monkeywithabutcherknife

Well, anyone that’s going to leave is gone and I have the strange feeling that I’m the only one left. At least, I did, until I went to find something to eat and found Igor’s on St. Charles full of about 30 people. Then the new said that only about 40% of the people downtown actually left. To be honest, if I lived anywhere other than where I do then I’d have had to leave when I saw what a monstrous bitch Katrina was going to turn out to be. As it is, I’m sure I’ll be fine, but I hope none of the poor bastards outside the flood protection levy didn’t decide to stay. That would be a very bad idea.

It’s an interesting thing that a hurricane is little more than a transfer of heat from the ocean (or in the case the Gulf of Mexico). It’s really an outflow of heat in the form of a really bad day. If you’re familiar with the concept of entropy then you know what I mean. It’s a small, but clearly very important part of the second law of Thermodynamics. It’s a hell of a thing when a physics theory tears the fucking roof off your house.

It’s about 8:30 cst and everything is remarkably quiet. Maybe she changed her mind?!? I’m afraid to turn on the tv and find out. I’m sure it’s fine. Probably stopped off at the drug store for some condoms prior to a long night of fucking this place every imaginable way. There’s a good chance staying in New Orleans for only the fourth Cat 5 hurricane to hit land in the U.S. in recorded history was a bad idea. I’ll let you know later. In the mean time, I have a kite shaped like a dolphin to put together and tie a letter to for the big show tomorrow.

I’ve never liked the name Katrina. There was a girl in Junior High who told me her name was Katrina – it wasn’t. I don’t remember what her real name is – it just wasn?t important to me. She was hot, but she was an idiot and I didn’t care for her at all. I ended up dating her sister, who it turns out, wasn’t her sister, for a little while. I don’t remember her name either as it is equally unimportant. The unsisters used to double date so I got taken along for bullshit dates that mostly involved them getting stoned and me getting irritated. Turns out they were both idiots. This unsister was, I think, the first girl I ever gave an orgasm to – it happened when she spied a twenty dollar bill in my wallet. She was a hillbilly and a HO!

I don?t know what happened to the first Katrina to come into my life but if I had to guess, I’d have to say she’s still stoned, probably has a shitload of kids and likely lives within thirty miles of the high school unless there were arrest warrants issued that would preclude this proximity. I’m just playing the odds with that guess. To be honest, I hadn’t thought of any of this until today, when Hurricane Katrina ruined my fucking weekend like the other Katrina ruined so many weekends all those years ago.

Hurricane Katrina pissed me off; not because of the damage and loss of life predicted, but because she is keeping me from getting to work on Monday. Unless I accidentally booked my flight on a C-130 Hurcules, I don’t think my plane is going to arrive on time. I don’t need this kind of embarrassment my second week at a new job. What a bitch!!

A note to anyone out there named Katrina: Fuck you!

There’s a strange dynamic between people in the airport. There are differences in this dynamic from place to place. In the OKC airport there’s a sense of denial that this is the Midwest. Oklahoma seems to be Texas’ fucked up little brother. For example, it’s pretty easy, even for me to tell the fat guys in bad suits with big, asinine cowboy hats from Texas from the fat guys in bad suits with big, asinine cowboy hats from Oklahoma. It’s really hard to explain. To dress like that and pull it off, you really have to be so vapid that you really don’t know any better and think you look great – thus Texans. But the Oklahoma folk; to their credit, know it looks stupid, but that doesn’t seem to stop them from wearing it in an attempt to look like they’re from somewhere other than Oklahoma. They don’t even seem to give much thought to whether that somewhere else is even better than Oklahoma – I mean, how fucked up does your perspective have to be for you to wish like hell that you were from Texas? So any points they get for knowing better than to wear that hat are taken away ten-fold for knowing better and doing it anyway. And don’t get me wrong, I know there are cowboys in Oklahoma; that’s not what I’m saying, I’m saying the cowboys in Oklahoma aren’t allowed to leave Oklahoma and as such, would have no need to be in the airport. And I don’t think the cowboys are too terribly bothered by not being able to leave Oklahoma. No, no, they are perfectly happy riding around on the backs’ of Samoans, herding Mexicans out to the fields to graze and then down to the river for a drink before bringing them home and putting them back in the pen. Rawhide!! Ya!!

So I’m waiting for my plane to Houston because, as I discovered today, there are no direct flights between New Orleans and Ok-my-homie. So I have to fly through Houston, and having “been there – had the burrito” I’m not looking forward to it. See, the people in Texas are so fucking stupid that I don’t trust them to understand the engineering principles necessary to darn my socks with a piece of sharp bone and a buffalo pubic hair, let alone build an airport and try to land planes right next to it. I’ve already decided to stand by the window at my terminal the whole time I’m waiting for my connecting flight and if I see anyone out on the tarmac with a tool of any kind, I’m going to rent a car. But then I’m only going to drive that car to the nearest not-Texas-town and trade it in on a ‘stupid Texas fucker didn’t touch this one’ model.

