realamericanweirdo

[realamericanweirdo]

Sir Elton 

[realamericanweirdo]

From the playpen to the playground, throughout high school and college, and up until the last first day of any new job, our moms tell us to “make friends.” Why? Because moms know that friends are people in your life that make you feel good when you can’t do it yourself.

Some of us will have more success than others, especially those with advantages like above average looks, Bill Clinton’s charisma, job security and healthy credit scores. If you fall into that camp, don’t waste your time here. Keep having all the sex, keep eating all the brunch. You’re good.

Others will be condemned to a life of loneliness wishing we’d known better than to leave the comfort of our mothers’ wombs because at least in utero we were protected, fed, and forcefully dependent upon another life that couldn’t ignore us, at least not without effort.

Most of us will find our adult lives are bereft of friendship because life happened, the people we once called friends left as quickly as they came, and even though we neglected to sustain those friendships, it doesn’t mean we have to resign ourselves to being lonely. It just means we need to try to make new friends.

Here are some tips to try that may or may not work, but at the very least will fill your time.

1. Learn to suffer small talk.

I have a tendency to not speak until spoken to, and at 32 years old minding this manner isn’t as polite as it was at 10. Now it’s perceived as standing in quiet judgment. And to be honest, more often than not, I probably am.

But to make friends, you’ve got to at least pretend to be interested in making conversation. That’s how people know you want to like them in spite of your challenging attitude and icy vibe.

When we were kids we made friends at school by announcing how “hard that test sucked” hoping that someone in earshot might agree. If they did, we were inclined to continue to commiserate over lunch about how the cafeteria food tasted like “dog shit.” Next thing you know we were asking each other who we’d “totally do it with” if we had the chance. Before we knew it, we were locked into full-blown friendships.

You can employ the same method today, only now avoid things like critiquing your boss’s decisions or making fun of your co-worker’s Dad band. Better to do more of the listening and stick with talking about “who you’d totally do” because that’s a conversation that might get you somewhere.

2. Find religion.

Churches are full of people looking to praise and worship you into friendship.

First, start by showing up on Sunday in a modest dress or your least wrinkled khakis. Then, stay after Mass for Styrofoam cups hall full of weak coffee. Just as you’re wiping the donut crumbs off your lap, you’ll be greeted by a gaggle of middle-aged virgins and a harried child-bride in a milk-stained blouse. They’ll invite you to a potluck dinner and before you can tell them that you don’t really like to eat food you didn’t make yourself, not that you don’t trust them to wash their hands or keep their cats off the counter while cooking, they’ll say “Don’t worry about bringing anything. We’ve got it” and you’ll reply “Alright, see you then.”

You’ll arrive on time, but you’re the last to get there. The milk-stained hostess will clear a seat for you next to Mary Clare, Mary Pat and Mary Elizabeth, only one of whom is not a nun. At the other end of the table sit John, Thomas and David all three dressed like 1950s Irish immigrants. You’ll swear you heard one use the phrase “the homosexual agenda” and just then, a miracle: your social PTSD will begin to act up.

You excuse yourself from the table in time to spot one of the thirteen children under the age of seven dig his greasy paws into a bucket of chicken. His crusty little eyes stare you down as he licks first a wing, then a thigh. His tiny, chapped mouth nibbles a breast before he returns each piece to the bucket just in time to slide his hands down the back of his pants. Everything smells like sour milk.

You like to consider yourself open minded, but even this is too much. You sneak out the front door, your exit unnoticed beneath the din of crying triplets, a second recitation of the rosary and a fervent denial of global warming. You buy a bottle of wine on the way home. You can try something new tomorrow.

3. Take a lover.

You know what’s better than a friend? Someone that’s more than a friend. Most people who marry usually end up without friends anyway, at least until they procreate and then they make their kids make their friends for them, so you can’t really end up any worse than you started.

