I am selling everything and moving overseas.

Oh, and ABC has pulled the plug for “Welcome to the Neighborhood,” the new reality show I wanted to watch. Fascists.

I think I am going to be homeless. Or insanely poor.

I haven’t gone apartment hunting in two years—and the prices have skyrocketed. I looked at three places today. The first… YECH. The second… YECH. And the third? Well, for an oompah loompah it would be perfect. Third floor, teeny-tiny with incredibly sloping eaves. It costs $100 more a month than my current place—which is at least three times the size and has much higher ceilings.

So it’s looking grim people. I have no idea when I have to be out, but I’m thinking the sooner the better.

Fortunately, there is Craigslist, where I will be selling most of my furniture (because it won’t fit in my teeny-tiny place that I will probably end up in). Oh, and then I’ll have some extra cash to pay the rent.

Damn.

The RSS feed from plasticbag.org just updated… and so I’ve cribbed his idea.

The secret location of the guest.

The secret location of the insider.

The secret location of the soon-to-be-evicted insider apartment. (where the cats live)

The insider tells me I’m metro.

Rather jumping straight into denial I decided to do some personal reflection. First up in my toolbox is urbandictionary.com.

Urbandictionary.com has no less than 125 definitions for “Metrosexual.” Here’s the definition with the highest approval rating:

1. metrosexual
A straight man who embraces the homosexual lifestyle, i.e. refined tastes in clothing, excessive use of designer hygiene products, etc. Usually is on the brink of homosexuality.
Mike has become a metrosexual after shaving off his stubble and using expensive skin products to soften his cherubic facial features.
Source: Anonymous, Feb 14, 2004

Well, let’s walk through this one. Do I embrace the homosexual lifestyle? To all you gay guys out their let me set the record straight. I think you are great, most of you are funny as hell and us straight guys could probably learn a lot from you.

To the gay guy at Burger King who used to give me free food – “thank you.” No straight man in his right mind would have fed this poor college student so well. To be honest, I didn’t really want to hear about how you had finally gotten laid but I figured it was a fair trade for the cheeseburgers. Hey, you’re a nice guy and I did tell you I was straight.

And my taste in clothes you ask? My wife buys most of my clothes. Which is great because I don’t really like shopping for clothes with one exception. I like picking out dress clothes such as suits and ties. In the business world you have to dress for success. So while I’m home jeans and t-shirts all the way. But when meeting with clients I like to dress nice. This includes shoes and I always give them a fresh shine before I travel.

What about my grooming habits? Lets see. I take really long showers because I wash at least 3 times. I brushed my teeth twice this morning just to be sure. Then I rinsed with hydrogen peroxide because it kills everything in your mouth. I finished off with mouthwash to get rid of the peroxide taste. I’m freaking out because I didn’t have time to floss. (At least I have a Sonicare – I love my Sonicare toothbrush).

What about my hair? Well first, I don’t go to a salon anymore, but I used to. I started going there before I was married because Brandi (my “stylist”) was really cute. She used to take extra time when she would wash my hair and massage my scalp. But 30 bucks for a hair cut finally wore on my frugal spirit.

Now I go to the Regency school where students experiment on daring people like myself. It’s hair. It’ll grow back. They haven’t screwed it up yet. It’s $8!

What about hair products? I do use products in my hair – typically gel. I usually use whatever my wife has happened to buy. In a pinch when I’m travelling Crew products are usually a safe bet.

Hair spray frightens me. My wife uses a lot of hair spray. Somehow she manages to get more on the bathroom wall then on her hair. I once accidentally backed into the wall after I got out of the shower. I stuck to the wall like a fly on fly tape. To my wife’s credit, her hair looks really nice.

Lotion also freaks me out. My wife uses lotion. A LOT of lotion. I once went to give her a hug and she slid out of my arms. She’ll put lotion on her hands and then it gets on me. It’s slimy and I don’t like it. It smells flowery. She drives my car sometimes. The next time I drive my car, holding on to the steering wheel is an adventure. I do not use skin products. I do not like skin products. Soap – it works.

What about shaving? I don’t like shaving. I shave at most every other day. Sometimes once a week. It depends. I don’t particularly like having a beard either. It’s itchy. My brother has a beard. Everytime I see a cheerio embedded in his facial hair it kind of disturbs me.

I do wear cologne. Curve and Very Valentino are two of my favorites. If I had to choose between being metro and smelling bad I’d take the former. I do not however like smelling like a girl. When my wife uses no less than three sprays of perfume and I accidentally walk through the cloud I don’t enjoy smelling like flowers, lavender, honeysuckle, fairyblossoms and whatever other stuff they put on there. It smells fine on her but not on me!

