti makes an appearance
• So does a gimp
• So do a plethora of pasty-covered boobs

In the end, the amusing storytelling (sans words of course), along with the massive amounts of skin (ladies don't worry - while the show was johnson-less, there's ample male skin for your viewing), made the first trip to the ballet a damn good experience. And the great thing is . . . .it was a ballet. While there was an obvious difference in the skill levels of the various dancers, the majority were damn skilled (said as someone who knows nothing about ballet skill). I mean, there were several toe-only full spins thingies going on.What more do I need to say?

And just like the Windsor Ballet, if this was just a hastily thrown together show, with all parts being filled by Foxy Lady cast-offs, I probably would have been damn bored after an hour. But I wasn't, and it turned out to be 2 hours of XXX-Mas Delight, fit for both guys and girls, that I would absolutely recommend. And really, that same $20 at the gentleman's club only gets you 1/8 of the time anyway, right?

Item #10 - Wax My Chest

OOOOOOO Kelly Clarkson!

 Warning: This post is NSFPWATOBSA (not safe for people who are turned off by shirtless Alan)

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April 1998
As a freshmen at the University of Michigan, I learn about the existence of the Naked Mile, in which thousands of students, mostly seniors, get naked and run a mile through the heart of campus at night, after the last day of classes. Like the majority of campus, I head down to check it out. And yes, it's thousands of students (not surprisingly, the guy:girl ratio is around 5:1) running naked through a mile-long course, which is lined 5 people deep on each side. It is . . . far from sexy. However, it IS very amusing. Thus, I commit myself to running it as a senior.

April 1999
After the last day of classes as a sophomore, I head to a house belonging to a group of good friends for a party. The house is a mere block or so away from the start of the Naked Mile, a perfect spot for viewing.  We all drink. We all drink a lot. We all get drunk. We all decide that it's a perfectly sane idea to run through the heart of campus while naked, thus answering the rhetorical question - if 1,000 people jumped off a bridge naked, would you? Yes. Yes I would.

Drunk enough to decide the Naked Mile is a good decision, but yet sober enough to not fall while running a mile, and sober enough to not bump into whatever guy was in front of me, which I'm sure would have caused a short bout of homophobia

April 2000
Having run the Naked Mile as sophomores, and having already overcome any fears that might go along with it, my friends and I make the obvious decision to run it once again as juniors. However, as one of the most-PC schools around, the University of Michigan decides to start cracking down it and actually having the Ann Arbor police start ticketing/arresting people, claiming that they were worried about participant's safety (though really, they just didn't want the bad press of hosting the Naked Mile and seeing DVD's of it winding up on German porn sites). Despite the added level of difficulty, and now lowered participation (~500 people), we strip down 1/5 of a mile into course, joining it on school property instead of city property where the cops where really doing the enforcement, and run it anyway.

April 2001
Naked Mile day as a senior and police presence is wide spread. If you're ticketed/arrested, you may have to register as a sex offender. I was able to handle an MIP ticket (minor in possession, aka, hosting a party while underage) during college, and handle the resultant 3 hour alcohol-is-bad class. I decide I cannot handle going door-to-door "meeting" the new neighbors every time I move, or not being able to live within a half mile of any school. We skip the Naked Mile, which in its last year of any existence probably had less than 100 runners. A tradition is dead. Sigh.

December 2008
I learn about the Santa Speedo Run. I head down to the heart of Boston to hang out with Danielle and Meredith, and watch them, and 500 others, run it. A mile plus through the streets of downtown Boston in the middle of winter.  30 seconds into meeting them at the bar, even before the run, I commit to running the following year. I twice ran a mile naked with hundreds of other people - running a mile with a speedo covering my ass and junk should be a cake walk.

December 12, 2010
I run my first Santa Speedo Run. It is incredibly enjoyable. Though the bits and pieces are covered by a speedo, it is 25 degrees or so out in Boston. Thus, the level of stupidity is still comparable to the Naked Mile.

 I'm the one not in a bikini top

December 2010
Having already naked through a college campus in my life, and having already run with a speedo through a major city in the middle of winter, I decide to add a little flavor to this year's Santa Speedo Run . . . and wax my chest. Last year, there was some trimming. This year, I go bare.

So, a few days before this years run, the girl who introduced me to the Santa Speedo Run, Danielle, came over to . . . wipe the slate clean? And her new fiancee Jim came along for the ride.(And by "new", I REALLY mean new. As in, they got engaged that day at lunch. So yes, whenever they'll think about their engagement for the rest of their lives, they'll be thinking about my chest hair. Now that's friendship!).

 And as the saying goes, a picture is a worth a thousand words. Thus . . .

