Robin and I were on the train yesterday, coming home from the Mets game (or, as you Nats fans like to call it, the Nats game). We’re sitting there, staring across the car at this add for the Washington Times when Robin says to me, “The other day I realized the Washington Times is a GOP rag. I don’t know what took me so long to realize that.”

I gave her a confused look and replied, “What are you talking about? The Post is one of the most liberal papers in the country!”

“Not the Post, the Times.”

“The Times?”

“The Times.”

“I completely forgot the Times even existed.”

Despite living in DC for 8 years, working with various area papers, and being a bit of a newshound I couldn’t even comprehend the existence of the Times despite the fact that I was looking right an ad for the Times. I even heard Robin say “Times” and substituted “Post.”

So I went to the Times website and Robin’s right – totally a GOP rag. It sells one-seventh of the amount of papers that the Post sells (in the interest of fairness, I’ll categorize the Post as a liberal rag but it’s my liberal rag and I love it to death). I don’t understand how a paper like the Times can exist in one of the most liberal areas in all of America. The answer is: It can’t.

According to Wikipedia (ok, ok – I didn’t have time to do real research, shoot me) the Times has received billions of dollars in subsidiaries from its founder, Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, since its 1982 inception. Sun seems to believe the Times is his heavenly calling, claiming that, “The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world.”

I wanted to go out and buy a copy of the times today, just to see what its stories were like, and I couldn’t find a copy. I will get one, however – hopefully the Sunday edition – just to see how bad the paper is. But that’s beside the point and here’s the real question: Why hasn’t anyone made a movie about The Washington Times yet? I’d pay good money to see a flick about a church leader with not newspaper experience trying to tear down the liberal institution that is Washington DC by putting billions of dollars into a rag that people who live here forget exists. That’s a great story!

Labels: dc, editorial

Well – the pain is bearable, the drugs are working, and I can position the laptop in a “comfortable enough” position. Let’s talk about my hernia operation. Believe me when I say this story is worth sticking around for. It gets really good.

I had an umbilical hernia. This is something babies usually get. I got it from lifting. I looked down one day and noticed I had an outie bellybutton all of a sudden and it popped out far enough to irritate me whenever I wasn’t wearing overly-loose clothing. So – I needed to get it worked on. I pushed it off about two months so it didn’t interfere with book launch stuff too much.

I had to go to the hospital at 6AM this morning. I went out last night – had a good dinner and some drinks, reminded Robin and my parents that, if anything were to happen, do not sign anything without a lawyer seeing it first, and got to bed at around 10:30PM. Woke up nice and fresh, showered, tried to do a number-2, and had Robin drive me to the hospital.

Originally she was going to drop me off and then come back later. But she saw I was nervous and opted to hang out at the hospital with me – be a supportive girlfriend and all of that stuff. So, I went through the registration process, answered all of their questions, signed their paperwork. I got put into the prep room where I stripped down and donned the gown. A nice nurse took my vitals and explained the process to me. Robin came in and gave me a kiss before I was carted off to the anesthesiologist.

I met another nurse, the anesthesiologist’s assistant, and the anesthesiologist herself. They all noted that I was nervous – this was my first real surgery – and told me that they were going to give me a sedative after I talked to my surgeon.

I got to talk to my surgeon, he forcefully thrust his finger into my bellybutton, causing me to wince a bit, and told everyone to get me to the OR. The anesthesiologist’s assistant put the sedative in my IV line and they started wheeling me to the ER. The LAST thing I remember was feeling tipsy and telling the assistant, “Wow, this stuff works fast.”

And then I woke up.

There was a nurse by my side, asking me if I felt nauseous or in pain. My answer was, “I feel fucking fine.” Except I said it slurred, like I was drunk. I don’t quite remember what I said after that, but I do remember the nurse asking me, politely, if I could stop cursing because there were other people around. That sort of snapped me out of the dream-like state I was in.

We chatted for a bit – some of it is still a blur – and then she wheeled me to the recovery room and showed me how to use the TV. I watched Ninja Warrior while eating graham crackers and drinking apple juice. The nurse asked me if I’d like Robin to come in. I said, “Yeah, I think she’ll like that.”

And Robin comes in…

She kisses me. We talk for a couple of minutes. I tell her that I don’t remember anything past the sedation and that I was reprimanded for cursing too much but I was in La-La Land at the time. While talking to Robin, she glances over at the IV in my hand, sits down while rubbing her face, and says, “I hate these places.”

And then she passes the fuck out.

Falls off the chair and hits her head on the floor. I honest-to-God thought she was trying too hard to make a joke. But she wasn’t moving so I said, “Uhhh…doctor?”

I shit you not, every doctor and nurse in that hospital flooded into our tiny room. They unplugged everything but my IV and pushed me out of the room on the stretcher into a vacant room across the hall. There were a million things running through my head but the one thing that I kept coming back to was how everyone I spoke to asked me if I had a “responsible adult” that would be able to drive me home and take care of me for the next 24 hours. I did…and now she’s getting prepped for the ER.

Yeah. The ER. The put her on a stretcher and rushed her down to the ER, put her on an IV and resuscitated her. Then they gave her a full lunch (I didn’t even get lunch) and watched her to make sure she was doing alright.

I know this may sound horrible to some of you but, honestly, I can’t stop laughing. I was freaked out at first, sure, but a nurse told me she was coming around and asked if I knew of a “responsible adult” that can take the two of us home and that was the end of it. Even the nurse was laughing.

I called Robin’s parents to tell them what happened – this was when I was still in the worried phase. I got their answering machine. Called back when I found out she was alright and Robin’s mom and sister were on the phone. I told them what happened and they just started cracking up. Robin’s sister says, “You would have been better off taking the bus home.” I had to hang up on them because laughing hurts so bad. Apparently, while Robin was still in the ER, her sister was leaving voice messages and saying, “Hey Robin, I just called to…oh, I’m fainting,” and then hanging up.

As I was getting wheeled to the waiting room to meet up with Robin (not surprisingly, she didn’t go into the recovery room a second time) the orderly told me that “all he knew” was that there was a “code 5” and everyone was running to my room.

A Code 5.

I know she’s embarrassed but this story is just too rich. I was so worried about the procedure and the pain and all this stuff – I remember nothing, woke up fine, and had mild discomfort but no hardcore pain since.

Robin passes out.

Well now I know, in the future, Robin stays in the waiting room and I’ll need to have a contingency plan in place.

Anyway – what could have been a horrible day turned into a story that I will cherish forever. I feel bad that it’s at Robin’s expense but she took one for the team – I know in my heart that if this happened to me, she’ll be telling everyone who’d listen as well.

Anyway – I’m fine and Robin’s fine. She’s doing a fantastic job taking care of me. I really can’t stand on my own, just yet, and lying down is damn near impossible (I just have to let myself go dead and Robin lowers me onto the bed). Once I’m up I’m ok. I’m really slow and I can’t bend over or turn around, but ok otherwise. She got me sushi for lunch and picked up my pain meds and some stool softeners (the reason I wanted to number-2 this morning was because it will hurt so bad to do it now).

So – that’s my day. I’m reading TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for the first time since JHS. It’s weird – I’m finding there are some parts I appreciate more (like Scout, I guess, I was too young to understand the “adult stuff”) but there are some parts that I’m just not feeling that I liked more as a kid. I think my court-drama entertainment is seriously warped these days. I’m going to read WRITTEN ON THE BODY, next – looking forward to that one.

I’ll be in touch. By the way…have you been keeping up with POSTCARDS stuff? USA Today, Daily Candy, Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, LA Times, Washington Post, etc, etc, etc.

Labels: dc

I’ve often talked about my love for gambling but I never really talked about my experiences inside a casino. So, you know, why not? Some manly storytelling to follow-up last weeks talk of fuzzy animals.

My first experience gambling came when I was eleven. It was at my sister’s christening part at the Knights of Columbus in Red Hook. They used to have this slot machine in the back. Technically the kids weren’t allowed back there but this was a party, right? Our parents were giving us quarters and we were screaming out, “Come on, lucky 7!”

Well, I hit the three sevens. $250 bucks which, for an eleven year old, is a small fortune. I had to pay the bartender a 20% tip, according to my dad, so my prize money quickly dwindled to $175. But even after my first experience with greasing palms I still had enough to purchase the one thing I wanted to purchase: a new skateboard.

