Extinguish The Fire.

No humor here. This story has got me seriously twisted. Yesterday when I was in the shower I was busy daydreaming about fire extinguishers. Exciting, I know. It was the first time I gave it any thought. Do we have one? Where would it be if we did? Of course we have one, the management company would be stupid to not give every apartment one. I mean we'll probably never need one because there are nothing but very very responsible Puerto Ricans in our building but it would be nice to have one just in case...

Before I got out of the bathroom I had already forgotten about my safety. I got dressed, went to work and carried on in my usual pathetic fashion. After work I went straight home and checked my e-mail and found this in my Inbox.

Title: "your safety"

"if u dont have a fire extinguisher i recommend u get one for your own safety. safety first as we says in the building trades"

From Al. I know it's just a coincidence, I'm pretty sure Al can't read my mind (if he could he would have stopped talking to me centuries ago) but it's still pretty weird. What I've gotten from this is an immense amount of anxiety. Am I becoming my father? Is it inevitable for all of us little dudes? Are we all going to become our fathers? Al is a good guy but the world already has one of him. Does it really need another one? I'm probably a lot further along in the "Al" process than I would like to admit (he went bald in his 40's, I'm 20 years ahead of him). Now I'm wondering when I'll have 14 Pugs running around the house and shouting things like, "Mike Lowry! We ride together. We die together. BAD BOYS 4 LIFE" It looks like we're indeed ridin' together. Now I wonder who is driving and who is doing all of the yelling. Someone put the fire out.

Me and a large painting of Al.

Lunch Break.

Since I spent my whole day at work I thought it would only be appropriate to list my 3 favorite quotes of the day.

3) "Man I didn't spend a day of my life in school. I never even considered college. Actually I did but man, when I went to fill out that motherfuckin' registration form I got there a little late and the fuckin' line was too damn long. I wasn't about to wait in a line that long. So I went back home and said, 'Fuck it.' "

Nope.

2) "How many people here are Christians? Well even back in the day Moses and Joseph and Abraham were doing it. I mean c'mon, even guys back then were smashin' women that weren't their wives."

These gentlemen need a feast after all the "smashin" they just got done with. No wives allowed. Obviously.

1) Person 1 - "You mean to tell me you don't think there is anything else living anywhere else in this universe?"
Person 2 - "Nah man, what I'm sayin' is that if we're lookin' for them they're looking for us."
Person 1 - "That's the only thing that could explain it."
Person 2 - "Man I know how they built them damn pyramids you're talking about. It wasn't aliens. Some nigga from Egypt was like, 'Yo. Imma build them shits somewhere else.' So the dude left Egypt and built the Mayan ones."
Person 1 - "C'mon man that doesn't make any sense. How did he get there?"
Person 2 - *Makes paddling motion*

OK. I Googled "nigga from Egypt" and "Egypt nigga" and this dude came up on top both times. So I'm assuming this is him. The man that built the Mayan ones.

I can't tell if I should love my job. Or completely hate it.

Best Valentine's Day EVER.

Not a single person on Mother Earth would ever expect ME to enjoy a Valentine's Day. If I was dating J. Lo (I know it's a weird hypothetical choice but believe you me Jenny from the block is back!) and she planned a romantic evening out in the south of France at a beautiful chateau that was secluded from French people and any other annoyance of life (see "Australians"). Even if the food was incredible and J. Lo actually let me get weird with her face and maybe other parts of her body. Even if I had physical evidence of the whole perfect evening (just so I could have actual proof of me getting my swerve on and it wasn't just some pathetic lonely thing I thought of for a blog post). I would, without a doubt, find something trivial and meaningless to complain about. I'd most likely complain that there was nothing to complain about.

(And when I say "not a single person on Mother Earth" I'm including the little starving kid in Eritrea who is hallucinating from hunger, sitting in the middle of his hut that's made of shit pies. Even that little dude would take one look at me and mutter, "Nope." Or whatever the expression is for, "That pathetic lookin' fella won't find joy in anything because he's bitter and lonely," in whatever weird language they speak over there.)