A somewhat hairy BEFORE

3 . . .2 . . .1 . . .pain

When the wax kit ran out of material, we improvised, and the MacGyver engineering worked

Danielle really enjoyed this too much. I think the whips and chains have been added to her wedding registry already

 A very red AFTER

As you might imagine, there was definitely some alcohol involved. OK, more than some. On both my part and Danielle's. But while it certainly hurt, like 30 ultra-adhesive extra-large band-aids being ripped off hurt, it wasn't exactly the scene from the 40 Year Old Virgin, though I'm sure Steve Carell's cardigan chest had something to do with it (however, I did get a few specks of blood).

In the end, while the pain may not have been god awful, and I am actually kind of digging the smooth chest thing, the bareness only lasts 2 months apparently, and there ain't no way I'm going through that again just for the baby smoothness. Just clippers and slight trimming from here on out . . . like a man!

Item #9 - Kelly's Roast Beef

I moved out to Boston back in 2001 with my college roommate Walter (if you're reading this, there's probably a 80% chance you knew that, and, know Walter). And when I did, I worked at a start-up company that had, oh, about 4 employees at first. I loved the company. I loved the people. But what I didn't love was the fact that the other people there were all in relationships and weren't exactly of the go-to-the-bar-every-weekend age or mindset. Add to that the fact that Walter and I lived in Marlborough, a suburb about 30 miles from downtown that makes my old home of Sterling Height seem lively. And add to that the fact that Walter decided to start a long-distance relationship right before moving and usually preferred talking on the phone for 3 hours on a Friday to going out.

You may or may not find this blog interesting, but I'm pretty sure if I started a blog that just told Walter-isms and Walter stories, the followers would grow to the 1000's in a month. He is the only person I know that I would actually encourage to start a Twitter account, for better or worse. Walter in 140 characters would be an adventure . . . though mostly an adventure into the offensive and un-PC.

The combination of all those things led to me having a near non-existent social lifeearly on in my Boston going, which was made worse by me coming off the most enjoyable summer I had ever had - the post-graduation no-real-job drunk-fest in Ann Arbor.  That first year out here can only be rivaled in its social ineptitude by my 2 years spent at grad school in West Lafayette, Indiana (one of the first times I drove across town to the grocery store, I passed an old timer sitting on his rocking chair on his porch wearing overalls and no shirt. Right there, I knew it would be a long-ass 2 years).  

But at least in Boston, there was, ya know, an actual city to see. Thus, Independent Alan was born, and I was able to actually get out and start doing things alone. Going to musuems alone. Going to the movies alone. Going to concerts alone. But one thing that still kind of weirds me out is going to dinner solo. Maybe it's because with that one, it's blatantly obvious to an entire room that you're a loner (at a concert or movie, the lights go down and you're just one in a crowd).  Or maybe it's just because as I've said before, I have the patience of a 5 year old, and thus even the one time I did stop for dinner on my way home from work back then, I made sure to bring along a magazine (just sitting and thinking to myself for 20 minutes? What am I, a psycho)

Seriously, not counting eating at airports, where 50% of the people there are eating solo, I think I've only actively decided to eat at a restaurant alone that one time. So while going to Kelly's Roast Beef in Revere (a Boston institution. Ann Arborites - think Blimpy Burger or Zingerman's) wasn't an exciting list item, it at least carried the slightest fear of being that guy who's eating alone like a freak in the corner.

But as I learned, like many things in life, the fear was completely misguided and unfounded. No, not because I would stop caring about what the other diners thought with me eating alone, and actually grow up and be an adult as I continue on the list. No, it was because Kelly's Roast Beef's is just a damn take-out food stand by the side of the ocean!  I've seen this place 100 times on the Phantom Gourmet, and not once did that fact ever get processed by my Masters-level brain. So smart, and yet so dumb.

 

And while a Kelly's sandwich should probably be enjoyed as you bask in the sun and smell that salty seaside air, I, always the genius, decided to go there last week, at 9pm in December. Thus instead of the above, I got the below. Not exactly a lifetime summer memory. 

And instead of being that weird guy in the corner eating alone and mumbling to himself, I got to be that weird guy eating in his parked car while listening to talk radio, and who probably causes the neighbors nearby to call the cops on what they think is a potential pedophile.

Nope, not sketchy and/or sad at all.

So while I still need to get over that uneasy feeling of being the solo diner, I at least discovered a dining experience that can beat it in terms of overall level of depression. If only I had a quart of pint of Ben & Jerry's to finish off that meal with.

(and thus ends the blog post seemingly written by a single 55 year old lady with 4 cats).

• Thanks to Ang for the suggestion of Kelly's
• Yes, this theme of this post was probably a stretch, but what do you expect? It was a roast beef take-out stand.  Topics were limited. Just be happy it wasn't 1000 words on various sexual euphemisms.
• All are still welcome to come out to the Slutcracker Thursday. Ballet for the ladies, boobies for the guys.
• And tomorrow, item #10 . . .and there will be pain.

Item #8 - Yoga

I have adult ADD. Well, at least thats what I tell myself so I don't so feel like a 5 year old. Really, I just have very little patience and am easily bored. And when I get bored, i get really bored. And when I get really bored, it usually takes something really exciting to get me going again. Basically, I need a lot to do with a lot of stimulation, or I end up doing nothing at all. Again . . . a child.