Early in life I learned that gambling = stuff I couldn’t afford. And I was hooked.

I bought a two-tailed Vallely. Decked it out with all new trucks and wheels – hooked it up nice. Couldn’t skate for shit but that didn’t matter – what mattered is how much I paid for this board. Absolutely nothing.

There were opportunities to risk my money after that, as well. I had a friend in junior high that would actually run a gambling operation in for some local guy. Football scores. I was twelve years old and betting a dollar a game, learning about spreads and over-under. I never bet more than I had (thankfully, I was a kid, but I still don’t bet more than I had) but I handed in my picks every week.

We started playing poker in junior high, too. In the lunch room – nickel, dime, quarter style. Poker became my game early on. I played through high school and as often as I could in college.

It was really the only gambling I did in college. No car, no money – my friends and I could sit around a table for hours, drink beer, and play poker. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that, despite my love for gambling, I didn’t play at a casino until I was 22 and out of school.

I went to Atlantic City with Robin and two friends, Max and Brooks. We stayed at this dirty motel off the strip. Robin went straight for the slots. She loves the slots. That girl actually bought a book on winning slot strategies. Since I have a diploma in mathematics, this absolutely freaked me out. I was like an evangelist that just found a Marilyn Manson CD and a bag of pot in my daughter’s room. But, you know, whatever passes the time…

Max and Brooks went to play blackjack. Me? I went to play Let it Ride.

Do you play Let it Ride? Because if you do, you’re playing the game with the worst odds. The one that non-gamblers play. I know this now. I spent the entire night at that table, up-and-down, until I eventually lost close to $200. It was a fun night, not a huge loss, no complaints.

As we were leaving I had my last ten dollar chip. Not wanting to cash it in, I went to the roulette table and put it on 14, my sister’s birthday. 14 came out – I won $350 bucks. I never played Let it Ride again. Of course, I also played the middle with a color someone else was playing. The guy was nice enough to tell the dealer that it was, indeed, my win and the dealer lectured me on proper roulette etiquette. I took my $350, bought lunch for everyone, and went home.

I started teaching myself blackjack.

My boss at my old job loved blackjack. After talking with him one day, we decided that I should learn to count cards. I have that math knack, after all, and I can catalog in my head pretty easily. So, I learned to count cards. By the time I was good at it I was already out of the old job and I never really had an opportunity to hit up Atlantic City with my old boss (you need at least two people to run a successful counting operation).

So, instead of using my new talents to get super-rich, I just used my new talents to burn my money really slowly. Bet a little higher when the deck’s hot, nothing noticeable, and a little lower when it’s cold. If the deck is cold, I’ll bet my win streaks like this:

1 – Minimum
2 – Minimum x 2
3 – Minimum
4 – Minimum x 2
5 – Minimum x 3

Repeat until I lose. If I lose, go back to 1. If the deck’s hot, I bet like this:

1 – Minimum
2 – Minimum x 2
3 – Minimum x 3
4 – Minimum x 4

Back to 2. If I lose, I go back to 1. It’s enough to sustain me for the night. I usually walk away a little ahead.

I’d still play roulette, too. I learned the secret to roulette, for me, is to play carefully. I was a casino in Gulfport, Mississippi playing roulette once. I’d put dollar chips down on five inside numbers. If I hit, a 7.6% chance, I get $35. If I’m ahead early, I get the fuck out of there, because everyone loses in roulette eventually.

Anyway, this one time in Gulfport, I hit the number 7 out of my first 10 spins. $16 dollars in, $245 out. I bought my coworker steak that night. Spent the rest of the evening breaking even at blackjack.

Blackjack is my real love. It’s that rush. One time I was at a casino with Robin’s brother playing blackjack. We were both at least a hundred up, I decided to call it in. He has $250 and he decided to play down to $200 so he goes $50 in. Two kings against the dealer’s three, what do you do? He splits them up - $100 in – and doubles down ON EACH. $200 in. He wins on one and loses on the other – breaks even on his bet. He figures, fuck it, and puts his fifty back in.

GETS THE SAME HAND.

Ends up $200 in again and wins on both, this time. We drink a lot.

And that’s a goddamn rush, right there. I play blackjack 90% of the time at casinos now. When Robin and I went on our cruise, we’d party and drink all night and then after I cuddled her ass to sleep, I’d go to the casino and play blackjack for two hours. I’m just lucky I don’t live closer to a betting establishment.

Robin’s into poker now, too. She comes out with me to my poker matches whenever she’s invited. She even won a local tournament and was invited to participate in the regional tournament but she couldn’t make it. We’re just a gambling family, I guess.

When our genes mix, our kids are going to be fucked.

Labels: brooklyn, dc, gambling

When you come to this site, you read stories about Hooker Hands and pants shitting and you likely say to yourself, when does he get to the stories about cute kittens and purse-sized dogs? Well, today’s the day, ladies and gentlemen, when I introduce you to the kids.

That’s right, the kids. Because I’m cheese for my pets.

I’ve talked about the pets I’ve had before Robin. A cat as a child that tortured me. A bird that I named after my adopted Grandma Fran that died almost instantly. The goldfish that we couldn’t kill. The beagle that was killed by his vet. And then LJ, who’s still alive – good ole, dumb as a sack of rocks, LJ.

Robin had some pets back in the day, too. A cat called Mittens. Usually, when you call a cat Mittens, it means they’re cute. This guy was an outdoor cat, though, that would drag dead mice and birds into Robin’s room as a kid. She had a dog, as well, but I forget his name. One year for his birthday (a late birthday – shortly before he died) they let him sit on a dining room chair and eat cake. From that day on, whenever the family would sit for dinner, the dog would take a chair and growl at anyone who tried to move him. Robin also had a rat named Sidney but we’ll get to him.

By my count, that’s seven pets total. In the eight years that Robin and I have been together, we’ve owned ten pets. So, let’s go…

The Bird

We lived in Southwest DC for six months. I picked out the apartment, Robin hated it. We’d often travel into neighborhoods we’d rather live in and one day we found ourselves in a pet shop in Bethesda. In this pet shop there was this well-groomed, well-mannered Quaker Parrot up for adoption. We asked the employees about the bird and they told us that the owners haven’t been home much and haven’t had time to dedicate to the bird. He’s eight years old, and Quakers usually live to around 25.

We liked the guy, we took him out and he sat on our fingers and our shoulder. His name was Quaky and we really couldn’t change it because the only thing he knew how to say was, “I’m Quaky.” It’d be awkward if we changed his name to Julius or something. So, we decided to adopt Quaky.

He was great. He’d fly around the house, land on our finger, say, “I’m Quakey,” in case we forgot. We really liked the guy. And then he turned on me, took a chunk of my finger off, and I stopped liking him almost instantly.

Apparently, Quaker Parrots tend to bond to one person and one person only, and usually a female. He viewed Robin as his mate and I was his competition. Because of this, he attacked me whenever he had the chance. We ended up clipping his wings, obviously.

Robin still loved him until he started biting her, too. He doesn’t attack her – doesn’t fly at her face like he does to mine – but he sure as hell doesn’t let her hold him. We decided that he’s just a mean bird. That’s why his previous owners really gave him up.

We tried to soften him up a bit but nothing worked. There are currently two trains of thought in the house. Mine is that we failed, and someone else will do better. Robin’s is that someone else will put him to sleep. As with all things in our household, Robin’s logic wins, and we still have Quaky. On the bright side, he only has ten years left.

Only. Ten. Years.

The Rats

Once we realized that the bird hates us we decided to get a pet that’ll love us. This was while we were still in Southwest and we weren’t allowed cats or dogs. So we got rats (Robin’s idea). Robin’s first rat, Sidney, was a cute little guy – she had him when we first started dating. I wasn’t really down with the “rat thing” but I would let her crawl on me and I’d pet her because, honestly, I wanted to get laid (not by the rat).

So, Robin goes to a breeder and gets us two rats. Macy and Cole. Macy is the lovable, lick-your-fingers type and Cole was likely a butch lesbian. She ran on the wheel all day and would, occasionally, mount the other rats and hump them. Vigorously. We didn’t stop there – Robin hooked up with a breeder that had a dumbo rat (big ears) named Dilly and a blue-haired rex (bluish hair that looked permed) named Penny.