Of course, making a boyfriend or girlfriend might be more difficult, but the older you get, the more you find your options limiting themselves which works to your advantage barring you’re not a troll. Just make sure the person you’re dating is popular so you can use this relationship as an opportunity to ingratiate yourself to a new circle of friends. Implant yourself deeply by sharing secrets. Secrets are the glue that hold most relationships together. Unless you’re keeping secrets from your significant other at which point you should end the relationship, but not until you steal a few of their friends before the fallout.

And when all else fails…

4. Find a bar.

The older you get the more you realize that there’s nothing wrong with going to the bar by yourself. You’re an adult and by now you should know how to drink like one which means if you want to make long-term friends and not short-term VD, you’ll drink responsibly. No blackouts, no barfing, no crying, no shame.

First, remember this: the booze you drink reflects the company you keep. Drink cheap, shitty beer and you’ll make cheap, shitty friends. Down shots of rot got whiskey? You probably can’t afford to be in a bar. Stick with whiskey or gin.

Second, nobody makes friends sitting in the corner. Dark corners are for drug dealers and drunk people trying to fondle other drunk people. Stay out of trouble; take a seat at the bar.

Calmly watch the television. It’s just like at home, but now, you’re going to watch it 3 to 4 nights a week at the bar, wearing pants and making small talk about whatever’s on with whomever sits next to you. On slow nights, strike up a conversation with the bartender. It’s in his best interest to be friendly to you. At the very least he’ll pretend to listen when you tell him about your day.

Give this a few weeks. Before you know it, you might make friends with a group of big-hearted, whiskey shooting, Dolly Parton loving lesbians who will take you in because they can see how desperately you need a friend; they’ve all been there too. After a while, maybe they’ll even help give you the courage to ask the bartender that you only thought was pretending to listen to you on a date. You’ll never be that brave, but he will be. And who knows? Maybe two years later you’ll be sitting at home, your body wrapped around your best friend, that bartender, and you’ll grow misty-eyed wondering how you ever got so lucky. You didn’t. You just tried.

[realamericanweirdo]

[realamericanweirdo]

Unfit For Human Consumption: How to Avoid Help When You Need It Most

In any city, town, village, or mid-sized hobo encampment, you’re going to run into people you know on days when you’d rather not run into anyone: assorted family members, old and current co-workers, past lovers, the faces attached to bodies you frequently see naked at the gym, the lazy barista from the coffee shop where you most pretend to write, and friends in general. Whoever it is and whatever the case, here are some tips for avoiding any of the above on the days you’re just not fit for human consumption:

1. Sunglasses. Never leave home without’em.

Always wear sunglasses. Rain or shine, night or day, in sickness and in health. I prefer a pair that overwhelms my entire face. The lenses should be dark enough to conceal any flicker of life.

Sunglasses not only protect you from harmful UV rays, but the right pair can also conceal the puffy, emotional residue of nightmares, a general lack of confidence and make you look weird, if not unfriendly, enough to be avoided.

2. Blend in.

Wear a black zip-up hoodie. Walk with a sense of purpose. If you’re having a particularly fragile day, pretend to be someone. Settle on anyone.

3. Keep healthy boundaries.

Maintain a constant lookout. For example, while aimlessly wandering the aisles of your local grocer, you may feel an extra set of eyes fixed on you. If you’re wearing your sunglasses, keep your head still and your movements slow. You’ll likely appear to be having too much of a moment to be messed with. However, if you’re dealing with a potentially aggressive conversationalist, you’re going to need to prepare for contact.

4. Too late to turn back now.

If you’ve locked eyes with someone you know, it’s likely they’re going to approach you because that’s what people do. That’s what people who likeyou do. They care about your wellbeing. Sometimes they even think about you when you’re not around.

You’re probably thinking about lying. Stop that. You don’t have any time to craft a convincing lie you can really get behind for the long haul. In fact, if you lie now, you’re going to have to own up to your next public fart to balance the scales. All of which is too much of a nightmare that your subconscious hasn’t even allowed you to go there and your subconscious hates you.