This probably explains why I was playing on 3 soccer teams and a flag football team this summer, and at the same time had no problem sitting, not moving and watching 4 hours of soccer in a row on Saturday mornings. Or why I'm trying this whole do-52 thing in the first place, but yet also bought the newest Call of Duty game (re: nerd) for XBox last week.

I'm not exactly sure where video games actually fall on the spectrum below. I mean, Wii excluded, they require you to sit on the couch and not move for hours on end (let's be honest - no one plays for 20 minutes at a time), but at the same time, you are actively involved and it does require you to think (though the level of thinking can ceretainly be debated). Even something simple like Tetris is working your spacial reasoning and hand-eye coordination. And yes, I'm really stretching to justify playing video games as a 31 year old.

Even one of my (now shockingly) favorite activities, running, isn't spared from my boredom curve. All running activities exist on the right side of the above curve, but I'd rather run in 20 degree weather through an ever-changing city route than be stuck indoors on a treadmill. Half the time I run, I end up listening to podcasts because despite the fact that I've got 5,000 songs to choose from, sometimes I'm just not stimulated enough running and listening to songs I've already heard. And good Lord was I scared when I ran the Reach the Beach team marathon back in September (no, I didn't run 26 miles. I ran 5, then 3, and then 4). Not because my first leg was at 10:30 at night along the pitch black hill-filled rural roads of upper New Hampshire, but because you weren't allowed to wear any headphones while running. That was a first, and even then I made sure to listen to a catchy high-energy song up until the few seconds before my legs. God forbid I listen to my own thoughts for 45 minutes straight.

So this whole need for massive stimulation, or no stimulation at all, is the main reason why yoga has never appealed to me.

The idea that yoga could be considered by some to be emasculating actually had nothing to do with it at all. Trust me. You're reading the words of someone who's dressed up as various women at least 4 times now for Halloween. Someone who has "bake a cake" on their year-long to-do list. Someone who'll be running though the streets of Boston in a Speedo in under 2 weeks (insert cheap plug to donate to the kids!)

I figured yoga would sit smack dead in the middle of the boredom-enjoyment curve - just enough movement and strenuous activity to make me somewhat pay attention, but nowhere near enough to get me to actually enjoy myself. Like a lot of the items on the list (i.e., the blind date), I expected yoga to get me out of my expected comfort zone, whether I liked it or not. And so while Malinda suggested Bikram yoga (aka, sweat your balls off yoga) for the list, I decided to bring it down a notch, do yoga at a more sane room temperature to start, and to also actually do it within a little bit of my comfort zone - my work.

The lovely ladies at my fairly small company have been doing lunchtime yoga once a week for a year or so now. Recently, my friend Katie has started teaching the class herself. Thus, when I screwed up, I'd only mildly feel like a jackass. And with my co-workers on-hand, they'd get to enjoy the lasting images of my virgin yoga experience. A win-win proposition.

Normally I would have liked to include pictures here, for the readers enjoyment, but I figured taking pictures mid-class may have been a little disruptive and disrespectful (yes, this usually tactless boy still occasionally retains some of those midwestern manners he grew up with). And taking pictures mid-class kind of goes against the whole let-yourself-go-and-relax thing that yoga kind of has going for it. So really, all I can do is leave you with hastily thrown together photoshops of me in a couple poses I actually did do. 

According to the interwebs, this is the crane pose, though I think Katie called it the crows nest. Either way, I was able to balance on my hands, but maybe not quite as nicely as shown above. 

This is, shockingly, called a headstand. It took me an attempt or two, but I was able to hold it for a good 10 seconds or so. Maybe not perfectly vertical, but damn close. Yes, even I was surprised.

The class lasted an hour, so obviously more poses were thrown in, but these were probably the hardest, and thus, made me feel the most like a bad-ass, if its actually possible to feel like a bad-ass during yoga. And the class may now be the current posterchild for the do-52 list because . . . ummm, I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed yoga. In fact, I'll probably be at the same class tomorrow despite already crossing it off the list. Instead of getting restless due to lack of motion, or possibly falling asleep for the same reason, I was able to actually focus, do the poses, and enjoy the overall sense of calmness . . . . and all while not even feeling emasculated.

• Thanks to Malinda for suggesting, Katie for teaching
• I hit up Kelly's Roast Beef (item #9) tonight post-soccer, but since I'm just getting around to this post, it will have to wait. Not exactly exciting, but a Boston food landmark none-the-less
• I'll be going to see some Christmas burlesque (item #10) next week - The Slutcracker. Tickets are general admission, so if you'd to join me and a couple girls from my work, email/text/comment me.
• Around the same time next week will be item #11. All I will say, is that it will involve pain.

Item #7 - Get Some Movie Culture

Jar Jar Binks . . . made me a movie snob. 