It was fine, they all had their own personalities and they were low-cost pets. I even took an affinity towards Penny – she’d sit at my desk while I was trying to make comics and I’d feed her treats.

The problem is, rats get sick. Real sick. Especially females. Dilly was the first to get sick. One day we see her jumping around her cage and gasping for air. We take her to the vet. Now, we’re new at this. We don’t know about prices or any of that stuff. We take this rat to the vet at night. They take her in, put her on a ventilator, and observe her. The following day they’re giving her meds, back on the ventilator, etc, etc, etc, and they put her down. It was sad – Robin was crying. I was a little choked up, mainly because Robin was so sad. But I started crying when I saw that bill – it was a touch over a thousand dollars.

For a rat. That cost us fifteen bucks. Even Robin, the animal lover, thought we might have gone a bit too far with the treatments. So, we made a pact – every rat gets one chance. Unless their chance involves ventilators, then we say goodbye.

Macy and Cole got tumors; those were reasonably priced to remove and counted as their one chance (we had a better vet now, too). Macy had a respiratory infection that we gave her medicine for until she died. We put her to sleep. Cole ended up dying the exact same way. When there was only Penny left we adopted a fifth rat, Dipper. The only male of the crew – he was a cool dude but Penny got a tumor shortly after we adopted him, which we removed, and the respiratory illness to follow. She died while we were taking her to the vet.

That left Dipper. When we adopted him, he was about two years old. He lived for a year and died peacefully, never a problem. We decided that if we ever get another rat it’ll be a boy. We never got another rat, though, and I think that was a good decision. They were just way too expensive.

The Cats

We were only supposed to get one cat. We adopted her from the shelter. Her name was Crystal but we weren’t having any of that so we just call her Kitty. Some cat-lady croaked and twenty-some-odd cats were dropped off at the shelter – Kitty was the last one. She was nine when we adopted her, she was friendly as all hell, and she’s been in this non no-kill shelter for several months. The way we saw it, we had to adopt her, because no-one else was going to. She has a mullet, she sleeps in bed with us, and she’s clumsy as all hell. A good cat.

Robin was volunteering at the same shelter when she met our second cat, Rogue. Rogue was around seven. Lovable and petite. We took her home; she took a couple of months to get integrated, Kitty would kick her ass constantly. She meows a lot, she wakes us up as soon as the alarm goes off or one of us opens our eyes, and she keeps the other cats in line. All good.

We decided to stop at two cats.

Our third cat, Frisky, was two years old when we got her. She was my Grandma Fran’s cat. Her son got it for her to keep her company/keep her busy; Grandma Fran had Alzheimer’s. When Grandma Fran died, her son said he was going to put the cat to sleep. Robin and I wouldn’t have that so we took the cat. Frisky was hiding in the walls of my Grandma Fran’s apartment and we managed to flush her out. My father drove her down to DC. She got along fine with Rogue but Kitty gave her a hard time. She jumps around a lot, she’s afraid of everything, and I’ve never seen her bat back at any of the other cats. With a cat like that, three doesn’t seem so bad.

Our fourth cat was a foster that we decided to keep. Ashes. She’s a terror but she keeps things interesting. She’s a three-year-old punk, she attacks everybody, and whereas her ass is occasionally handed to her by Rogue, she keeps Kitty and Frisky on their toes. We kept her solely for the entertainment value. We’ve learned how to keep her in line if we need to – when the Nerf gun comes out she knows she went too far. But she’s always the first to greet us, she likes to play rough, and she doesn’t upset the status quo too much.

Four cats. No intention of getting a fifth. Robin’s not allowed at shelters anymore.

The Dog

And then there’s Becky. Robin manages the largest pet sitting service in DC. One of her clients died and left behind a nine-year-old rat terrier. Six pounds, she’s smaller than all of our cats. Her name’s Becky – Robin brought her home to see if I liked her.

I don’t like small dogs unless their beagles or bulldogs. A dog should be at least twenty pounds, that’s how I see it. This dog had large, beady eyes and ears that poked up. Hardly any fur and bad breath. She had a burn on her back - when she was spayed they kept a heat lamp on her for too long. She was just a beat-up, mangy looking dog.

But she loves to play fetch. Seriously, fetch for hours. One day we were having a barbeque and everyone there kept throwing the ball for Becky. She kept fetching that ball UNTIL SHE PASSED OUT. We had to take her upstairs and put her into a tub of cold water to revive her. She fetched until her body shut down.

I was a big fan of the fetching, so I let Robin adopt her. The integration was tough, because I wasn’t too down with some Becky-things, but Robin was patient me. For instance – Becky won’t go outside if it’s cold. Especially not if it’s snowing or raining. You just end up dragging her around. She won’t go to the bathroom. So we had to get her sweaters and booties.

Well, I wasn’t going to walk around with a dog wearing a sweater and booties. I refused to, actually. The first time she pissed on the rug changed my mind about that one, however. So, now I walk her with a sweater and booties.

But, like I said, it’s all about the fetching. On a hot summer day I sit on the lawn in a beach chair with a 32 of Delirium and a good book. I put some water out there for Becky and every five minutes I give the ball a toss. We stay out there like that for hours. Sometimes I’ll use the whiffle-ball bat to get the ball going nice and far. I get to practice my hitting and Becky gets to stretch her legs. It’s the perfect partnership.

She loves cheese, she loves barbeque, and she demands the attention of pretty girls. She’s a good dog.

And that’s the extended family. We currently have five animals – the cats, the bird, and the dog. No plans to get any more.

And I definitely think we’re done with the rats.

Labels: dc, pets

The whole purpose of this blog, when I first started it, was to tell stories about growing up in Brooklyn and going to school in Boston. January 2006 I extended that mission to include stories about moving to DC/starting a life with Robin. The year before January 2006, I wrote 260 stories. A new story every Monday through Friday. The year since, I wrote about thirty. I admit – this blog became a tenth priority, at best.

But I want to kick it up a bit more. With the first year, I had a definitive ending in sight. I graduated BU – I moved out of Boston. The End. I always felt that, by including DC stories, I really never had anywhere to go with them.

Well, now I do. And I’m going to start at the ending and tell you all about my recent engagement to Robin.

Robin and I have been together for almost eight full years. This June, by our calculation, will mark the start of our ninth year together. And we just got engaged two weeks ago. It’s not like I never considered getting engaged before. Robin and I were both resistant to marriage at different times. A collection of reasons. We’re too young, our commitment to each other without legal obligations says more than anything else, we don’t want to have kids yet, anyway – we always had excuses on hand.

Not like the excuses ever really satisfied anyone. My parents would occasionally rib us a little – Robin’s mom would occasionally have too many drinks and flat out ask me when I was going to propose. This was usually funny, unless she did it in front of Robin’s father. Then it became uncomfortable.

Internally, I kept setting deadlines for myself. The first one was: “I’ll propose once we get out of debt.” Well, we got out of debt. Robin and I were having some issues incorporating our families into our lives and I said to myself, “Well, after we get the family stuff ironed out.” Well, we all get along fine now. It became a joke; I’d laughingly tell my friends, “We’ll get married after I get my first helicopter.”

The final deadline I set for myself was, “We’ll get married after I sell my first book.” As someone who wanted to write his whole life, I knew the odds of me ever selling a book were slim-to-none. And then I sell Postcards to Random House, biggest publisher in America, a literal dream-come-true.

And I said to myself, “Fuck, maybe I should propose.”

I decided to do it in Italy. Of course, I wrestled with my decision for several months. I kept finding reasons why Robin and I will never work in the long term. Important stuff like “she doesn’t like comics” and “we can never share a bottle of wine because she doesn’t like reds.” I fought through all of these issues and picked out the perfect ring…

…and the ring was well into the five-figures. And just like that I had another excuse – I needed to be able to afford this ring. Cash. I convinced myself that this was the only ring for Robin, the only one she deserved. I was being a good boyfriend. There was another, more affordable, ring I liked but I would not settle for second best.

For my birthday Robin took me out to this wonderful Italian restaurant in Georgetown. After several glasses of wine (I was drinking Chianti, she was drinking chardonnay, of course) Robin says, “You know – I heard Venice is a great city to get engaged in.”