While you’ve been too tangled up at the starting line of a shame spiral, you missed their friendly warning wave and now they’re making that confusing look people make when they realize they’re being ignored. Their smile fades as their brow begins to furrow. You can almost hear them say it. “What’s with this bitch?”

5. The point of no return.

You’ve been caught. If it’s a coworker, it’s curtains for your career. They see how vulnerable you are outside of work in your laundry day running shorts, the pair that fits too snuggly and rides up your crotch. You’ll probably small-talk your way out of a happy hour invitation when you say you don’t own a TV apropos of nothing. You remember you think they heard you when you said raw sugar is better for you and then watched you pretend not to drop two packets of zero-calorie sweetener into your coffee. Come Monday, everyone will forget your name and refer to you only as Camel Toe at next Friday’s happy hour.

Or maybe that coworker is happy to see you because they forgot to tell you, “Everyone really digs the work you’ve been doing. We’re all really glad you have you around.”

Or maybe it’s a close friend, the good listener you should’ve called before you worked yourself into a bad mood, before you needed your sunglasses to hide that crazed, dead inside look that white, male domestic terrorists have in their mug shots or school photos.

Maybe no one was looking at you. Maybe those eyes were actually looking into your cart at the last bunch of green bananas. They stare at your bunch, their own mood ripening to black.

[realamericanweirdo]

Should Marc Maron ever getting around to releasing an album...

[realamericanweirdo]

Easy Recipes for Maintaining Your Emotional Starvation Diet

“When you were in high school someone’s dad said, “Life’s a shit sandwich and every day we take a bigger bite.” You’ve always been afraid it was true, and now you’re making your way through a 125 piece bag of frozen fish sticks…”

[realamericanweirdo]

Ain’t no way I’m livin’ without you. 

[realamericanweirdo]

It was foolish to think Ontario would show up. There's no teaching some. Or, so he'd lead you to believe. Got caught once. Round about his second senior year. A young sub from the town over had a real effect on him. Of course, there were no charges. He was 18, but it didn't stop anyone's mom from talking. Didn't stop some of them from dreaming either.

[realamericanweirdo]

My Great American Embarrassment

1.

I read Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections when I was seventeen, lonely, horny and harboring a crush on my high school English teacher.  Later I’d realize it was a misplaced sexual fantasy, a fragile spell that would’ve certainly been broken by even the faintest blush of follow-through.

 It was this teacher that suggested that I read The Corrections. And I did, even though I was ashamed of its Oprah’s Book Club sticker. I bought, read and subsequently sold his first novels, Strong Motion and The Twenty-Seventh City, for half the sticker price of half the sticker price to a used bookstore.  There’s a floppy disk in my parents’ attic with a book review written by me about the sex lives of middle-aged Americans.  

 2.

At 27, I was living in Dallas, bored, sexually unsatisfied and like everyone else who listens to public radio, I was bemoaning the ten years it took for Freedom to arrive.

When it finally came, I waited the day out behind a desk, watching the clock at my first advertising gig as an editor, using the painful stretch of downtime between billable hours to map my out-of-the-way after work route to the nearest Barnes and Noble. The bookselling giant had yet to be left to languish in the suburbs, shelves stocked heavy with Classics for high-schoolers with a penchant for beautifully designed reissues and a minimal interest in summer reading lists. The New York Times Best Sellers selection cherry-picked for young housewives just before they became addicted to Facebook, before they claimed they had no time to read.

Somewhere I’d read how Franzen did his writing in an empty apartment on a computer without Internet access. I felt shame every time I clicked away from a blank Word document to mindlessly surf away from any sense of purpose or accomplishment.

At Barnes and Noble, I held his long-awaited Freedom closely as I approached the checkout counter. I told the clerk I couldn’t believe they had any copies left. She looked at me blankly. It was her summer job and her only duty was to keep it until Fall.