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I heart movies.  I worked at a movie theater back in high school, back when AMC employees got to wear cool bow ties and vests as their uniforms, and when then employees had to risk life and limb by buttering the customer's popcorn (when the butter vat was empty, you knew it. Mostly because you had the burn marks along your arm to show it after it sprayed the last bits of delicious fatty-American buttery goodness all over them). Kids today . . . so spoiled.

Anyway, there were 2 great perks from the job. One - they sometimes showed the new blockbusters to the working crew on Thursdays at midnight, before the rest of you common folk got to the following day. And two - unlimited free movies.  And when you're in high school, and you live in a middle class suburbia, and you don't really drink yet because you're lame, there's not a whole lot to do except go to the movies and see lots and lots of crap. But naturally when you're a stupid kid, if it gets you out of the house on a Friday night, it's cinematic gold.

I'm one of those people that's keeps ticket stubs from everything I've ever been to. I suppose most people do it so they can look back and see how cool they were because they saw Band X before they were big. But in this case, I just took a look back at some movie stubs from high school to see how bad my movie (or really, the group's movie taste) had been. Some glaring examples of movies that I may have actually paid money in a theater to see - Anacanda, Double Team ("starring" Jean Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman), and Bio-Dome (though for some sick reason I still enjoy this movie).  That is a quality trifecta of poor taste.

Then in 1999, George Lucas, a man I had previously admired and about whom I wrote a biography in English class, finally decided to make the 3 prequel Star Wars movies. And being somewhat of a Star Wars geek at the time, I was fairly psyched. So a friend got tickets early and as the nerds that we were, we went to see the Phantom Menace the day it came out (though no, were weren't nerdy enough to be one of the people you'd see in this classic Triumph video).  And for the first time in my life, when the movie ended, I walked out the theater and said . . . "what the FUCK was THAT?" It was disappointing in ways that I could have never even imagined.

For the first time, I realized that special effects could only take a movie so far. For the first time, I realized character development actually meant something. For the first time, I realized casting could actually destroy what little character development there was. It was . . . it was brutal. And the cornerstone for my and every other rational person's disdain was the completely unnecessary (and arguably racist) character of Jar Jar Binks. So thanks to him, and thanks to George Lucas, I've slowly but surely become more a movie snob since then.

Granted there's varying levels of snobdom, and I'm sure there's plenty of artsy types around elitist Boston that would scoff at my DVD collection, but Phantom Menace pushed my own movie snootiness above the typical American movie goers view of what a "good movie" is. I slowly gravitated towards what the critics recommended as opposed to what the box office numbers recommended (I joked about Kangaroo Jack in the chart above, but that was in all seriousness a #1 movie at the US box office when it opened. People in this country are sick I tell you). And I even slowly began to recognize and appreciate certain movie styles (like all semi-hispters, I love me some Wes Anderson movies).

So as I continue my journey up the movie snobdom chain, it was only fitting that I try and explore the cinematic world in a new way. And since I've seen more than enough garbage over the years (whether I recognized at the time or not), it was time to take in some old school Oscar winning films. And last week I had a triple header, watching 3 movies that won Best Picture on back-to-back-to-back nights - The French Connection (from 1971), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and On the Waterefront (1954).

At this point, I should probably be breaking down these films for you for all their great complexities, and acting brilliance and yada yada yada. Alas, while I've become fairly snooty in my movie selection, and in what I actually enjoy, as a critic I probably have no idea what I'm the hell talking about and if I actually tried to dissect these Oscar winners, I'd only embarrass myself. So I'll take the cheap way out and do some bullet points instead:

• Its always cool to see actors way before they did the roles you know them for. Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider (that dude from Jaws) in The French Connection. Alec Guinness (aka, Obi-Wan Kenobi) in The Bridge on the River Kwai). And Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (yes, I'm sure tons of people relate him to this role first as opposed to The Godfather, but I'm 31 years old. I don't). 
• Man was there some old school racism in the 70's. The usual terms were thrown around in The French Connection, but I was especially amused by "you dumb guinea" and by the cops calling the French characters "frogs."And he didn't even look around for other Fenchies before saying "frogs" out loud.
• Also amusing in that movie - a game of street hockey played on roller skates, Panam airlines, and a character casually strolling up to the ticket counter at the airport and buying a round trip ticket from NYC to DC for $54, done so without showing any ID (though the clerk did tell the passenger to print his name on both tickets or he wouldn't be allowed on - that's some good old timey security).
• Going into the 3, I figured I would probably enjoy them in the reverse order of when they were made.  Newer = better, right? And even their topics suggested so - The French Connection being about cops going after drug smugglers, River Kwai being about a WWII POW camp, and On the Waterfront dealing with corrupt unions (and it was also the only one with a love story). But while I enjoyed all 3, I actually enjoyed them in the actual order they were made, thinking On the Waterfront was the best of the 3. Preconceived notions . . . . for suckers. 