It’s funny how one sentence can get you to instantly stop playing games. For the first time in our eight years together, Robin and I jibed. We both wanted to get married at the same time. I got real serious, real fast – so serious that I got angry at her for “ruining my plans” – and I managed to convince her that I feel we’re simply not ready for marriage yet. I laid out some issues we still need to work through. And, since it was my birthday, she couldn’t get mad about them.

It was perfect – and she left that restaurant convinced that I had no intentions of proposing.

I ordered the ring that night. It was from a jeweler in Florida specializing in antiques and replications that a broker found for me. It was a replica 1910 Edwardian inspired platinum ring. A good rock in the middle and a crown of smaller diamonds clasping it into place. The crown was an important feature, one that I was specifically looking for. Robin’s my princess, she knows it, and she always tells me to buy her a tiara one day. I made sure that her engagement ring had a tiara embedded into it.

Getting the ring was a bit of a nightmare. I wanted it fast because, if it sucked, I could return it and get a new one. I paid extra for rush-resizing (I sized it by using one of her existing rings) and rush-delivery. That was on a Wednesday. I should have received shipping notification, at least, by that Friday. I was in New York that weekend and decided to call the jeweler. I got some lady on the line that was telling me to calm down and if there was a problem, they’d call me. I reiterated that I needed the ring by next Thursday at the latest and she said she understands that.

Now it’s the following Wednesday. I leave for Italy on Friday. I still don’t have a ring. I still don’t have a tracking number. So I call the jeweler again and get the same chick on the line. She “remembers me” and tells me, once again, that if there’s a problem they’ll call me. I ask to speak to shipping. She transfers me, I’m on hold for five minutes, and then a guy gets on the line, probably not from shipping, and says, “Mr. Rodriguez, we’re so sorry. We’re sending the ring overnight right now.”

I got the ring at my office the next day.

I also ordered this crystal/Faberge Egg looking ring box. For some reason, I got it in my head that Venice was known for their Faberge Eggs. The plan was to go to some market, put this ring box amongst a sea of Faberge Eggs, and say, “Hey, we should get one while we’re here – how about this one?” She grabs it, opens it up – surprise! Engagement ring!

Imagine my surprise when I get to Venice and I don’t see a solitary Faberge Egg.

My improvised plan was essentially, “Fuck it – we’re in Venice.” Because, honestly, being in Venice, in-and-of-itself, makes for a great engagement story.

We went to dinner at a place called Trattoria alla Madonna. It was off the beaten path a bit. Nothing flashy – the place where the gondoliers went to eat after getting off of their shift. There was an American there, Mike. He asked us how we knew about this place and I told him it came highly recommended. Mike comes to Italy twice a year and he proceeded to give us recommendations for restaurants in Florence while helping us with the food choices on our menu.

I played football in high school; I realize when someone’s throwing a block. As Robin’s back is turned towards Mike I pull the Faberge Egg out of the pocket and put it on the table. Robin turns back around, sees the egg, and asks, “What’s this?” She opens it up, sees the engagement ring, and asks, “What’s this?” I ask her to marry me. She says, “Really?” I say, “Yes.” She says, “Are you sure?” I say, “You know, you’re freaking me out a bit.” She starts to cry and says yes, I put the ring on her.

I apparently convinced her that I was never going to propose to her. Also, she thought the Faberge Egg had sugar packets in it.

The ring doesn’t fit. I resized it at least a size too big, I gather. She has to wear it on her middle finger.

After dinner we walked over the Rialto Bridge to a wine bar situated right at the base and called our parents and siblings. Everyone was excited. Everyone probably knew about it, too.

My family certainly knew. I had to call Robin’s brother to get her father’s cell phone number so I can ask permission, so Robin’s family probably knew. I also told a lot of my family and friends as well as a bunch of coworkers at my day job and in comics that I was going to propose. So, it probably wasn’t much of a surprise to anyone.

At any rate – we’re engaged. I want to get married next Spring, Robin wants to finish school first before she even starts planning the wedding so she’s thinking the following Spring. At any rate, it’s going to be one hell of a party.

Labels: dc, engagement, italy, robin

This is a Tuesday story. I posted a Monday story as well. Real quick, though, I'm interviewed at Scryptic. Go, read it. But, more importantly, the complete Elk's Run is available in Previews. I edit this book, I love this book - the print rights were purchased by Villard (a division of Random House) and the book comes out in March. Go tell your comic shop. Now.
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This coming Saturday is my company Christmas party. In the movies (and on TV), company Christmas parties tend to look like a good time. Young(er) people getting drunk, photocopying asses, and making out in the storage closet. When you work in defense, your parties aren’t like that at all. You usually end up going to same hotel and eating the same food and listening to the same DJ and making fun of the same people.

So you have to make the most of it.

December 2000 I went to my first holiday party. Robin even came in from Boston to go accompany me. This was shortly after I got my first big win at TAO so I was a little bit of a big shot; 22-year-old kid brings in a mid-six-figure contract four months into his time at the company. A lot of the folks at the party knew of me and wanted to meet me – it was exciting (and Robin was impressed as well).

The food was good, the drinks were free for the first two hours (but Robin and I crashed the wedding next door where the drinks were free all night), and as the old folks started to trickle out the young(er) folks danced a bit. Mainly Robin and I. At the time the next youngest person in the whole company was mid-thirties (and that’s including administrative staff).

I worked for an OLD company.

But we had fun and come December 2001 we were ready for another good time. Robin’s company party was at her office – it was fine but, you know. Meh. Mine was at the same hotel again. Same menu. Same attendees. Same DJ. Same music. My boy Mike was at TAO now as well – Robin and I thought we had someone young to hang with until he ate some ravioli made with some pesto (after the waiter told him there were not nuts) and Mike had to get rushed to the hospital.

Robin and I got liquored up and danced by ourselves again.

December 2002 was the same thing. Again. Except this time Mike didn’t almost die.

December 2003 was the supposed to be the same thing. But, having enough of the blahs, I got up on the dance floor and sang James Brown’s, “I Feel Good.” I was shaking my hips and doing spits – making suggestive eyes to my old-ass coworkers’ wives and getting them to giggle. Most of the people at the part apparently hated it but, whatever, I felt good. I knew that I would.

December 2004 and I was no longer at TAO. After a 6-month stint at one or the largest defense contractors in the world I found myself at an employee-owned company making good money. Our party was at a cramped restaurant, I was only working at the company for two weeks so my interaction with folks was low – I didn’t really know anybody except for the two folks I came over to the new place with.

But it was a new atmosphere, new food options, and new conversations. No dancing, however, and after the party a bunch of my coworkers made their way to the bar but I didn’t go over there with them – Robin and I just headed home.

The company realized that we’re getting too big for a restaurant thing so Christmas 2005 we were on a dinner cruise. We sailed the Potomac while eating food and dancing. The car was open all night and the younger folks (and my current company is MUCH younger) got wasted. After the cruise we went to a bar in Alexandria and drank some more. Good times for all.

However, a bunch of the older folks at the company didn’t like the fact that they were trapped on a boat for four hours so this year we’re not on a cruise.

We’re in a hotel.

The same hotel my Christmas parties at TAO were in.

And I’m sure the parties will be there from now on until I retire.

Labels: dc

Today’s the first day I brought my winter jacket out of the closet and it was mainly for stylish reasons – I could have easily gotten away with a sweatshirt. Where’s the snow? The sub-zero weather? We’re digging into December now and I’m still biking around with a fleece on.

Didn’t it seem to get colder earlier when we were kids? I remember going sleighing in December with my pops. Prospect Park – we’d pack up a thermos of hot chocolate and bring the wooden sled as well as the red, round sleds; the ones that spun out of control all the way down the hill.

My dad would always bundle me up until I was sweating. We’d be with my cousin Luis and start with the smaller hill – the baby hill. Two of us would sleigh down the hill while the other watched over the hot chocolate thermos. We’d try to be goofy about it – sleighing down the hill on my dad’s shoulders or something similar. I remember that there was this creek that was quite a few tens-of-yards out from the bottom of the slope – it was nearly impossible to get enough momentum going to get close to that creek yet every time I went down that hill I was afraid I was going to fall in.

We’d always warm-up on the baby hill a bit, gearing up for the real reason we went to Prospect Park when it snowed – Suicide Hill.