TexASS. I don’t like any place with the word ass right in the name. ArkansASS, TexASS, MinneapolASS – well, I’ll take MinneapolASS back since it was a stretch anyway and I do kinda like the joint. I can’t help but think that Oklahoma must have the word ass in it somewhere. So it occurs to me that the last ‘a’ in Oklahoma is the beginning of the word ASS right on the end of it. Now it all makes sense.

Well, the pilots have finished their scotches and are staggering toward the terminal so I guess it’s time to board.

I’ve figured out the difference between a nice hotel and a shitty hotel. If it looks like the last people who stayed in your room probably filmed porn then it’s a nice hotel. If it looks like the last people who stayed in your room we’re hiding from their spouses then it’s a shitty hotel. Beyond that, I’ve been in Oklahoma City less than 24 hours and my nipples are already tender – it’s going to be long month. Everyone here is ugly as hell. I keep looking for the fence and wondering if there was an ulterior motive for sending me here.

So there’s this law that you can’t smoke within 20ft of a door. I’m not sure what that means but the lady at the security desk with whom I inquired about the local smoking policy went into a mathematical tirade about the size of the windows and  the window frames, then went on to mention several landmarks outside the building I had and equal but slightly more disturbing lack of understanding about. She then informed me of the $30 fine for smoking within 20ft of a door. This is all very odd and I’m reminded that in New Orleans you can smoke in the ECU of Charity Hospital. And though this has more to do with ignorance than freedom, it still suggests something about both freedom and ignorance. So, at least there’s that.

I’m not looking forward to spending the next month with a bunch of ugly non-smokers but the work is actually interesting. And it’s only a month. I have to go buy a 20ft tape measure tomorrow, which ironically is priced right at $30. I suspect there’s some price gauging going on.

I’ve discovered that the City of Houston does not exist. It’s easy to see why people would think there’s a city there what with the 250 square mile of suburbs located near where the city is alleged to be. I suspect the suburb actually surrounds a small set of crystalline bull testicles placed there many years ago by Poncho Villa. In short, Houston is Montezuma’s revenge incarnate. Spending any time there at all is likely to lead to bowel problems by proxy. Then figuring all was lost, on my way out of town I failed to see the digestive repercussions of having an airport burrito for breakfast. I miscalculated the amount of time it would take for said burrito to adversely affect my Gastro-Intestinal tract. The timing worked out perfectly as luck would have it: I ate the demon burrito about a half hour from getting on a small plane for a one hour trip. This was followed by a 40 minute rental car drive and a 2 hour meeting, by the end of which I had a lovely set of stomach cramps which I can only imagine is the exact same feeling women get when their ovaries release a golf ball sized egg that careens down the fallopian tube, luge of anger. Only, in this case, the egg was a marble rye and the fallopian tube was my confused colon.

On the bright side, my hotel room was in the middle of nowhere with a lovely view of several sports stadiums of which I had no interest. The room was a little shanty wedged between some utility closet that moaned like a syphilitic teenager taking a morning wood piss and a couple of middle aged, morbidly obese guests on the other side who were clearly into testing the tensile strength of the floor beams and fisting. It was a no smoking room and as I lay there in the dead sperm and hooker drippings from past guest all dried and crusted on the sheets, I wondered: with all the freaky shit that goes on in a hotel room such as this, how could smoking really even show up on the radar? I didn’t smoke, though, because of a particularly aggressive looking smoke detector which would surely alert the junkie at the front desk who would then find it more convenient to kill me and stash my body in the stuffed bear in the lobby than to address my smoking indiscretion. I didn’t sleep well.

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Obviously, my new job is in a pretty creepy building. I think the downstairs is where they are genetically engineering crack-driven monkeys for the military – which I, of course, do not have a problem with. Still the building is not only constructed oddly but it smells funny too. The latter of which bothers me more.

Additionally, there was funeral on my first day. That can’t possibly be a good sign of things to come. I didn’t go because I didn’t know the guy, but everyone else left, which meant that I had a few hours at the end of my first day to sit in an empty conference room with nothing to do but wonder how the poor guy died – or if they killed him! Clearly the time alone is not what I needed. At any rate, my first day at my new job was weird and I’m glad it’s over. My first day in Houston is not over but I do not have high hopes.

Tomorrow morning I’m off to Oklahoma City – we’ll see

Bullshit!! When you ask someone who’s moved to New Orleans what they like about the city you’ll likely hear one of two answers: The Architecture or The History. Both of these answers are bullshit!! By-the-way, when I’m asked, I say its the crime, the litter, and the lack of a substantive, sustainable infrastructure that will establish and expand a middle class. But that’s just me. The only exception I’ve seen to this rule of lying is this guy’s post. But he’s the only one, the rest of you are full of Bullshit!