And as a closing remark, not that I really need to say it . . . go see these movies. They're Best Pictures. They're, ya know, legitimately damn good films. 

Item #6 - Get a Psychic Reading

I am an engineer. I think rationally. I think logically. I dominated the logic section of the GRE's (if I know girls, and I think I do, they love guys who are boastful about standardized test scores). I understand basic probability, and that if you flip a coin 100 times in a row, and they all come up heads, heads still only has a 50% chance of coming up on the next throw (and if you don't understand that, then please, just stop reading. Go away. You have probably wasted way too much of your life savings on the lottery. We cannot be friends). 

Having the logical engineering mind is a fantastic thing. If the world were infested by zombies, like it's been in so many movies being shown this Halloween weekend, I'd like to think I'd be able to come up with a logical enough plan to survive the initial onslaught.  No need to panic.  Seriously, stick with me. We'll get through it.

But the inability I have to stop thinking like a damn engineer is also kind of a curse. It's probably a large reason why over the last 12 years or so I've moved my religious beliefs from straight up Roman Catholic, having gone to Catholic school from K through 12, to somewhere in the agnostic region (I assume somewhere down the list is a long-ass religion post. We'll get to it when we get to it). But going from knowing there's an afterlife to just kind of hoping there's one kind of sucks. It's a little depressing.

My insistence on logic and reason has certainly wasted many hours of my life arguing with my mom and ex-girlfriends. The deadly combination of logic and stubbornness does not allow me to walk away from a debate, especially one in which the opponent has clearly composed their basic argument on their "emotions" and "feelings", instead of concrete evidence and facts. "My facts are wrong? No, you're opinions are wrong!"

And my logical mind refuses to let me believe in "true love." Yeah, I definitely think there's something called "chemistry" that you can't really define and that only exists between select people. But rather than thinking everyone has a "true love", that everyone has one person on this Earth that they're destined to be with, I end up thinking about probabilities. If I randomly met 100 girls that I was actually attracted to physically, how many would I think I could end up marrying? 2 in 100? What's the equation for those odds?

(Number of shared interests + attractiveness out of 10 - number of DMB albums they own) x Seasons of Arrested Development owned on DVD

I assume my true equation is a little longer, but I'm getting off track.

I bring up my sometimes-annoying engineering mind because the idea of going to a psychic is 100% illogical. It is Anti-Alan thinking.  And after taking a 500-level probability class in grad school, I'm especially reluctant to believe that my future will be able to be predicted by a deck of cards. Was it fate that Card X got flipped up first? Umm, no. It was a simple 1/(total number of cards) probability.  The equation for predicting future does not compute

But once again, the list reared its ugly head. As Alycia and I were winding down our trip to Salem, and I needed to catch the next commuter train back to make my soccer game, we only had time for 1 more activity. I leaned towards a haunted house. She leaned towards a psychic, and smartly gave me the "you've done a haunted house before. You've never gone to a psychic" response. And of course, I couldn't argue with sound logic.

One thing that made me hesitant to go to the psychic? The cost. $35 for a 15 minute reading. Now, everyone has their own value for everything. I have no problem paying $5 for a beer at a bar when I can almost get a 6 pack for the same price at the store, but yet the idea of paying $5 for parking is insane to me. So paying $35 for someone that is the opposite of what I believe in is pretty ridiculous.

But alas, for the good of the list, I went with it, with apologies to the cheap hookers of Boston.

So after setting my fate based on the random probabilities that come along with the shuffling of a deck, my future was foretold.

Career

The first half of the reading dealt with the future of my job (and from here on out, you can just add "supposedly" or "allegedly" to the start of every sentence).

• My current employer is expected to come to me with an offer for a new position. 
• This position may require me to move, and it may be deemed as somewhat of a necessity on the company's behalf. 
• However, the offer won't be all that attractive to me.

This actually wasn't all that crazy (though really, how many people get this generic reading from a psychic). My company has a west coast location. They have offered to move me out there in the past. And recently, someone out here with my same basic position has decided to leave the company. So if I get offered to move out there again, for more money, to take over the vacant spot . . . OK, I might be a little freaked out.

The psychic went on to say that I'll also be getting another offer from a different company. This offer will probably be closer physically to where I am now and will generally more more attractive. More money. More stability. And I admit, this is not the craziest thing either. I've spent the majority of the last year working for one particular customer, and at one point, one of their heads said "if anything ever happened to your company and you need a job, call me up." So if they come calling . . . little more freaked. 

But that's not what the people (aka, my single digit followers) want to hear about

Love

Yes, I'm supposedly going to meet someone. And here's the details.

• She may come into affect when I have to choose between jobs (based on where she lives)
• She also works in the medical field, likely at a hospital, though she's probably not a doctor or nurse, as she dresses more business-like. 
• She more of a free spirit and is going to "loosen me up." 
• She owns her property
• She's pretty fit

At this point, I AM a little freaked out, because sitting 5 feet away was Alycia,  who actually fits those descriptions. But . . .