If I haven't convinced you by now that I am perfectly incapable of ever being satisfied or content with anything, then I have failed. But that's because I can no longer sincerely say with the utmost conviction that I am incapable of enjoying an unbelievably worthless "holiday" that revolves around lying to yourself and other people. Yes, I had an incredible Valentine's Day. Here's why.

Rashida Jiggity Jones in the house!

Yep, Ms. Jones came into my job today and hung out (shopped) for a good hour. I was the first one to notice her and kept it to myself for a few minutes before letting my co-workers in on the secret. After going over all of my smooth lines I've had the past 3 years to think about (3 years because that's when I changed my Facebook profile's "Interested In" tab to "Women" making my "Like" for girls official) I decided that none of them seemed suitable for someone like Ms. Jones. I resorted to my usual plan of attack. I hid behind something and stared, not completely hidden but definitely completely creepy. I caught her looking at me (and this cocoa butter body) a few times but I didn't lose my cool. I kept my right hand above my waist. As she was being helped by the Manager of the store, who magically appears whenever somebody remotely famous shows up to shop, I found myself in the middle of a ridiculous conversation with a pretty cool guy. I jokingly said I was debating taking off my shirt and only wearing my name tag around the store because it was so hot. He replied, "DO IT MAN!" I laughed and wondered how quickly the National Guard would be called in to neutralize the traumatic situation that is my shirtless body. The guy noticing my smirk then said, "Live a little man," with a laugh. As I walked away still staring at Rashida, I wondered if the guy said "Live a little, man." Or if he was the type that said exactly what he saw, "Live. A Little Man." Either way I left the sales floor for a second to calm my nerves and to attempt to be less pathetic. When I walked back out I was determined to make weird stupid jokes to Rashida but I was immediately stopped dead in my tracks by the sight of Rashida holding Mr. Hey Marty Take Your Shirt Off's hand. Jealous? Me? No way. Best Valentine's Day ever!

I may not know how to charm confident, beautiful, famous women. But you best believe I know how to get their boyfriends to imagine me with my shirt off.

And the Music Video of Life award goes to...

Nelly - Tip Drill. Right?

I love high school girls.

Lord knows I wasn't getting any Tang in high school. (College.) (Now.) I mean I wasn't all that interested in the very unexciting young "women" of Northside College Preparatory High School. At the time I was just as bitter as I am today and really living in my own little world (as I am today). I didn't place too much attention on getting any of that stanky stank on my hang-low. To be fair most of those things were hardly girls. Now I'm not saying there weren't any that made me feel weird in my private places (these days they're probably a little more "private" than I'd like). Trust me many trees were sacrificed to tame Marty's high school loneliness. Kleenex is made out of trees right? If so let's just say that if I ever make enough money I'll try my hardest to replant the Redwood forest that suffered heavy casualties because of my lack of a high school girlfriend (or a high speed internet connection).

As I approach 30, I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever have the luxury of dating a high school girl. I mean I never got the chance back when I was a teenager and I figured when I was visiting Chicago while on a college break, I'd use my newly acquired college pimp game and surely mack some young naive (tender) drunk girl. It never happened. I'm not sure if I'm any cooler now than I was at 16 or 17. I'm still the bitter old 67-year-old man I was when I was 9. So I was thinking maybe since I've shed some pounds and have a face that is a bit more mature, I'd finally have a chance with those cute upperclassmen. I mean I'd rather have a Senior but I'd settle for a Junior, not because I'm desperate but because I'm fairly confident that Marty Jr. will make those Juniors into Seniors.

Should I feel guilty about this? I mean I'm not trying to be creepy but when I see these high school girls on TV I find myself thinking, "Why can't I have one for my birthday?" or "Why am I not invited to these school dances?"