Suicide Fucking Hill. I’d come running out of my bedroom the Saturday morning after it snowed BEGGING my dad to take me to Suicide Hill. That hill was monstrous as a kid – the fact that you had to walk up a staircase to get to the top of it was mind-boggling. There’d be a line of kids walking up that staircase, each of us taking a step at a time, watching kids fly down that hill packed so densely that collisions were routine.

Suicide Fucking Hill. You’d get to the top of the hill, get a good running start, and take off with that sled beneath you. There was nothing worse than a bad takeoff on Suicide Hill – the kind where you tumble off of your sled and roll down the hill for a while. You try to regain your footing but kids are aiming for you, taking out your legs and getting you to flip on your as. If you fell of your sled going down Suicide Hill you’d end up at the bottom ten minutes later with open wounds, bruises, and a mild concussion.

Suicide Fucking Hill. Going down face first on a wooden sled was the best – snow kicking up and making your face freeze. You couldn’t see a thing like that; between the chunks of eyes depositing in your eyes and your face being stretched back from the colossal speeds you flew blind all the way down, taking out kids as they scramble for their misplaced sled.

The funny thing about Suicide Hill is the fact that, come spring time, it looks like a baby hill. Seriously – I remember looking at Suicide Hill without snow on it and being so disappointed, you could hardly get a good roll going down the hill when it was grassy. For some reason snow made that damn hill a Black Diamond. The place to be in Brooklyn after a snowstorm.

Suicide Fucking Hill.

Labels: dc

Busy day and I really don’t have a story ready. So I’ll just freestyle a couple of holiday-themed anecdotes.

Christmas 2001 Robin came to visit me from Boston. She took the bus, 8-hours, and was spent by the time she got in. She gets to DC only to discover that I didn’t buy a tree. We went to Cleveland Park to see if we could find someone selling a tree. There was some organic mart with these little four-footers out front so we purchased one. We couldn’t take it on the metro so I just said I’d carry it home – it was only two one metro stop, after all, probably a little over a mile walk, and the tree was light. Well, after walking three blocks, uphill, I realized I made a very big mistake. Not wanting to look like a wuss, however, I continued to carry it all the way home. The anguish on my face was apparent because every five minutes Robin would ask, “Are you sure you don’t want me to carry it?”

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One year Santa came to my grandma’s house. I knew “Santa was in our hearts” at this point so I asked my mom who was playing Santa.

“What do you mean? That’s Santa.”

No-one would tell me. I don’t think it was a family member, I remember as a kid thinking it was my Grandfather but then my Grandfather showed up. Looking at pictures of the Santa, now, I still have no idea who he was. I don’t think his red nose was from the cold, though – Santa looks drunk in those pictures.

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Speaking of grandma’s house, we’d always have a big Christmas Eve thing there where all seven brothers and sisters (plus the grandparents) would give gifts to all of the nieces and nephews. So, the night before Christmas you were guaranteed at least seven presents and they were always the things on your list that “Santa didn’t get a chance to make,” so they weren’t shitty gifts at all.

The adults would torture us. They’d set some time for us to open the presents and it was always hours away. When the time came they’d start taking pictures of us and setting up cameras and finding all these excuses to hold us up even more.

Let’s put this into perspective. The cousins consisted of me, my sister, Luis, Andy, Amanda, Samantha, Keisha, Tatum, Christina, lil-Mike, and, on occasion, big Mike from Arizona. Eleven kids. Each kid gets a minimum of seven presents. There were at least 77 presents under that tree and the adults just kept fucking with us. 77 wrapped-up presents waiting to be torn open. And my mom was using her spit-finger to wipe peanut butter off of my face so I’d look good for pictures.

Torture.

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Labels: dc

My mom called me last night to remind me to watch the tree lighting ceremony on TV. I started watching it a bit late, I caught Sara McLachlan’s rendition of Happy Christmas (War Is Over) which went right into Christina Aguilera singing a song from her new album. The song was called Hurt and, as far as I can tell, it’s about a girl that chases away her boyfriend and the boyfriend could possibly be dead now. Not sure.

And while she was singing this song, Sasha Cohen was figure skating.

And then they lit the tree.

And I watched this, mouth agape, and wondered, “What the fuck does this have to do with Christmas.”

It was a depressing song. I mean, seriously:

There's nothing I wouldn't do
To have just one more chance
To look into your eyes
And see you looking back

Does that say “Christmas” to anyone? Only depressed people and they’re the ones killing themselves on Christmas – they’re probably not even watching the tree lighting ceremony. Would it have really hurt Christina Aguilera to sing, I don’t know, Jingle Bells? Oh Christmas Tree would have been a nice lead-in to the lighting of the tree.

It drove me nuts. But it also inspired me to bump back the story I had planned today and focus a bit on Christmas Music.

There are three Christmas albums I remember from my childhood. I used to get them out in December and play them on my little Fisher Price record player. Sitting under the tree, hot chocolate, cookies, and a Star Wars sleeping bag.

A Scooby Doo Christmas is one of the albums I remember. There weren’t any songs on it; it was a radio play of sorts where some ghost was scaring kids at an orphanage for some reason. Scooby Doo and pals get called in to solve the case and it turns out the ghost was some old man who would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for the meddling kids. I kind of remember Santa showing up in the end although I don’t know why. And I remember one of the clues being footprints in the snow.

A Chipmunk Christmas was another one. My parents hated that goddamn record, mainly because I kept playing Christmas Time Is Near over and over again. It would drive me mad, too, if all I heard was a high-pitched voice singing “Christmas, Christmas, time is near; Time for joy and time for cheer,” ever couple of seconds. I liked the song because one of the Chipmunks sang something like, “Me, I want a hooollllaaa-hoooooppp.” I loved that line. And then all the Chipmunks started fighting and Alvin got punished in the end – classic!

A Disney Christmas is the last album I remember and I still love that record to this day. The entire Disney family singing The 12 Days of Christmas was one of my favorite childhood memories. The song got more chaotic with every verse and towards the end Goofy belts out my favorite line, “Fiiivvveeee Onion Ringsssss.” God that cracked me up as a kid (I was easily amused).

For our first Christmas together Robin got me a working Fisher Price record player. Well, “working.” It plaid the records but the sound was modulating like mad. I got the old records from my parents and we sat in front of our little fake tree and listened to The 12 Days of Christmas while exchanging presents. The record kept sticking; I think we got up to the fourth day of Christmas before we gave up. But it was a nice little callback to Christmas morning as a kid.

We played the Chipmunk album next and it took about two seconds for me to get a headache. How did we tolerate that shit as kids?

Labels: dc

I know yesterday I talked all about Santa and how much I love to get presents and what not but I’ve always been a giver. When I was a kid (I’m talking four or five years old, here) I’d go rummaging through the bottom of my parent’s closets and find Christmas gifts for them – wrap them up and bring them out Christmas morning. I distinctly remember this one year I wrapped up some shoes and a purse that I found in my mom’s closet.

When I hit elementary school it was all about the crafts. Making little ornaments for mom out of clothespins and balls of cotton; begging my teacher to let me pull the trigger on the glue gun. Going to the gymnasium armed with the five bucks my mom gave me and buying her some fake diamond earrings for two bucks; using the remaining three dollars to buy a hand-made wallet for my dad and some cupcakes.

I remember making the stuff for the craft sale – the teachers put us kids to work for a day. About a month beforehand we all go through this craft catalog and pick out the items we feel we should sell. Goofy pencil toppers, Chinese finger traps, picture frames – some items required assembly and some were ready to go. When the crafts shipment came in we had to sort everything out before forming teams – each team was responsible for assembling something. Putting googly eyes on a pom-pom or putting glitter on a Popsicle stick. We were all cogs in the craft sale machine, making the items we’d end up buying for our parents for Christmas and the PTA keeps the profit.

I don’t do craft sales anymore, obviously. I have a job. I make money. And with that money comes better, more thoughtful gifts. For instance, my mom’s favorite toy as a kid was her Barbie Dream House. This was like 1963, I believe. It was destroyed when my mom’s house burnt down and she wanted one ever since. So, I got her a 1963 Barbie Dream House for Christmas one year.