• She's an animal person, and probably owns a dog
• She has lots of hair, "kind of all over the place"

Alycia . . . . does not fit that description. Alas, my quest for love continues.

So as I continue on with this list, and hopefully hit 52 items, I may be writing the final post with my new fit, hair-everywhere medical-ish girlfriend in her dog-friendly house with my new job. Odds of that happening? 23.813%. 

Elsewhere

• Just a quick thanks to everyone that's actually reading this blog, and everyone that's written back positive things (though feel free to write negatively too. Maybe item #7 can be "get berated in my own comments section").
• I've slacked a little in the announcement aspect, but I do want to post updates on Facebook when I plan to do things, and anyone is welcome to join in any activity. 
• New ideas are always welcome. Email me. Post em. Whatever.

Item #5 - Visit Salem during Halloween season

Halloween is my favorite holiday. It has been for years. It may have taken the #1 slot about the time I learned Santa didn't exist (unless you're like 6 years old and reading this blog in which case . . . I'm kidding! Hooray for Santa!). Or it may have taken over #1 around the time I started drinking. Dressing up in a costume in your mid-teens in front of girls because you want some candy? Lame. Dressing up like a jack-ass later on when you can get drunk and beg girls for their "candy"? Much more fun. However, during my early-teens when all I wanted was non-metaphorical candy, I'd at least come home satisfied. So that was nice.

But being a jack-ass is what makes Halloween my favorite holiday. The more you know me, the more you know I am kind of a jack-ass (just ask any of my ex-girlfriends). But on Halloween, everyone is allowed to let out their inner jack-ass and dress as stupid as they see fit. Even the biggest wallflowers can come up with a clever costume and end up as the talk of the party. It's equal opportunity stupidity. And it's fantastic. I've dressed as various girls (sorority, school). I've dressed in uber-skin-tight spandex. I keep year-long list going just in case I'm getting costume-block come October 1st. The higher the degree of jack-ass-ery, the more props you usually get. Though i think theres also a direct correlation between level of jack-ass-ery and likelihood-of-going-home-alone. Oh well. There's 364 other days I can worry about reigning it in. But Halloween has no limits (that I've found yet. We'll try again this year to find them).

My own jack-ass-ery and personal experience aside, I would probably rank Halloween as the second best night of the year to meet members of the opposite sex (and by night of the year, I mean specific day of the calendar. Weddings may be easier, but those aren't specific dates).  If everyone is willing to dress stupidly and let go of their normal inhibitions, then . . . everyone is willing to let go of their inhibitions. And all the costumes lead to easy opening lines (or so I'm told. When I grow a pair, I can make that statement more surely). The full ranking of best days to meet members of the opposite sex:
1) New Year Eve 
2) Halloween
3) Valentines Day
4) Arbor Day 

So as a longtime superfan of Halloween, I've always wanted to make it out to Witch Capital USA for the Halloween season . . . and it only took me 7 New England Halloweens to do so. So on Sunday October 26, my friend Alycia and I took the commuter rail up for the experience.  Luckily, she had done it before, so she knew what attractions to avoid because they were underwhelming tourist traps (spoiler alert - there were lots of them).  So we'll just go with a picture tour here (a plog?), complete with snarky comments.

Yes, it's a statue of Samantha from Bewitched. It debuted in 2005. So instead of creating it during the height of the TV show's fame, they actually created it the same year the "smash Hollywood hit" Bewitched came out. Genius.

 

The Salem Witch Museum. From what Alycia said, its basically a bunch of animatronics that make It's a Small World seem life-like. Alas, we skipped it.

No snarkiness here. I got nothing but appreciation for people that go all out on Halloween decorations.

 

A lighthouse right by the the replica tallship Friendship. Yes, they named the ship Friendship. Get it? Its a play on words. Its clever.  

There was a small carnival along the water (is there a better smell than carnival food smell? Answer . . . no. We had corndogs. They were delightful).Considering they were put together by drunk carnies, these rides might be the scariest things in Salem. I mean, am I right? . . . AM I RIGHT?

 

We rode the ferris wheel. This is me realizing that since we were the second group to get on, I'd be stopped at the top with Alyica while they let the opposite groups off. 

 This is the uninterested face Alycia would make as we were stopped at the top.

 

Apparently the cemetery in the middle of town is the second oldest in the country (the oldest? I don't know. Google it or something).  John Hawthorne is buried there. He was a judge during the witch trials and the great-great-grandfather of The Scarlet Letter's Nathaniel Hawthorne. I think if you were a Hawthorne in Salem, you were probably guaranteed ass.

We caught a play/reenactment of one of the trials. After witnesses presented their evidence, audience members were allowed to ask questions. One harpie apparently didn't realize this was just a reenactment, as she basically tried to take down the whole Salem judicial system with her continuous questioning. I weep for her husband.