I came up for air a week later. It was time to think about going home.

3.  

I was 31 and only five years had passed. “Only” is a word that shrinks and expands time and everything within it without your consent for better or worse.  Purity, Franzen’s fifth novel, had been announced sometime last year. I can’t remember when; I don’t remember much of last year. If only.

This time I arrived at Austin’s largest locally owned bookstore on the day it was released. Again, I voiced my concern that it might be sold out. After all, Franzen wasn’t only my favorite novelist, but wasn’t he also the Great American Novelist? Albeit Time declared, but still.

Purity wasn’t sold out. It wasn’t even on display. The books were sealed, boxed on dollies inside the doorways of emergency exits.  Money counts most where it’s spent. In theory. Franzen was on tour. He’d be stopping by the store on some Saturday in the weeks ahead. He’d sign your books. Your back stock too. 

I arrived two hours early in anticipation of a crowd. It became a standing-room only affair while I sipped a chai latte from the comfort of my chair and tried not to listen too closely to the unpublished, but self-proclaimed novelist sitting behind me talking too loudly about his own process.

Franzen was prompt, booted and blue jeaned. He read three passages: two I’d read and the other I only half-heartedly listened to not wanting to spoil anything. He was bumbling in the way only the confident can make handsome. He was impressed by his own writing and even paused after he cracked himself up while reading his own prose. He looked like a smiling version of Grumpy Cat.

When he finished, he began taking questions and I settled into a smirk while others raised their hands. Franzen remained polite until he wasn’t. “I wanted to be polite because I wanted you to continue to like me,” he said, “but the truth is, I think my book’s really good and I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks.” I immediately felt seventeen again.

Because I’d been one of the first to purchase Purity, I’d been gifted with a slip that allowed me first placement in the signing line. I was hurried upstairs with the other earlybirds where a crappy telephone speaker played something old sounding, but distinctly French. Muzak for the better-read mother-in-law.

As I stood in line, I began to go over what I’d like to say to him when it was my turn. I wanted to tell Franzen what his work meant to me, that since the age of seventeen I had truly loved him and that he’d inspired me to continue to do the thing I do at night that prevents me from a healthier social life.

I stopped myself. Loved him? That sounds like I’ve been stalking him for over a decade. Suddenly, I felt as if I’d been caught masturbating to a torn and worn out author’s photo.

My time came. I approached the empty desk where he sat, Purity opened to the title page, two hours ready for his signature.

He paused. I stared. He stared. I froze.

“What am I going to sign here?”

“Right. My name. My first and last name? Meg Furey. M-E-G-F-U-R-E-Y. I need first and last just in case I show my friends and they don’t believe that it’s me that you signed it for.”

He stared at me. I stared at him. He signed. I paused. I turned around and silently walked away.

As I made my way down the bookstore’s stairs I felt more embarrassed than I have in a long time. While I know it’s unwise to meet your heroes, I realized that even the very designation of the word hero makes me uncomfortable. Jonathan Franzen is not a hero, not of mine or anyone else. He’s just a man with more patience than I’ll ever have. And yet, if only.  

[realamericanweirdo]

You know, it didn't take long. Most people wanna be found and Ontario was no exception. He was the smell of whiskey downwind. The sound of sex and everything after. A screen door slamming, an engine heaving, her long blond hair whipping in the wind, every split end waving invective.

[realamericanweirdo]

#truth #artishard #mesocorny #hard 

[realamericanweirdo]

[realamericanweirdo]

That was his last summer. Ontario left the next day. Some said it was the mess he made at the mill that sent him packing. No one could determine whether or not the accident was his fault. Could've been anyone. No one really cared for Old Man Bertram anyway. May he rest as he will. Me? I suspect he just got too big for this town. Can't say I won't miss him. Gave us all something to smile about. I'm just glad he didn't knock up my sister.

[realamericanweirdo]

Call me “Three Finger Joe.”

[realamericanweirdo]

America’s pastime.