This Isn’t How You Do It

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Due to the obnoxious heckling from several of my coworkers, I reluctantly joined some stupid online dating service. So far I’m doing pretty well. I received messages from three fat chicks and a girl who listed bi-polar disorder under the “First Things People Usually Notice About Me” category – I’m seriously thinking about talking to her. I did send a message to a very nice looking lady because she had this 60s Italian film called Blow Up listed as one of her favorite movies, along with some other cinema I’m a big fan of.

I labored over the two paragraph message for almost an hour, scrutinizing every word, and in the end produced something witty and playful that made me sound charming, but with a hint of melancholy just below the surface (so not really me at all). Her reply was a little startling. She must have either had somebody proof read her profile page or she drank half a liter of Schnapps and pumped her ass full of horse tranquilizers before she wrote me her reply, because it was so full of grammatical errors I had trouble deciphering the meaning of half the sentences. She also didn’t use periods. Like, at all. Doesn’t believe in them apparently. You know how hard it is to read something that has no punctuation or capitalization in it? It’s goddamn fucking hard is what it is. I’d rather try and translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics than have to look at that mess of shit again. I started to get anxious halfway through it and was practically having a full-blown panic attack by the end. It went something like this:

hey i’m anna i really liked your profile pic you have nice hair : ) yeah woody allen is great but a lot of his movies are all sort of the same blow is one of my favorite but dont really like chick flicks though everybody thinks I would lolz accept maybe breakfast at tiffanys wich i noticed you like as well i think thats cute cuz…

Shut the fuck up. What are you five years old? And don’t ever talk about Woody Allen ever again. Wait, you have writing listed as one of your hobbies? Really? Are you fucking serious? I hope you die of autoerotic asphyxiation… actually, I don’t know if girls do that. Is that only a guy thing? I’m not even sure how it works. I think it has something to do with cutting off the oxygen flow to your brain so your orgasm is more enjoyable. I don’t get that. Who orgasms and then thinks to themselves, “Well, that could have been way better.” You’re doing it wrong buddy. Try the left hand or something. Don’t strangle yourself; that’s just reckless.

The thing is, if you’re a nice, intelligent, interesting, attractive girl, why would you be doing online dating? You wouldn’t. You would either have a boyfriend or be out on the town bashing boys out of your way with a large club and trampling over their corpses until you found the one you wanted. That’s normal. Or, maybe you don’t want a boyfriend, and would prefer to stay home at night and watch re-runs of Felicity and touch yourself. That would be understandable too. The point is, you wouldn’t be uploading pictures of yourself to a website full of losers, and answering questions like, “What would you do if you caught your significant other watching porn?” in the hope that you’ll meet Mr. Fantastic and his ten inch…

So far I’ve discovered two types of women who use this site. There’s the some-combination of fat, ugly, and stupid ones, and then there’s the attractive girls who joined because they thought it would be funny (also very likely to be retarded as demonstrated above). Well, I ain’t laughin’ bitches. I keep getting recommendations to message cute girls who haven’t logged on for six months and there doesn’t seem to be any preference to solve this dilemma.

After about two days of putting up with this, I said fuck it, and started messaging them anyway, since it’s not like I have anything better to do. It’s not so bad really. I actually find it sort of entertaining to get drunk and write long messages to hot women knowing that they will likely never read them. I’ll search for my type of girl (the cute hipster breed) who hasn’t logged on since November of last year, pull up the compose window, and start typing whatever comes to mind. I sent “vinyllover” about a thousand words on the current state of affairs in Libya and how Syria isn’t getting the press coverage it deserves. One girl got a very educational four paragraph description of how lasers work, and “cutelexi4u” received a lengthy explanation of why I don’t own a cat but would like to.

Maybe they’ll log in one day, read them, and it’ll change their lives, or maybe they won’t, and my prose will simply fade into the Internet ether, never to be read by anyone but me. Either way, leave it to me to take something so purposefully designed to get you laid, or at least get a date, and turn it into a way to sit alone and drink. One of my best friends says I’m simply not trying. He also says encouraging things like, “That’s your problem. You’re stupid,” and “Why can’t you think like a man?” and “You’re a punk. You don’t have that go with the flow sort of desire that will land you a woman.” He’s a good guy. I think he should be a motivational speaker but I think he has other plans.

