How I imagined asking out my co-worker:

Me: Hello, Grace. Oh, enough of the pretense, I can’t take it anymore. You must know that I want you. You must be able to see it written all over my face every time we pass each other in the office, every time we make small talk about movies in the break-room. Come out with me tonight. I’ll show you the time of your life and win you forever.
Grace: Oh, I don’t know, I’ve been hurt before. I’ve given my heart to many handsome-charming types like you and it was always handed back to me sad and broken.
Me: I’m not like those guys Grace, I could never hurt you. You want to know why? Because I love you. More than I love anything in the world. Nothing matters to me anymore—nothing but you.
Grace: Oh, I want so badly to trust you, I want so badly to let go of the fear and the heartache and take a chance.
Me: Then let go of it Grace, let go of the fear and the pain and bet on me. I’ll pay off for you Grace, I swear I will. I’ll spend my whole life trying to repay you with love and devotion the happiness you’ve already brought me just by coming through that door every morning.
(We embrace)
Grace: Oh, yes, take me out tonight, take me away from all of it and show me that there are still such things as joy and hope.
Me: Grace, tonight will be the first night of the rest of your life.
(We kiss)

How it actually went:

Me: Hey, uh, Grace. You wanna maybe go to dinner with me on Saturday?
Grace: Oh that’s sweet, you’re such a great person and I love you to death, but I, um, just got out of a relationship six months ago, and I’m not sure I’m in a place where I’m ready to start something new.
Me: Hey, totally cool. I get that, I completely get that. Everyone needs space sometimes and relationships are confusing and you always risk getting hurt and I respect that you need some time and I respect you and, uh…yeah. Well I’ve got to get going, I’ll see you tomorrow.

I picked up Travels WIth Charley at one of the used books stores on South Broadway a few weeks ago. It was really great and I’m more motivated than ever to take a cross country road trip with a poodle. But this particular edition led to an observation that I spent some minutes investigating. I confirmed my hypothesis to my own satisfaction, but in the interest of scientific veracity, I should open my findings up for peer review. 

While Steinbeck was vividly and beautifully detailing this great nation, and solemnly contemplating its bleak future, I was thinking, “This book really has a distinct smell.” I recognized the smell, having smelt it before, and I always thought that is was just the scent of decades-old paperback and estate sale. But I have a lot of old paperbacks and some have this smell, some don’t. 

So I did what anyone would do faced with such a mystery and started smelling my paperbacks. I took great inhalations, like I was scrutinizing the bouquet of a fine french wine, and then put them in one of two piles: “Smells Like Travels With Charley” and “Doesn’t.” Was I deterred by my wife’s cynical laughter? Any true scientist knows that naysayers will always put obstructions on the path to enlightenment. The only way to answer them is to persevere. 

 After all the paperbacks had been accounted for and put in their appropriate pile, I examined the books for any similarities other than smell. I went over their authors, their genres and no pattern emerged. The editions seemed to be published between 1950 and 1970, but books in the “Doesn’t” pile had several editions published in this timespan, so I knew that couldn’t be the answer. Then, as I was checking the spine of I Sing The Body Electric, in profile I saw a tiny red rooster. This book was published by Bantam Books. (As a side note, when I was little I thought it was Batman Books.) All the editions in the “Smells Like Travels With Charley” pile had been published by Bantam.

Which begged the question, had Bantam books, in a moment of pure marketing genius, invented old-book smell and applied it to the paperbacks they published in the twenty-year span between 1950 and 1970? Based on my findings: yes, absolutely.

charlie-trask:

I think people are a little too hard on the suburbs. While the city wears its problems on its streets—the pain and the tragedy there for all to see and feel guilty about ignoring—the suburbs have the courtesy to shroud its problems behind an idyllic veneer. Consider suburban Jim, who despite…

charlie-trask:

I’m going to start calling that feeling of wanting what I can’t have a yearning disability. 

themadeshop:

It’s a girl! Thoughts?

“So I think it should be Sadie”

One day, Maxx and Sadie toured several beaches,

Dipped their toes in blue waters, and feasted on peaches.

“Now this is the life,” said Maxx to Sadie, 

“Lying in the sand, and being kinda lazy.”

“I second that notion,” said Sadie to Maxx,

“We should do this once a week, just to relax.”

“What a grand idea!” Maxx then replied,

“Pack a picnic lunch, with good things inside.”

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” said Sadie with glee,

“Don’t forget the pail and buckets, one for you and for me.”

“What a fantastic thought” said Maxx with eyes bright,

“And shall we go to the store and pick up a kite?.”

“I thought you’d never ask!” said Sadie, simply

“And might I suggest something in an SPF 50.”

As the sun set, Maxx and Sadie planned away,

To visit several beaches, every Wednesday.

If I lived in the 40’s, I’d want to date a girl named Daylight, so I could say to people, “This is my broad, Daylight.”  Happy Valentine’s Day.

God: Hey Frank, what are you up to today?

Frank: Oh hey God, not too much, running errands, a bit of yard work, then I’ll probably have sex with my husband.

God: Now hang on a second Frank. You’re not going to have sex with your husband the same way you’d have sex with a women are you? Because you know I how I feel about that.

Frank: Well, but I wouldn’t have sex with a woman.

God: Sure, but say you would; are you going to have sex with your husband in that same way?

Frank: What do you mean?

God: You know, breast fondling, clitoral massage, cunnilingus, all culminating in some kind of vaginal penetration. 

Frank: No, gross! It will be more like a little manual stimulation of the penis, some fellatio, all culminating in some kind of anal penetration.

God: Oh. Well ok then. 

There seems to be a palpable hatred of illegal immigrants in this country, or at least there seemed to be after I read about Lou Dobbs on Wikipedia. And ever since I’ve been trying to figure out why. All through elementary school I learned about America’s proud immigrant tradition, huddled masses yearning to breathe free and all that.  What’s so different about the turn of that century from this one? At about three this morning I think I finally figured it out. Back then America was able to, you know, vent its collective frustration and anger at immigrants by totally fucking up their names as they came through Ellis Island.

Ellis Island Clerk: Next! Ok, what do we got here. Giuseppe Bomba — uh — Bombadacci. Holy shit, you’re not going to get very far with that. Let’s see, now you’re John, um, John Licebeard. Welcome to America. Next! Ok, Karol Dmytryszyn. Jesus Christ, don’t they have vowels where you come from? And by the way Karol’s a girl’s name. Now you’re Kent Sunkencheeks, welcome to America. Next!

You know a lot of people think Abe Lincoln was gay. I don’t. I’m pretty sure if he was gay, he would have taken that shot in the face.