11/23/2003 - 10:49 p.m. | this one stupid hair will not leave my peripheral vision

Ever know exactly how you need to do something, and yet every time you try, it's a colassal failure? Of course you do. It's the human experience. Of course, for you it might be some tragic thing like, dunno, saving orphans or something whereas I just can't get my body to flow smoothly enough to throw cards right. I tried all last night and a bit this morning. Can you imagine? A white guy not being smooth.

It is colder up here - and windier apparently - because I had a tough time sleeping what with the wind beating the shit out of the house all night long. On the plus side, I finally have a thicker coat than Spritz's army surplus thing, but now I sort of feel like a pussy for not wearing it. I have weird definitions of masculinity.

We went up to Aurora and vicinity today (or, as Andy Friedl would drunkenly yell, "RANDALL ROAD!" I've gained a new respect for Andy, mostly because when I see him these days, he is drunk and he is not my sophomore science lab partner). The radio in my parents' car goes on and off at whim, so my mom has taken to singing. Like everything else, I've inherited her musical ability (We're both A neg blood types as well, and we both had dry noses at the same time, hundreds of miles apart - scary, right?), so you know what you were missing out on. Citing his often-mentioned resemblence to Fonzie, my dad tried thumping the radio. This works about 20% of the time, which is still better than any of the rest of the world (minus Henry Winkler) could do.

We ate lunch at Friday's. I had what amounted to a mediocre version of my mom's chicken picatta, but that's pretty much what everything amounts to. After commenting once again how cute she thinks I am (minus the red undertones of my hair - my grandparents are going to have a conniption, and you of course will hear all about it), Mom started up on this whole thing about how I should date more, which is incorrect because the "more" implies that I date at all. Dad agreed. Once you start getting told your social life need to be spiced up by two people who are both asleep by 9 o'clock every night, you start to get a little concerned. Anyway, they tried to the same old selling points, but I just can't believe them, you know? There is typically some bias in favor of your offspring, no matter how mutated they may be (no offense to your DNA, guys). I just can't imagine any woman not being bothered by me and any, er, initiative I could take. Notice how I said "woman" instead of "girl;" I am trying to be respectful, except I feel like I am therefore implying that I am a man, and that's an outright lie. Once again, I know my notions are not correct, but here they are anyway. I think that trying to meet people is the ultimate act of egotism because you feel you have so much to offer that you've got to go and spread it around. I do not necessarily a bad guy, but I don't think I am special enough that people need to know me or that a million other guys couldn't fill my shoes.

Then I think about the logistics of meeting people, and it just hurts. Drunkenly grind random people until one of them doesn't seem to mind it. Pray they are not a mutant, male, or mistaking you for someone else. Repeat. This is rationalizing, I know, and even as I say it, I feel like I could get over it in not too long (remember when I said I could never, ever go to a party alone?), but I am still allowed my doubts, assface.

Anyway, through the cruddy weather, we hit a bunch of stores. Finally made it to a Borders, and they didn't have any of the books or CDs I wanted. So I settled and will therefore end up spending even more money. Dad and I went to Best Buy and started looking at computers. It is a very real possibility I could get one as my Christmas present this year - actually, he offered to get me one today even - but this goes against my nature in two ways: 1) I like junk. A lot of it. By which I mean I would miss asking for a bunch of random garbage and, you know, just having it. By the way, does this make me materialistic? Because I don't really want nice things or a lot of things. I just like having stuff. 2) I like junk. As in irony. Part of me takes pride in my decade old computer, terrible, loud buzzing and all. I think it's hilarious that current computers are literally ten times better than my own, and I'm not sure if I want to give that up. I'd rather suck at NES games than suck at newer stuff. So I will think on it.

While I was there, I looked at "Karaoke Revolution." Oh, it shall be mine. I will bide my time until after Christmas break, but I will have it, and I will conquer it. The track listing on it is amazing - "Celebration," "One Week," "Are You Happy Now?" As I suspected, they have R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It" as their big "challenge song," but guess what, fuckers? I already know that shit! AHAHHAHAHAHAH. My life is a joke.

We hit a few other places - my dad was very excited about the prospect of a "crumb tray" on the new toaster, I finally found the good guacamole chips (which are only sold at Target, of all places) and strawberry soy milk, and my mom led us through a pretty large percentage of all the Christmas shopping. So there you go.

We lit a fire when we got back, and while Dad went upstairs to watch football, I tried to explain to Mom the merits of "My Life as a Teenage Robot," but she is remarkably close-minded when it comes to cartoons. Instead, we watched this movie on Lifetime (!!!) starring Dr. Cox from "Scrubs" (John McGinley, newbs) as a psychopath. He played his part very well actually (although it was very much like Dr. Cox, which I guess says something), but the last hour of the movie (which was 4 hours long, by the way) was just the retarded lady trying to escape from his house while he was gone. She was so slow and worthless. Mom and I were screaming at her: "CALL THE POLICE, YOU IDIOT!" I mean, she was taking her time to ponder her feelings and telling stories to this little girl she was trying to rescue, and man - so frustrating. I read about vampires (The Complete Idiot's Guide To) for a little under my cute new fleece penguin blanket (which I will be periodically rubbing on Spritz's face because I know he loves it so) and then rushed down to watch the Behind the Music" on the Spice Girls. It makes me sadder and sadder that on both this one and the one about Britney Spears, I knew everything they told about on the show. Not one surprise. I've seen too much.

I have this weird knob growing out of the back of my head, which I guess I only just noticed because of my short hair. Anyway, it kind of freaks me out, so tomorrow I'm going to try and remove it with this bottle of stuff I found on the counter called "Stump Remover." Oh, the days are just packed.