Let's take a look at the TV high schoolers:

Aimee Teegarden aka "Julie Taylor." Status: College (Kinda.) My opinion: Well we didn't have a football team at my high school so I don't have any reason to believe that dating the coach's daughter would be terrible. But then again what kind of football coach is going to let a pathetic little guy like me date a daughter that looks like that. Even if I can legally rent a car.

Adrianne Palicki aka "Tyra Collette." Status: College. My opinion: It was really hard for me to find a picture of this girl that wasn't ridiculous. Seriously. Google her. Be prepared to plant a Redwood for your red wood's uncontrollable desires.

Minka Kelly aka "Lyla Garrity." Status: College, most likely a Christian one. My opinion: Why am I looking at girls from Friday Night Lights that are no longer in high school? But when she was in (TV) high school I thought she was obnoxious but totally amazing looking. Super Christian girls intrigue me. On one hand they're Christian. On the other hand...they're Christian!

Jurnee Smollett aka "Jess Merriweather." Status: High School. My opinion: What the hell ethnicity is this girl? In high school I came up with one of my many life-phisophies. "I don't trust anyone as brown or browner than me." Well Jess, as long as we keep you out of the Southern states we should be just fine. Plus you don't want to be in the Southern states anyways, they hate brown people.

Madison Burge aka "Becky Sproles." Status: High School. My opinion: Will you marry me?

Oh yeah, you know why I have Senior-itis? Because all of these girls are actually in their 20's (or 30's). And they're all perfect looking. The girls I remember from high school wore those weird vagina-pee-ka-boo-low-rise jeans with no back pockets (thanks Britney Spears). I remember them being such liars. I remember them only caring about being popular and cool. I remember them all being kind of awkward/weird looking (except for you Chanel, why don't you go on and give Uncle Marty a call, I'll at least settle for a Poke on Facebook). I remember them being total fucking idiots. I remember them being total bitches. That's what I remember. You know what real-life high school girls? You can all suck my...

Back to the Future.

My 2011 OPTIMISM lasted about 4.5 days. Things were going well. I was surrounded by a couple of my best buddies, I had a little bit of money saved up, I had grown comfortable with my insecurities (not really), and I had some funny ideas that I thought I could somehow work into this blog or other things I had been working on. Then, of course, I was quickly reminded that people are shitheads and that misery is my best friend. Yep, I got robbed. Fuckin brown people...

Being without a computer for 5 weeks was not fun. Looking for new job opportunities, desperately searching for a life partner through Missed Connections, and updating my Facebook Home page to see if it any of the hot girls from college posted any new slutty pictures, were all impossible. My life was empty.

Then I realized that I had all sorts of time to do things that I had been avoiding. Reading books, writing in my diary (it's only lame if you have a lock on it), and talking shit face to face to actual humans. It was marvelous. I learned about HeLa cells in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (highly recommended), I hit on a few girls (which means I stared at them for an unhealthy length of time), and I got some shit done. So I regained my original level of optimism. Not the optimism I had as the clock struck 12 on New Year's Eve, but the level of optimism I'm used to which hovers somewhere around "None."

Luckily, my insurance covered my stolen property and told me that they would reimburse me for almost everything I had "donated" to the Brown People Foundation. Things were finally looking up. So when I opened up my new computer and plugged it into the internet I thought, "The world ain't so bad after all."

Yea.
Fucking.
Right.

Scarlett Johansson, 26, "Smitten" With Sean Penn, 50 - Celebrity News - UsMagazine.com

It never fucking ends. Does it?

P.S. It's good to be back.

Can't you tell?

Downer Time.

You best believe that when I settle this insurance stuff and I get a new computer I'll be back. I'm not sure it will warrant an "I'm Back"(it was "He's Back" wasn't it?) headline from the Sun-Times like when Michael Jordan made his comeback but it will be just as magnificent. I'll be unleashing all of the bottled up bitterness. Until then...