I got home after work around 5:30 and was just exhausted. So around 6:30 I thought I’d lay down a minute and then get up and finish my work. The television was on VH1 or something mundane like that. The next thing I know, its 9:30 the next morning. I hop up and turn off the television. I have the timer set on the television so it will come on at 6:00 and my alarm goes off at around 6:30 – this seems to help me get woke up in the mornings. I know there’s a meeting in an hour and I’m responsible for getting one of the managers some figures for that meeting so I call the guy’s desk and leave a message on his voicemail giving him the figures and explaining that I’m on my way in. I tell my roommate about everyone getting together after work at the Bridge Lounge as I was gathering my cell phone and id badge. I was heading into the bathroom when I noticed that roommate is sitting in the living room watching television. This strikes me as odd since he usually has to be at work by 9:00 and it was 9:45. As I’m thinking about this I notice it’s awfully dark out for almost 10:00. As I’m sort of thinking this I asked roommate if I’d left the television on all night thinking that I’d fallen asleep with it on and hadn’t set the sleep timer to turn it off like I usually do. He sort of looks at me like he’s unclear what I’m talking about, which is actually pretty normal for our interactions, and says, “I don?t know”. Slowly it dawns on me?..

its 9:45pm,

I’ve only been asleep for about three hours and I am an idiot. I confess what I’ve done to roommate as I’m standing there about to brush my teeth, walk out the door, get on my bicycle, and ride across town to work. How sad is that?

So the thick curtains in my room keep my room the same darkness no matter what. VH1 doesn?t really play different mind-numbing shit in the morning than at night. Roommate thought I was getting dressed to go to the Bridge Lounge and that that’s what I meant about people getting together after work. I usually wake up with the television on so that didn’t seem odd. There were clues all along that it wasn’t the next morning, I’m not saying that, but I do feel like I’d slept all night – I feel all rested and wide awake. Problem is, its 10pm and I have to be at work in the morning, which means I should be going to sleep in the next hour or two and I just don’t think that?s going to happen.

I was thinking this week that I’ve lived in this new apartment for one month this weekend and I haven’t cooked anything that required more than heating it up in the microwave. This lead to other thoughts of how efficient I am at living single.

Let’s start with food. Simple, if you can’t microwave it and eat it out of the container it comes in (preferably with your fingers) then don’t buy it. You may be thinking “but what about frozen pizza!?!?” Well, my short-sited friends, think it through and get pizza bites or pizza hot pockets. That’s it for hot food for the most part. Chunky soup is the best food in the world, just pop the top and grab a spoon. There is no soup that isn’t good at room temperature. An open pack of hotdogs sitting in the refrigerator makes for a good “anytime snack” – no bun necessary, though I would recommend wrapping the cold dog up in a slice of American cheese eat it standing in front of the open refrigerator while squirting a little, yellow mustard on each bite. On with beverages!! I prefer sugar-free Kool-Aid. I even bought a 4 quart pitcher so I could make double batches. Beautiful. But the most amazing beverage in the world is chocolate milk. And I know the inclination would be to buy the premixed stuff, but don’t be rash; regular white milk can also be used in cereal. Namely, Cocoa Pebbles, which is a meal that ends in chocolate milk naturally.

Moving on to laundry and personal hygine: Laundry, I don’t think so. I have one word for you: Febreze. Ok, maybe that isn’t really the answer, but it will ensure that you do laundry much less frequently. So when you can’t avoid actually doing laundry you need to find a wash-n-fold place. This is where you drop off your dirty laundry and pick it up a few hours later or the next day. It isn’t as expensive as you would think, usually about a dollar a pound. Worth every penny.

Wahl Groomsman. This is the answer to most of your hair care needs. Its good for a haircut, but also comes in handy when you decide not to shave for a couple of weeks. And when it comes time for a little manscaping you can give the whole plantation the once over. Fingernails, they must be cut every 2 months no matter what. The way to tell it’s time to cut your toe nails is when you cut your leg in your sleep with one. Likewise, if you open your fly to take a leak and can smell your junk, then its time to shower. Never wash a towel; you only use it to dry clean water off your clean body. Never clean up dropped ice as ice will turn to water and then evaporate – the problem takes care of itself.

No matter what anyone tells you, you only need one outlet; its extension cords you need a bunch of. Chicken doesn’t go bad and neither does pork; though you may want to cook it a little longer. The expiration date on eggs is really the boil by date. Once boiled, eggs will never go bad. Manwhich tastes better if you eat it out of the pan with a spoon.

And lastly, Saturday is a good enough reason to start drinking when you wake up.