After hitting the bar (it would take some advanced withcraft to formulate a spell that kept us two near-alcoholics from enjoying the Fun in Sunday Funday), Alycia talked me into doing one more Salem-esque attraction that would actually count towards another list item. The rare item-within-an-item. So here's the sneak preview of list item #6:

Will I find true love? Will I get fired? Will I lose an arm in a combine accident? Only the cards know.

Item #4 - Blind Date

So earlier this year, I created an online dating profile, which was a pretty big shock, mostly to me. 10 years ago, I laughed at the idea of online dating. 10 months ago, I said "well, everyone else who's single around here is doing it, its winter, and I have nothing better to do", so I signed up for it. And in reality, online dating makes more sense than trying to randomly meet people at the bar.

Online, you can go through hundreds of different profiles, while at the bar you get what you get in terms of numbers. Online, you can actually get a good sense of the person's personality based on their profile before you ever even say hello, while at the bar you pick someone you're attracted to and just pray for the best. However, in both cases, you're probably only 80% likely to be attracted to the person after the initial meeting, whether it be because the photos online don't quite match up to the live person standing 2 feet from you, or because the 4 beers you had when you met at the bar impaired your vision.

But like many things in my life (and hopefully not like this blog), i was excited for the online thing for about a week and now it just kind of sits there. I'm guessing I've gone the proactive route and initiated conversation only 2 or 3 times. I kind of just figured the ladies will come to me, like I usually do at the bar. This game plan . . . has not worked out so well.

(margin of error +/-1%)

But I have been on a few dates through the profile. One was fantastic. One was pretty good. And one . . . left a bad taste in my mouth. 

Now before I go on with the story, please note that I pretty much know where I stand with the female community. I'm no 10. I'm not going to be drawing a bunch of looks from random girls based on just my looks (see above). I'm usually lucky to get by on my oh so hilarious wit. But on my online profile I'm at least respectful enough to put only recent pictures on the site, receding hairline be damned. Face forward. Full body shots. It is what it is, even if it is a 7.5 on a good day. 

So the last time I met up with a girl, post-online conversation, I was the first to get there. It was a good 5-10 minutes of waiting, letting the anxiety build over time. And when she finally arrived, the immediate completely honest though that went throught my head was "I was attracted to your pictures online, however, I regret to inform you that I am not attracted to you in person." She wasn't unattractive per se, but I definitely thought there was some false advertisement in her profile.

Now if this sounds terrible, and if you want to give the "looks don't matter speech," then I also regret to inform you that you are a liar. The meshing of personalities is the overwhelming reason relationships either work or don't, but if you're just not attracted to the person, it just ain't going to work. I don't think that's some great revelation. And if you disagree, feel free to go on Dating in the Dark and prove me wrong.

Anyway, though I immediately knew that date wasn't going to work out, since I'm not a complete douche, I stuck it out the hour or so it lasted and called it a day. A depressing day being as that I was actually a little excited for the date based on the email conversations. At the very least, while the date was on a Sunday afternoon, the NFL season hadn't started yet, so I didn't miss any football. So the date had that going for it.

(side note - I really need to end the dating apathy I have. One bad date and it completely sticks in my head (though the apathy was there well before that). On the other hand, the girl friends I know that are online dating are going on 2-3 dates per week. And the last bad date story I heard was that they went apple picking, and the guy thought it was a good idea to do shots before leaving for the orchard. . . at 10am. he also decided that a roadie glass of wine was a good idea for the way back.  Lesson - like everything in life, there is always someone who has a worse story, so get over it!)

So having said all that, going into the blind date I was fairly terrified. As I said before, this was the first item on the list that made me regret making the list in the first place. Something I would have said "no" to 99 times out of 100.  And while I could have easily asked matchmaker HeyJin for a picture of the girl (since she has a name, I should probably use it. It's Laura), I didn't think that would be good enough for the spirit of going on a "blind" date. So despite my better judgment, I went in knowing 3 things - she's an allergist, she's a runner, and she's pretty.

And . . . it went pretty well . . . I think.

 

If you want full gossipy details of the date, you'll have to visit my dating blog at apatheticdater.fakeblog.com (and if you're really in the mood to snoop, I'll dash your hopes now and let you know that she's not on Facebook). But the 2 main reasons for this 52-new venture are to A, make me not bored after moving into a 1 bedroom apartment, and B, do things that might take me out of my element. And the blindness of the date was exactly that. I mean, considering it was a friend of a friend (which is actually how all 5 of my previous girlfriends came about. again, not so great at the random bar meetings), I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be murdered and have my body tossed into the Charles. 

Jerry: What'd she do?

Kramer: : I don't know! But I woke up in the Hudson River in a SACK!

But besides that, there was a very real chance the date could have blown up about 15 minutes into it, and I'd once again be left to count down the number of sips she had left in her beer before I could run away as fast as possible. But it didn't. In fact, it was a good 3 hours worth of drinks. No real bad awkward pauses. No internal monologue about not finding the other person attractive. No "soooooo . . . . what kind of music do you like" questions. 