Finally, am I on the verge of being a homosexual?

I’m sorry to disappoint the gay male population but no.

So am I a metrosexual? You decide – it doesn’t really matter to me.

Not going very well at all. Mostly via the phone, but I also looked at one place. Dismal.

Kill me now.

So my day hasn’t gone very well, to say the least.

First, I got up early to take my car into the shop (the Malfunctioning Indicator Light is on.. come on, you’re impressed that I knew that). Last week, the Service Manager told me to come in around 7:30AM and they would look at it—guess what, that’s a lie. They were full. Pisser. So now I have to go in tomorrow and leave the vehicle. Not fun

——OK, the air has been let out of my hate balloon just a litte. There was a commercial for a new reality show, “Welcome to the Neighborhood”… I know I’m seriously stressed when I tear up during commercials—particularly reality show ones.——–

But I digress. Back to my crappy day. So everything I wanted to do today was put off to do a multitude of other jobs for the bosses. And I’m cranky about that, because we publish an issue every Tuesday and it’s only half-way done. That makes me seriously cranky.

Then, I uploaded Tiger onto my computer. Well, first, it took an HOUR (did I mention that I use my computer ALL THE TIME, without fail?). So I went to pick up lunch while this was happening, and my very well-meaning coworker (I love you) put in the wrong set up information—our boss’ name, address, etc. Mind you, it takes until I am installing Tiger on her computer before I realize this has happened….

So I call tech support, and the nice, outsourced help from India tries, but fails at being useful. Apparently I can’t set up Tiger again, without losing all of my information. Say it with me now… ARGHHHHHH!!! @#$%^&%^*%^!

Alright, so the day has gone badly so far.. then we don’t leave the office until after 8. OK, that’s fine. I’ll go home, pour myself some vodka and call it a day.

But wait, no, that would be too easy. Outside my apartment there is a note from my landlord.. she wants to talk. I’m not worried, she’s nice and I’ve lived here for two years without any problems. But is my life nice today? NO. My landlord needs me to move out, because her nephew needs a place to stay. She’s really sorry and feels terrible, etc. OK, I say, I understand—I’ll start looking.

I think this is the pertinent time to tell you that I live in an area that’s not exactly cheap and I pay really cheap rent.. I was blessed. Oh, it’s also key to note that my boss pays me crap.

So I come upstairs to my apartment and start looking online for a new place to live. It’s all expensive and “no pets allowed.” Great, I have two cats.. and they’re DEFINITELY coming with me.

So it’s 10PM and the day is over. No more crap can happen. It’s still bloody hot (and now I can’t buy a new air conditioner.. gotta make a security deposit), but I’m home and I’m now sufficiently buzzed.

*Ping* I have a new email. It’s from the boss. The subject is mysteriously blank, but inside, the first line is… “A few critical errors on the website that must be fixed ASAP.”

Have I mentioned that my life SUCKS. And that this was the most TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD day?

OK, just wanted to be clear.

——small update at 10:30… at least I don’t wear a cow suit for work. lol. dooce is great.

To explain that my boss is INSANE. The man sent seven emails this weekend, some of which are more than a page long, talking about the “new” direction our company is going in. Mind you, the company is only a year or so old and he’s already changed our name—twice.

We had a group meeting on Friday (wherein all four principals showed up), and during that meeting he proceeded to change EVERYTHING again. This typically happens at these meetings—hence the reason I dread them like a root canal sans novocaine.

Why? Well, 1) we (my coworker and I work from a separate office, thank god) have to drive over two hours (in bumper-to-bumper traffic) to get there—by nine a.m., 2) our boss makes drastic, sweeping changes (the company name, redoing the website, adding three new websites, etc) every time we go up there, 3) we always have to go to lunch at the same place and it’s been disgusting EVERY time, 4) we don’t get out of there until late, which means we hit traffic going home (we’re talking 10 mph-in-the-breakdown-lane traffic here) and 5) we don’t like the man, so being in the same vicinity with him (while having to listen to him—he likes the sounds of his own voice… blowhard) makes us a) dread the entire day and b) grouchy as all holy hell.

That being said, I now have to respond to his maniacal emails—that are asking if I have started on any of the projects we talked about—on Friday. Yeah right. He doesn’t pay me enough to work on weekends—damn, he doesn’t pay me enough to work during the week.

Fortunately, I went way out of my way this morning and picked myself up a nice Starbucks quad espresso. I will live.

As a professional pet sitter, my wife belongs to an association of pet sitters who serve our community. To help promote their businesses one of their members decided they should set up a booth at the annual Minneapolis Gay Pride Festival.

As a result I’ve been driving my wife for the last two days down to the festival as parking is impossible. Last night when I picked her up she gets in the car and looks dazed. I asked her how it was going.