I started doing right by my sister, as well. A good keyboard one year, a computer the next. Robin got spoiled, as well. Fashions, movies, musics, tickets – whatever she wanted plus some surprises every year.

But, like I said, I’m a giver. And a giver gives to those that need before he gives to those that want.

Every year since graduating college Robin and I have adopted a family in DC that couldn’t afford their own presents. We’d get everything on their kids’ lists plus some extra clothes. We’d even get some extra luxury items for the mother and gift certificates for whatever grocery store is close by.

We’d deliver the presents ourselves. One year there were two kids, the daughter was out with her father but the son was home. The boy had a ratty Playstation and he wanted a wrestling game for it. He knew we got it for him and while we sat down and talked to his mother he kept begging her to let him open it. She finally caved and me and the boy went into the kitchen to play video games together (he kicked my ass).

The mother shared with me some letters she was trying to get published by The Washington Post. Pieces she wrote about what goes on in her neighborhood every night and how nobody cares. Letters about the idiot kids that live on her block and make her son’s life hell. We’re not talking high school bullshit, we’re talking guns fired through a window as a prank and severe beatings on the way home from school. About how the cops treat her like a criminal when she calls to file a complaint. How they never followed-up with her and were never able to find her report when she called back.

I don’t know exactly why but I saw my mom. The environment was different, sure. My dad was around and he was as much a part of my life as my mom was. As far as I know, my parents never asked anyone for help – my father worked two jobs and my mom took a job when they needed the extra cash. Our neighborhood, whereas not the nicest neighborhood in Brooklyn, was tight – we had great community. But there’s something about the struggle to be a mother, I guess. Single mom, two kids, scraping to get by – writing letters to the papers because the cops don’t take her serious when she’s trying to protect her son.

Struggling. Asking complete strangers for help. Not money. Gifts. For her son. So that he can have a good Christmas. So that he can play a wrestling game on a used Playstation his absentee father bought him.

That’s a mom, you know? You put my mom in the same situation and that’d be her.

Robin and I stayed for a while. Playing video games, talking – the mother insisted we had some cake and coffee, neither of which were good but we swallowed it all down. She cried when we gave her the grocery store gift card – she thanked us nonstop as we were getting ready to go. We drove away and left them on their doorstep, the two of them smiling and waving at us.

And just like that their Christmas is over.

I’m not going to be the guy who just sits here and says that all my sins are cleansed from one evening of charity work. I’m not going to pretend that two-hundred bucks to spend at Safeway, some clothes, and a Playstation game is going to leave any sort of lasting impact on anybody. But that’s also not going to stop me from doing it every year.

I guess this is part story, part plea. I set you up by starting all warm and fuzzy. I apologize. Yes, this is a trap. But the truth is, there are families that need a break for one day. There are families with lives that are worst than yours will ever be. There are mothers out there who just want their kids to have one great fucking day but they can’t afford to give it to them and it kills them.

There’s plenty of time till Christmas. You can still adopt a family. This year we’re adopting two families. One through the Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry and one through the Arlington-Alexandria Coalition for the Homeless. I’m sure there are plenty in your own communities. See what you can do.

‘Tis better to give, after all.

Labels: dc

Ah, Amazon. Fucking Amazon. It’s so easy to make a wish list and email it to all of your friends and family. Here’s mine, in case anyone wanted to buy me a present. You click the link, find something that’s under ten-bucks, enter your password, and commit to the purchase. You don’t even need to know my address. It’s that fucking easy.

Every December I get the emails from Amazon telling me my sister or Robin or one of my boys have updated their wish lists. And every year I go and measure-up how much this person’s worth to me, and I buy them something. It’s a Christmas List broadcast to everyone in the world…

Except for Santa.

What the fuck happened to Santa? At what point was he cut out of this gift giving process?

“But Jason, Santa doesn’t exist.”

Bullshit. I tell you what – it isn’t common sense that convinced me to buy a Coach bag for Robin last year despite the fact that it wasn’t on her wish list. It was some portly mother fucker with a red nose whispering shit in my ear. That son of a bitch spends my Christmas bonus every year. Santa exists, ladies and gentlemen. He’s planted in our heads at a young age and he lives there until we die. He’s your guilt, your need to be loved and accepted. So when you’re making your wish list this year, before you click “send”, look north, tell Santa you’ve been a good boy or girl, and ask him to get you everything you want.

I don’t kid around when it comes to Santa. I never did. I don’t care how your opinion towards me is changing right now but the day someone told me Santa didn’t exist was the first day I said, “bullshit.” My parents, my scraping-to-get-by-working-two-jobs parents, didn’t buy a complete series of Star Wars figures and put the time and effort into tying them all to a string that I pulled on Christmas morning, causing the figures to erupt from the side of the couch in a ball of wondrous goodness. That shit was Santa, and nobody’s ever going to convince me otherwise.

And even when I knew Santa wasn’t a physical person that came in through our window because we didn’t have a chimney I still wrote a list for him and handed it off to my parents. Because I knew my parents couldn’t afford a Gameboy but Santa – that evil, conniving, overgrown elf – sure as hell would convince them to do it.

So I made a list. I said, “Dear Santa, I’ve been real good this year. I did good in school and I was good to my mom and dad. I don’t curse at my mom like Tony and I don’t do drugs like Rafael, and I don’t shoot at people on Halloween like that crazy-ass Jamaican Dexter over on Columbia Street. Please bring me a Cobra Terrordrome.” I always made sure I was writing that letter so that it channeled Santa through my parents. Roughly translated it said, “Dear Santa. Please appreciate the fact that I’m not a douchebag like every other kid in this neighborhood. I have a future. I’ll make money. And when you get old, I’ll put you in the retirement home that doesn’t feed you dog food.”

Make a list. Put it in an envelope. Address it to, “Santa Clause; North Pole.” Hand it to my parents. Smile.

Robin’s my primary Santa now – she gets the Amazon wish list. Before I click, “send,” however, I look to the north and say, “Santa – I’ve been a good boy this year. I haven’t cheated, I haven’t taking advantage of you while you were drunk, and I paid for that vacation you loved. Here’s my list.”

I hope you all start doing the same. It’s time to bring Santa back to Christmas.

Labels: dc

For most normal people, we’re currently at the beginning of the Christmas season. I’m normal nowadays, I think – I’ve purchased a couple of presents online and put some thought into who’s getting what this year. I don’t have a tree yet, I don’t have stockings up. We’ll probably do all of that in two weeks.

When I was a kid, however, I wasn’t at all normal. I was completely queer for Christmas. I’m sure a bunch of you are reading this and thinking, “no shit, what kid wasn’t retarded for Christmas?” But I don’t think you understand how bat-shit insane I was for Christmas.

Let’s start with the decorations, shall we?

Most kids don’t give a shit about Christmas decorations – all they care about is the list for Santa, sitting on his lap to seal the deal, and Christmas morning. That’s it. But for me – the decorations represented what was to come. All of my favorite characters dressed up for the holidays – Superman with a Santa hat, Elmer Fudd hunting in the snow, Spiderman with a sack of presents. It was all of the characters I lived with everyday except they were fighting crime of kiwing wabbits, fuck that, they were getting presents. And, as a kid, that shit was exciting.

Because of this excitement I’d start bothering my father to bring the Christmas decorations up from the basement in September. The start of school was the beginning of the Christmas season for me. My dad would bring them up – they were stored in this Peanuts’ pinball machine box – and I’d go through all of them. I’d see which ones were broken and fix them up after crying for about ten minutes. Our porcelain superman ornament would have a broken body part every year – gluing it back together would become a family event. We had this hollowed out egg with a picture of Santa painted on it; every year I’d take it out of the box and expecting it to be broken. It remained intact for most of my childhood – it finally broke when I was around sixteen; I dropped it.

My favorite decoration was this clay ice skater with my name on it that my Grandma Fran made for me. It was always the first ornament we hung on the tree on the highest branch. That worked out well for the first eleven years, until my sister was born, and she got jealous over all of the pomp and circumstance around my decoration.

So I already had the decorations out. The day after Thanksgiving, for me, was all about getting that tree and I’d harass my pops until he took me to get one.