In conclusion, do any KAB readers speak whatever language Anna does and can tell me what to say to her so she’ll sleep with me? I don’t want to but it will make my friend proud.

How To Leave Albany

nyc Photo Andrew Franciosa

If you find someone you like I highly suggest you ignore that person as best you can. It’ll make this easier.

Think of all the ways you could die. Decide on the the worst one. Then think how much worse it would be if when it happened you were in….

Poughkeepsie. That’s how far I got before my road trip to my new and exciting life had become a long and boring car ride through the depths of hell a.k.a Pennsylvania. The fog and blinding headlights of oncoming traffic took their toll and my head began to throb. When I finally stopped at a Denny’s in Virginia and watched the sun rise over a strip mall it was quite possibly the most beautiful thing I had ever witnessed. But to be honest, I could have stepped out of my car and seen two cats blowing each other and I would have been just as happy. Also, Pennsylvanian roads are constantly under construction. I think when they get to the end of one they just start back at the beginning again. Big fucking mystery. Been losing sleep over it.

I think we all reach our Poughkeepsie at some point. And this is where I’m supposed to say something inspiringly lame like you need to keep driving and wait for the sunrise. Well the sun rose over a Denny’s. It was about as poetic as passing a kidney stone. It’s just that I was so delirious from sleep deprivation I practically became the double rainbow guy. Fuck double rainbow guy. And fuck rainbows for that matter too. The refractive index of a raindrop does not impress me.

So how do you leave Albany?

I suppose the first step is to realize that there’s something better somewhere else. That’s certainly easy enough but the rest gets considerably harder and it helps if you start warping your vision of the world. Take everything you see and view it through the lens of apathy, depression, or if you’re a real sick puppy, optimism. I say this because the first two leave a whispered possibility of being better than you had anticipated. Optimism or hope or whatever positive outlook you manage to twist your aspirations through will just end in sad realization. It is best if you just embrace being unhappy and decide maybe it’d be interesting to be unhappy somewhere else. There are so many people and things not to like there’s no reason to limit yourself to one place.

Also, make sure you realize the reason you’re unhappy and want to leave isn’t because you live in a shitty place but because you are in fact a shitty person. People love to say Albany sucks. Well, chances are, you suck. You’re probably not a very interesting person and there’s a fair possibility everybody thinks you’re frightfully unattractive. Don’t leave because you think you’re better than the place you’re leaving or better than the people who live there. You are very likely not. You are statistically mediocre in every way and only a small handful of people will truly miss you when you’re gone.

So, now that you’ve gotten yourself in the right mind set, it’s time to pack your bags. If you need instructions or help with this I highly recommend you shoot yourself in the face. I will give some advice though: everything needs to fit into the trunk and backseat of your car (you do have a car right?), if you own more than two trash bags worth of clothes and shoes I hate you, don’t bring any furniture or anything large and completely unnecessary like a three foot framed picture of your ugly ass dog, and if you’re going someplace hot please remember vinyl records can easily melt. Lastly, before you pack your car, toss a fat man in the passenger seat. Do this because, either like me you brought a fat man with you on your trip, or because I figure that’s how much spare room you’re going to want for all the cases of Red Bull and Hostess cupcakes you’re going to consume on your journey. Be careful with the energy drinks and cupcakes by the way, if you drink three of those things and pound four cupcakes in a one hour period, you will shit out your soul at the next rest stop. You might also want the room for picking up hookers, serial killer drifters, or possibly but unlikely, a nice boy/girl you meet on your way.

Give yourself a month to announce your departure, quit your job, and say your goodbyes. Get everything sorted out sooner rather than later so you can spend your last week without the worries of traveling. Don’t try and see everybody. Most of your so called friends aren’t worth it. Focus on the few people you actually care about and leave the rest to show up at your going away party at a crappy Albany bar of your choosing. Most won’t show and you shouldn’t care. If you do then maybe you’re not ready to leave yet. Try and have sex with everybody you have been wanting to have sex with. The going away forever thing seems to be an effective ammunition for gettin’ laid. Have sex with someone regrettable while you’re at it too. Give yourself one last thing to be happy to see fade away in your rearview mirror.