“I just saw a man wearing leather chaps and nothing else.”

I try not to laugh too hard. What did she expect?

“This company wants to partner with us to promote each other’s business.”

She hands me a flyer. It’s an advertisement for various lubricant products and other novelty “items.”

Wow, they must really love their pets.

We’re driving around the block. She points out a couple. “Are those guys or girls?” she asks. I look and squint my eyes. I can’t tell either.

The next day I’m playing chauffeur again for my wife. There were sights to be seen and sights I would have rather not seen.

I did receive one pearl of wisdom though. Meet Irv.

I was driving through the city today and noticed that there was a panhandler on nearly every major intersection. They all had various creative cardboard signs. Everything from “Will work for food” to “I need a beer – God bless.”

I decided to investigate. I wanted to talk with one of these individuals. Find out their story. I’m about to drop my wife off.

As I’m driving home I stop at the first intersection. I roll down my window and explain that if he’s hungry to hop in and I’ll buy him some food. He looks surprised. I’m not just going to give him some money? He starts to stammer and I can smell the Jim Beam. Great, the car behind me is honking. The light has changed. He explains that he can’t he’s waiting for a friend. And I thought this was going to be easy.

I stop to get gas. Just my luck. I see a man walk past me to the street corner and pull out his sign.

I approach the man and I asked him if I can buy him lunch. At first he’s taken aback. Really? He asks. Sure I said, but I want you to tell me your story. I extend my hand and introduce myself. “Herman’s my name” he exclaims. Herman’s hands look dirty. (Note to self: wash hands soon.) Herman is clearly drunk off his ass. That’s ok. He’s talking with me – progress.

“Well there’s a gas station right there” he exclaims. I explain that there’s a nice malt shop right down the way but he’s not interested. “Hey, you don’t happen to drink beer do you?” Sorry Herman, I’m not buying you alcohol. “Well, can you buy me some cigarettes?” Sure I say.

I get Herman a sandwich a drink and some cigarettes. Moments later he’s telling me his life story. He was born here in the city in one of the nicer suburbs. His parents split. His Dad is a technical writer. They don’t like him hanging around when he drinks.

He tells me what it’s like to live on the street. He’s going to San Diego for the winter this year. “Winters here are a bitch!” he exclaims. I can’t even imagine. He explains how he puts on 3 coats and 3 hats and tries to find a place where they can make a fire. It often gets as much as 20 below or more here (without the wind-chill). Sometimes he can find a shelter but those fill up too. “That’s where the bums go” he says. “I’m not a bum though, I’m a traveler.” And then there are the cops. “They’re always harassing us to move along. If you get into the nicer suburbs the housewives freak out and they ship us back down here.”

Sometimes he explains they’ll commit crimes just so they can land in jail. (He doesn’t admit that he does that but read between the lines).

“You ever going to give up drinking?” I ask. “Oh yeah, someday” he says.

I stop. Somewhere between the sandwich and the stories he’s accumulated a giant green booger on his mustache. Do I say something? The green booger is staring at me.

“Herman” I say. I lower my voice. “You have a booger on your mustache. You don’t want to hurt your chances on the corner.” “Thanks Dude!” He blows his nose and wipes it. Good he took it well.

Herman continues. He was in the Army. He enlisted after high school. Spent some time in Germany. He’s been doing manual labor ever since he got out. It’s hard to have a steady job when you drink.

“Were you ever married?” I ask. “No but I got a girlfriend in the suburbs!” He explains that she lives with her parents and they don’t like him hanging around.

Herman finishes the last of his sandwich. “Well Dude, got to get me back to the corner!”

He thanks me profusely for everything and hurries back to capture peak panhandling time.

Herman, I dedicate this Blog posting to you. Happy travels and Godspeed.

I didn’t wake up until 12… I love Sundays. 🙂 I would’ve stayed in bed longer, except it’s so hot that I couldn’t sleep.

I went to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water and lo and behold… my refrigerator door is standing wide open. And apparently, it’s been open ALL NIGHT. I know this because the eggs have spoiled, as has the yogurt (holy mother of vomitous smells.. yech) and the hummus. Why not the rest, you ask? Well, that’s it. Aside from mustard, bottled water, diet coke and pickles, my frig is pathetically bare. I was planning to go grocery shopping today, but what if this freak door-opening occurs again?

I think it occurred one of two ways: either my psycho cats, or the frig is just broken. Mind you, I’ve never heard of a frig opening itself, even if it was broken… so it was most definitely the little furballs.

I’m now hungry, and willing to experience the blistering heat to acquire the staples… I’ll worry about shutting the door when I get back.

I think I have duct tape somewhere around here..