Another tradition in my family was getting a “Charlie Brown” tree. We (and by “we” I mean me and my mom) purposely looked for the ugliest tree imaginable, the one that no-one would want to buy. Again, this tradition went smoothly until my sister was born. I’ll never forget the year we went Christmas tree shopping and decided on a tree with a big-ass bald spot on the backside. My mother and I fell in love. My sister cried all the way home.

The following year I was off in college when the family went tree shopping. My father and my sister teamed up and purchased a nice, full tree. This time my mom was supposedly crying all the way home.

My father would always set up the tree the night he brought it home. I wasn’t allowed to decorate it, though. According to my father the tree had to have time to “open up” before you were allowed to decorate it. Years later Robin and I would buy our first tree together (keep in mind I was 22 at the time). We took it home and set it up. Robin starts to decorate it and I stop her, telling her we’re supposed to let it “open up” over night. She tells me I’m crazy so I call up my dad to confirm. My dad tells me, “No, I just told you that because I wanted to have a beer and watch some football, instead.”

I then realized that the tree always seemed to “open up” about three hours before Monday Night Football started.

My dad would put on the lights and I’d hang most of the decorations (some were reserved for my mom). I’d put the star on the tree; we actually have a picture of me putting the star on the tree from every year, wearing the same ratty-ass Santa hat. Stockings and other decorations would go up – the Frosty the Snowman candle that I partially ate when I was one, the plastic Rudolf that would go in the window, and, of course, this mechanical minx in a Santa outfit that always went in my room. She wasn’t an elf, she wasn’t Mrs. Clause – she was like Santa’s jailbait niece and I had one hell of a crush on her. The movie Mannequin only made the situation worse. I’d lay in bed and stare at that girl as she shook her little ass and I’d pray to Santa saying, “Santa – listen, I know I said I wanted a gameboy but if you can make that girl come to life I’ll be extra good next year. I promise.” I was 11 at the time, I knew Santa was “in our hearts,” but I’d still pray for that chick to come alive.

Never happened. Probably for the best, it’d make for a great “first time” story but I’d likely be locked up for telling it.

“But it was a Christmas Miracle, dammit! A Christmas Miracleeeeeee!!!!!”


As I got older I started decorating my own room as well. This consisted of throwing lights and fake icicles all over the place. Looked like shit. I continued that tradition in college. Looked like shit and distracted my pot smoking friends when we used my room for our smoking sessions.

“Duuuddee…you know what’d be sweet? If that mechanical chick came to life and totally fucked us!”

“Don’t go near her, dude, she’s mine. She’s been mind since I was, like, nine and shit. You don’t know us; don’t judge us!”

Robin and I just do a tree and stockings now. She tries to put costumes on our pets and they hate us for it. We put our presents out weeks in advance and by the time Christmas rolls around we have a good idea of what’s in every box (except for the year she surprised me with an X-box, that mother fucker was out for weeks and I had no idea what it was). No lights on the windows, no half-eaten candles. The mechanical floozy still stays in the bedroom but I’m not allowed to stare at it while we have sex.

Labels: dc

This year I celebrated Black Friday by going to the Gamestop in the Ballston mall at 2PM to see if they had any Nintendo Wiis left. The guy gave me a cold, dead stare and said, “no.” I went to Chevy’s with my coworker and had a beer and some fish tacos before going back to work.

Black Friday!

I honestly didn’t even know what the fuck Black Friday was until I met Robin. Thanksgiving 1999 I was in NYC and she was in Framingham – I called her the Friday after Thanksgiving to learn that she’s been shopping since 6AM. I thought she was fucking nuts – who the hell goes shopping at 6AM? Apparently most of America does, I just never realized it.

Anyway, the following December was our first Christmas season together. We didn’t spend Christmas together (last year was actually the first year we were together on Christmas Day, our 7th Christmas) but we had a little thing the day before we left BU in my dorm room – a potted Christmas Tree and presents underneath for each of us.

I got her typical “First Christmas” stuff. Something from Victoria’s Secret. A bottle of perfume (Truest, from Tiffany’s, she still has some of it). I think there was an Indigo Girls CD thrown in there. She got me the typical presents as well: boxer shorts, a funny shirt (Superman using his X-Ray vision to see what Batman got him while thinking, “Great, another tie”), some books, and, of course, several things that she picked up on Black Friday. It was at that moment that I realized what Black Friday really was: five strong sellers discounted and extreme markdown on everything else the stores couldn’t get rid of.

It was all cute stuff, don’t get me wrong, but it was stuff that I would have never have thought to get for myself like a remote control racetrack and electronic battleship. I thought it was cool, still think it was cool, but Black Friday gifts certainly have a signature about them.

I’ve stayed away from Black Friday – never did the early morning specials thing. Robin still does it on occasion and you can still tell the Black Friday gifts. Last year it was 24 Season One. A couple of years ago it was a pair of two-way radios. A non-brand name MP3 player. Risk: Lord of the Rings Edition.

Black Friday gifts.

Labels: dc

Thanksgiving 2000. I was living in DC and Robin was still up in Boston going to school. We decided to spend Thanksgiving together, as a couple. I really don’t remember whose idea it was but I remember my parents not being happy about the decision – this was my first Thanksgiving away from them and it wasn’t even like I was passing on the feast at Uncle Chris’ house for someone else’s big feast.

I was passing on it for Tofurky.

Ok, let’s back that up. Robin was a vegetarian when we first started dating. I believe she first went veggie back in high school, made it through college, and then tacked on a couple of more years after college as well. She kind of rubbed off on me and the second half of my senior year in college I went veggie as well, lasted about two years. When I started eating chicken and fish again, however, Robin came along with me (she still doesn’t eat any red meats).

Anyway, our first Thanksgiving feast together didn’t even consist of us gathering around a turkey. It was shaped like a turkey. Sort of. A processed turkey. And it had a drumstick with a plastic bone. You baked it in the oven, smothered it with gravy. And if you closed your eyes tight enough, it looked like a turkey.

Sure as fuck didn’t smell or taste like one.

I remember pulling it out of the oven and putting it on a plate alongside mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, and cranberry sauce and being afraid to eat it. I thought it would taste horrible. I was surprised to learn that it actually didn’t taste horrible. It tasted like nothing. It tasted like the gravy we covered it in. Seriously, you put it in your mouth and it tasted like a chunk of gravy.

A chunk of gravy with the worst imaginable texture. The type of texture that made you gagged. And Robin and I both gagged upon trying to swallow our first bite of tofurky. Chewed it, swallowed it, and chased it down with a beer. We each took a single bite of tofurky before throwing it in the trash. Our Thanksgiving meal consisted of the fixings – we didn’t even have the foresight to buy a pie.

My family called me up to see how our Thanksgiving was going. I told my dad about the tofurky fiasco and he couldn’t help but laugh. They were eating turkey with all the fixings alongside my Grandma’s fantastic Spanish food. Everyone there was laughing and having a good time – dancing like my family always did when they got together. Watching football. Playing darts and dominos.

Robin and I found ourselves spending the evening at the apartment. My friends were out of town (and Robin didn’t actually live in DC yet) so we just had a quiet night of board games and movies.

At the time, it was sweet. Robin and I did the long distance thing for a year and when we got a chance to see each other we tried to spend as much time together as we possibly could. So lying on the futon, playing Uno, and watching Half Baked while drinking beers was a great way to spend Thanksgiving.

At the time.

In retrospect it was the worst Thanksgiving ever. I think Robin would agree.

Labels: dc

I really don’t have the time to do this but I’m going to do it anyway. Once this gets posted, I’m going to receive angry emails from at least five people demanding to know why I don’t have time for their stuff but I have time for this. Honestly, sometimes I just need to write, and that’s what I’m going to do.

I hang around Digital Webbing still. I have nothing against the place, occasionally I find an artist with potential there and, sometimes, I’ll find a writer that deserves a boost. But that’s honestly not the only reason I hang around there. The other reason I hang around there comes from one of the two pieces of advice my first boss gave me the day I left my job at TAO.

I worked at TAO for about four years. I was getting bored with the technical life, I wanted to do more marketing and managing (plus I honestly thought TAO was trying to sell themselves), so I signed on with a headhunter and I let him find me a new place. Within a week he sets me up with an interview with a very, very large government contractor, we’ll call them BFC as in “Big Fucking Company”.