Hopefully you’ve settled on somewhere to go at this point and you’re not just running off to get raped or killed in the moonlight of an unfamiliar city. I recommend giving Seattle a shot. People tell me it’s great and it has a high suicide rate. Get in your car and leave at night. There’s something calming about driving away in the dark.

You have started again, but when you arrive at your new home and gaze upon its buildings and its people, remember, everything ends. If you’re lucky you’ll be somewhere nice when it does.

How to get a job, move to an awesome city, and not care.

[tweetmeme]I have never been surrounded by such a pervasive horde of happy people than I have in Austin. I have not caught site of a frown, a tear, or even an unsettled face in the month I’ve lived here. Folks go about their days in such a blissful state I thought for a while the government was dumping Zoloft in the water. This likely medicated pack of giddy Austinites hold doors for you, say please and thank you, and would probably blow you on demand if you asked nicely.

And I kind of fucking hate it (though I haven’t tested the fellatio theory yet). What exhilarating phenomenon are these people partaking in to engender these moronic looks of glee? Is there no sorrow or loss here? Maybe they need a good flood or some good ol’ fashioned fire and brimstone, blood in the water, locust in the sky apocalypse.

They’d probably let it slide right off. Might not even notice. I mean it. There’s a man who collects the garbage from the IT room everyday before I leave. He’s pretty old and I think he had a seizure at one point because one side of his face is a little fucked. This man is happier than me. He’s probably happier than you. I make twice an hour what he makes. I have my youth, my health, a full head of hair, and oh yeah, the side of my face doesn’t look like I lost a fight with a bear. And yet he accelerates towards oblivion with nary a look of woe. Some sort of cosmic balance is off here. I want to tell him he shouldn’t be happy. I want to tell him when I look at him I’m convinced nothing will ever work out and happiness is a pretense, a masquerade we partake in, and under our masks we are all scared and alone. But in this Twilight Zone world the words get stuck in my throat.

I miss Albany in a way. I miss being a sarcastic asshole and having that be acceptable. In New York we’re often total dicks to one another because we know the other person, deep down, is a giant dick themselves. It’s great. Really. I love that. This subtle respect and consideration for one another down south makes my insides feel funny.

I’m not sure what I’m missing about this city and the euphoria it apparently induces. Austin is nice but Albany is….. not really that nice at all now that I think about it. It’s kind of a big garbage dump – not like Troy bad (I think a fucking shitbomb went off in that town, seriously) but it’s a far cry from heaven. Strangely I miss that. I mean, I actually miss how shitty it is. Something about me feels at home in its shadow. We fit.

I think people move to Austin because they are happy while I moved to Austin because…. well, I’ll have to get back to you on that. It was for much the opposite reason though. I did make some world record for landing a job upon arriving in a city with zero job prospects. In five days I was working doing help desk and network administration for $17 an hour. Don’t worry, I realize how absurdly lucky I am. Funny enough, Apple gave me a call two weeks after I got here regarding the transfer I had put in for months prior that I was sure I hadn’t gotten.

Telling the manager he should hang up and proceed to fuck his own face was by far my most joyous moment in Austin to date.

My move here should be hailed as a financial success. Yet, you find out far too quickly, that without anyone you care to spend it with or anyone you love to spend it on, money is about as useful as a windshield wiper on a goat’s ass (that’s an old Texan analogy, I think Davey Crockett said it first).

But let me end with a glimmer of light and a whisper of truth, a solitary moment of optimism. Life is not all misery and despair. I see the night fading and the sun spilling over the horizon. The moon will sink and a warm….. nope, I actually have no idea what I’m saying right now. I’m rather drunk at this point in my writing and thought I’d try and end it on an uplifting note. That’s not going to happen. Nevermind. Life is shit. Always has been. Always will be. But you know, I think I’m okay with that.