(I am fairly snobby about music/TV/movies, and thus, those are important questions. But the blatant askingof those questions to kill an awkward pause on date #1 usually spells doom. When they happen organically, I'll probably go off for a good hour about them. And if you answer "yes" to both "do you like DMB" and "do you like Two and a Half Men", then it's guaranteed doom)

 

So yeah, I'd say it went pretty well. Most likely well enough to warrant a Round 2. And definitely well enough to not make me so terrified of doing it again. And though I I did find her attractive (hi Laura!), if I did get offered a blind date again, I'd at least have the sense to demand a picture, like a rational human being would. 

Item #3 - New foods (Round 1)

I may not have kids. I may never have kids. I may never find a girl that would be willing to have my aforementioned kids. But if I do, I will force them everything that can legally be considered "edible."

Those that know me, know I'm a terribly picky eater. Well, sort of. Within the foods that I do eat, I'm incredibly easy to please, and I'll rarely complain about a food I do enjoy. BUT, the realm of the foods I do eat is limited to say the least. No eggs. No salad. No rice. No shellfish. Minimal soups. The list goes on. Its sad really. And I blame my parents dammit!  

Supposedly, as the oldest child, I was never force fed. I didn't like it, I didn't have to eat it.  When my brother came along, he was force fed more. And when the baby of the bunch, my little sister, cam along, they made her eat everything. And 30 some years later, here we are, with the same eating habits we had as 1 years olds (see Chart 1).

So, to all the parents and soon-to-be-parents out there, here's some advice from someone who can often barely take care of himself - make your kids eat everything. In fact, have them eat dog food. Have them eat bird seed. Have them eat shit that will make broccoli sound awesome.

And with that said, as a food pansy, I think I can justify simply trying new foods as list items. Granted, I don't plan on counting things like "tried salad for the 10th time and still don't like it", but this weekend's wedding provided multiple opportunities for new (and exotic (to me)) foods, so I'm counting this 3-pack as an item (its my list dammit, I'll add what i want to).

New Food #1 - Butternut Squash Soup

I've never had squash, and I've probably tried 4 soups in my life. So this was really a double whammy. And luckily, while I wasn't drunk, I was enough beers deep to say "fuck it, let's do this" (yes, i know its pretty sad that i'm trying to sound like a bad ass while trying new foods, instead of say, jumping out of a plane).  So I went for it and . . . meh. Not terrible enough for me to gag. Not good enough to down the whole cup. But I made it halfway through, without even having to plug my nose during it. Hooray me.  So we're going to give the butternut squash soup . . . .2 out of 5 "Blech's".

New Food #2 - A Flower

Yes. Item #2 was a flower. I have no idea what kind besides "white and purple-ish." (what can i say - I'm a boy and thus, rarely buy flowers (reason #28 why I'm single?)). 

So the flower came out on top of the giant hunk of delicious non-exotic good-ole-fashioned American chicken, which was itself on top of a mound of good-ole-fashioned American mashed potatoes (fun fact - I didn't eat mashed potatoes until I was about 24 years old. seriously, i could write a blog post a day for a year on foods that I don't eat (or didn't eat) that normal Americans do). I figured it was just aesthetics, but my friend Walter informed me (or duped me into thinking) that it was in fact edible. So after watching him down it first, making sure he didn't immediately turn purple from an allergic reaction, I took my turn at it.

 

The verdict? More harmless than lettuce (again, I don't eat salads, and people who say lettuce has no taste obviously don't have the refined palette that I do, but since everyone has tricked themselves into thinking it has no taste, we'll use that as the comparison here). No taste at all. Not something I'd order (if that's even possible), but because it was so benign, it merely warrants 1 out of 5 Blech's.

New Food #3 - A Pumpkin

With 2 foods down, and me on a roll (and me a few more beers deep since the butternut squash soup), I decided to give the cheering onlookers a gift.

The centerpieces were bowls of mini squash and mini pumpkins, and since it is the season of the pumpkin beer (which is sublime, and if you disagree, you may hate America), I decided to bite into one of the pumpkins like an apple. It was . . .

 

. . . a poor decision.  For my reaction, please see any of the pictures that now represent the Blech Scale. Not surprisingly, this new food didn't make it's way to my stomach, but instead into the nearest coffee cup (always a classy move at a wedding). It was instantly gross, but since it didn't result in a gag reflex, it deserves 4 out of 5 Blech's.

Upcoming Endeavors

• Barring a change a plans, Item #4 (the blind date) will be taking place tomorrow. This one has already elicited a weird mix of utter excitement and total fear and anxiety. 
• Anyone interested in seeing Salem during October? Doing a lot of these list items solo is perfectly cool.  Doing a haunted house alone makes me the creepy weird guy who parents will probably hide their children from. I don't want to be that guy. 
• And if you need an explanation of what the hell of writing about, see Post #1