BFC had some good people working there and they saw me in a bit more of a leadership role, sort of the think-tank guy that dispatches ideas and orders to the entry level guys (which is pretty amazing considering I was only 25 at the time and, technically, still entry level). It wasn't exactly what I wanted but it came with a 20k pay raise and, well, money makes decisions a lot easier sometimes.

I put in my resignation with TAO. They asked me how much BFC offered me and I told them, they flat-out told me that they couldn’t match that and wished me luck. I filled out my exit interview with TAO and wrote how I think they’re looking to be bought out. The HR woman told me that wasn’t true – I’m only saying this because 8 months later they were bought out (and my stock in the employee-owned company, which I decided to hold on to, doubled).

Anyway, it was my last day there. Everyone takes me out to lunch – I have a prime rib smothered in horseradish, one of my favorite meals. It was a good last day, no hard feelings – I liked most of the people I worked there with, after all. After lunch was when I went into my bosses office, the VP of TAO, and he tried to impart some of his wisdom onto me. I follow his advice like the bible, in my current job and in comics.

1) Always surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. It sounds like you’re shooting yourself in the foot, right? When he first told me this I sort of smiled, thinking it was a joke. But then he explained it – if your group does well, you do well, and they’re your group and people will recognize that. And, if someone from your group gets promoted above you, that’s someone that you helped out along his or her way to the top. That person deserves to be there, they would have gotten there anyway, and now you now have a friend in a powerful position.

You apply it to comics and you see why I still hang around Digital Webbing looking for the occasional diamond in the rough, why I latched onto Josh Fialkov, and why half of Postcards is filled with writers and artists that I believe in and why I’m pumping those guys up, trying to make them stars. It’s because I surround myself with people who are more talented than I am. And, if I invest in them early, not only will I potentially make a good friend out of it and help comics and all that jazz, I’ll also have someone thanking me down the road and, hopefully, helping me get gigs if I need them.

2) You get great ideas from two sources: Brainstorming with smart people and arguing with stupid people. Brainstorming with smart people is an obvious one, but why arguing with stupid people? Because stupid people have stupid solutions and they can’t understand why they’re stupid. If you argue with them, you usually have to counter every stupid argument they make with a well thought-out, intelligent response. Oftentimes, these responses are better than the position you held earlier. In other words: stupid people make you think better.

There are smart people to brainstorm with on Digital Webbing as well as The Engine. But there are plenty of stupid people to argue with on Digital Webbing as well. Just don’t let them get to you; keep countering their stupid arguments and you’ll keep coming up with better ideas.

I follow that advice in the real-world as well, obviously. After six months at BFC (which I like to refer to as my “Comic Making Internship”, I saw the writing on the wall the day I started working there and decided I won't actually do any work) I left (along with two of my coworkers) for a large, employee owned company that I’ll call GFC, Great Fucking Company. Same salary I had at BFC, more creative work, marketing, proposal writing, and management. And I constantly surround myself with people who are smarter than me and my bonuses are thick because my group does good work. I brainstorm with these smarter people and I seek out the stupid people in the company to argue with them.

And our little group is rapidly growing.

Anyway, I realize that I came here to write a story but ended up laying down the foundation for a future “Making Lemonade” column. I’ll go now. Sorry if I haven’t been responding to your emails/finishing the work I said I’ll finish.

Labels: dc

Since I haven’t posted a new story in, I believe, two weeks I decided to give you all a special treat and post a story I originally decided I would never tell. It’s just too embarrassing. It’s also really gross so if you don’t like really gross stories, I suggest you don’t read this. Anyway, let’s go. I’m going to regret this, expect a story Tuesday to bump this one off the top spot.

This story actually takes place this past summer. I was in Boston, visiting my boy, Guam. I got to his place early on a Saturday – Robin dropped me off (she was visiting her family in Framingham). We made some turkey chili before meeting up with his friends to play some kickball.

We played two games of kickball. I haven’t played kickball since elementary school despite the fact that Washington DC has a large organized kickball league that all my friends played in for at least a season. I was alright – I did a good job fielding, not so good at kicking.

After kickball we went to a pub for some food and to start the drinking. We put down quite a few beers before going back to Guam’s house to pimp out for our evening of partying.

We went out to Improv Boston. Guam was hosting an improv show out there and I was coming along as the surprise guest host. We went to Bukowski’s first, had some sweet potato fries and beer. Afterwards we went to the supermarket and purchased some more beer that we drank at Improv Boston. The point is, we were drinking a lot and eating a lot of fried foods.

Anyway…

I cohosted the show with Guam. It was a good time. I was so drunk that I made fun of an albino kid by calling him “super-white” and told the audience that cops can, “smell the spic in me.” After the show we finished off the two six packs we purchased and went back to Bukowski’s for some more beers and some more sweet potato fries.

After Bukowski’s we went to another bar where we met up with Guam’s improv peeps. This part of the night was a bit of a blur. I remember wanting to fight one of Guam’s friends because I thought he was ignoring me. I remember comparing my cell phone to some underage Goth chick’s sidekick. She had some weird story about how she was living in a convent. I don’t remember much beyond that, though.

Guam and I left and the Goth girl split a cab with us. I don’t know where she came from, she was 18, I think. We get back to Kenmore (where Guam lives) and the Guam thought either one of us could have had the Goth girl. Again, I have no idea where that hypothesis came from since I don’t remember shit. For all I know she was grabbing my crotch the whole ride home.

We get back to Guam’s place. I have some more chili and stay up talking to Guam while I sober up some. Guam’s working on a paper for his class; he’s not even close to drunk anymore. As soon as I feel good enough to go to bed I lay my ass down on this uncomfortable couch, the kind of couch that forces you to sleep in a fetal position.

So, let’s recap: Drunk, full of chili and fried foods, tired, and in a fetal position. I’ll beat around the bush and just say it: I shat my pants.

I shot out of bed, remembering that the combination of beer and greasy foods is enough to give the strongest stomach diarrhea and that laying in a “relaxed asshole” position probably didn’t give me a fucking chance of catching this one before it blew.

I run into the bathroom. Much to my embarrassment, Guam is still awake. He says nothing. Yet.

I clean up. I start washing my underwear in the tub and it’s the grossest thing imaginable. I shower off – I won’t get into every little detail but it was kind of like the chocolate waterfall in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory except not as sweet and delicious, I’d imagine.

I get out of the shower, dripping wet. I crack the door open and…

“Guam?”

“What’s up?”

“Listen. I need a garbage bag, a towel, and I need you to promise you won’t ask me any questions.”

A minute later Guam hands me a garbage bag and a towel. Much to my relief he asks me no questions. I put my underwear and pajama bottoms in the plastic bag and tie it up tight. Wrap the towel around me and throw the bag away in the hallway. Come back in put some fresh underwear on. All the while I’m avoiding eye-contact with Guam but he’s just following me around like a friend concerned. Straight faced and waiting for me to ask for some help.

I sit back down on the couch; I probably looked fine, because it all comes out at that point.

“Dude. Did you just shit your pants?”

We both start laughing uncontrollably. Between gasps of breaths he manages to get some more cracks out, “Good thing you didn’t bring that Gothic chick back here, she would have fucked the shit out of you,” stuff of that nature. We finally calm down enough for me to ask him if he had a bucket I could borrow, I’m going to try and go to sleep again. He doesn’t have a bucket but he gives me a big pot.

The next morning Guam and I are quiet, like two friends who are embarrassed that we just shared a “pants shitting” moment. While I’m packing up Guam’s straightening up his place. He picks up the pot and says, “I’m glad you didn’t have to use this.” I tell him that I wasn’t really queasy last night to which he says, “No, I mean as a bedpan.”

We both start cracking up again. I make him promise to never tell anyone about what happened that night (and here I am writing about it on a website). I doubt he kept his promise; he came close to telling folks at the barbeque the next day. We’d just look at each other and start laughing and people would say, “What?” and Guam would ask, “C’mon, can I tell them?” I wouldn’t be surprised if all of Boston knows about this by now.

Anyway, there you go. Probably the lowest I’ve ever been. I haven’t been drinking much since then, realizing that I may have a little bit of a problem. Puke is one thing. We all puke – that shit happens. The moment you drink too much and shit your pants is the moment you say, “I can become an alcoholic or I can’t slow down the drinking.”

I decided to slow down the drinking.

Labels: dc

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