I nodded when my co-worker Jason asked me if I was into partying. “Well, a rave is pretty much the same thing, except with more house music and none of that trendy shit you hear everywhere else,” he explained to me while waiting for his noodles to cool down. Jason was one of the only other high school kids at my job, so we’d become good friends by default. I nodded again to indicate my agreement. “Tony and I are going to one this Saturday night. You should come,” he suggested as he twirled a string of noodles around his plastic fork. I finished my vending machine granola bar and said I was in.

Continue reading My First Rave

I stared at my hairy stomach spilling over the blue and green sequins one piece I had just wiggled into. On paper, this seemed like a good idea. Now, not so much. I always hated those douchebags that thought they were being funny by dressing up as girls for Halloween and now, here I was, one of them. I put on the long red wig, padded my sea shell bra and squinted at my reflection in the mirror, trying to calculate how many drinks it would take for me to sleep with myself. For a second, I thought about calling the whole thing off and claiming a fever or a stomach flu. “It’s funny,” I told myself, forcing a smile onto my face. “It’s funny because its part of a theme . .  it’s funny because you’ll be with other guys doing the same thing . .  .  it’s funny because  . . . its funny.” Just as I had started to convince myself that everything was going to be fine, I caught a glimpse of my backside which set my confidence level back to zero. “If you don’t find it funny, no one is going to find it funny,” I said to myself, annoyed with my own anxiety. “It’s fucking funny dude, now stop looking at yourself and lets go.”

Continue reading My Night as a Mermaid

About a year ago I signed up for a free online dating site called Plenty of Fish, also known as POF. While searching through the profiles that all women age 20 – 36 within the greater Los Angeles area made for themselves, I started to notice an alarming number of similarities or recuring themes. The following is my list of peeves.

Continue reading 10 Things I Hate About Online Dating

I’ve always hated getting my hair cut. I blame this on every guy in 1996 that decided they would look good with hair that was faded on the sides and had spikes on top. When you have a long face with a large forehead, you want something that hides these features, not showcases them. This fashion phenomenon seemed to spawn a new breed of incompetent barbers that were essentially one trick ponies. “Keep it fairly even all the way around, just a light trim,” I would instruct before I sat in the padded swivel chair. They would smile and nod as I could hear the ominous sound of the electric razor buzzing next to my ear. I eventually learned it was a pointless argument which I was sure to lose. They seemed to know no other way to cut hair, kind of like in that episode of The Simpsons where the family visits the land down under and Marge tries to order a non-alcoholic beverage from an Australian pub. Continue reading An Uncomfortable Haircut

He wasn’t taking the break up well and we were all suffering the consequences. “No Black!”  He shouted over everyone’s conversation at the table, referring to the beans in the burrito he had just ordered, obviously. My face turned bright red. If it wasn’t already colorful from the day of sun and drinking I had just had, the waiter might have noticed how embarrassed I was.  I quickly realized I wasn’t alone when I caught eyes with everyone sitting near me. Everyone but Scott, of course, who continued to casually look through the drink menu, oblivious to what had just happened. He flipped through the pages and muttered inaudible thoughts to himself.  “You might want to be a little more careful with your choice of words, especially around the only black waiter in the restaurant,” Chris whispered as soon as the man was out of sight. Scott turned another page in the drink menu and ignored his friend’s advice by using a defense only drunk people and children practice known as “selective hearing”. I made a mental note to tip our server extra.

Continue reading The Time I Made Out With my Friend’s Ex-Girlfriend

It has to be sweet and sincere. Something that says “I like you” but not in a creepy, looked-up-your-address-on-the-teacher’s-class-roll-list-and-stalk-you-on-the-weekends, kind of way. Trying to sum up your feelings over the past 3 years on a tiny candy heart is not an easy task. I grabbed another handful and laid them out on the table, attempting to find the best ones to put in K.H.’s card.

Continue reading My 4th Grade Valentine

Her name was Kelly Hensler, but we called her K.H. My progress over the years with her could be described as dismal at best. In first grade, I threw powdered chalk in her best friend’s eyes. K.H. turned to me and shouted “What did you do that for!?” then followed her friend into the bathroom. In second grade, I asked her if she wanted to see me make my face turn red. I breathed heavily for a minute, then let out all the air in my lungs. I put my arms around my neck and strained all the muscles in my body as hard as I could. I think this made me pass out because when I got up from the floor, she was in a casual conversation with a friend and it seemed like a considerable amount of time had passed. In 3rd grade, I stood right behind her in the ragtag choir our class had assembled for the annual school play. In rehearsal I thought it was funny to sing not just the boys part, but also the girls, with a much higher pitch voice. She turned around and glared at me when I did this.

Continue reading K.H.

“Do you want anything to eat?” my dad asked as I walked into the kitchen at 7:30 a.m., still half asleep. “No thanks,” I answered as I took off my Dodgers hat. I decided not to wear it since it might be a conversation starter. “No Man Left Behind” was the name of the mens Christian conference I had agreed to go to with my dad. He had shown me the flyer a few weeks before and asked me if I wanted to go with him. “I would really appreciate it if you could come,” he said in a way that sounded like it had been rehearsed a few times. I thought about it for a week and then said yes.

Continue reading No Man Left Behind

She wore black high heels with rainbow striped socks that went up to her knees. She had a plaid skirt that was almost fully covered by an oversized Marilyn Manson t-shirt. Also hidden under this shirt was a pretty damn good sized rack for an 8th grader. Her eye liner was black and her eye shadow was a blue-ish purple. She had a pale complexion that contrasted with her dark hair, which was tied back tightly in a pony tail. Her large nose hooked like an eagles and commanded most of the attention on her face. Continue reading My Gothic Girlfriend

By the age of 19 I had already acquired a long list of previous employers. There was McDonald’s, where I grilled burgers in the back with all the illegal immigrants. Management must have thought I was not presentable enough to work the front with all the other English speaking teenagers. There was the telecommunications center where I answered phones calls and placed catalog orders. This proved to be an embarrassing task for a 16-year-old whose voiced had yet to change. At the end of every phone call the customer would politely say, “Thanks Ma’am you’ve been very helpful.” After about the 6th or 7th time I stopped correcting them. There was Home Depot, where I stole enough lumber to build a quarter pipe in my friend Peters backyard. There was Hollywood Video where my co-worker set up a fake account using the name of Smokey McPot, under which we rented many a dvd with no intention of returning. There was the frame shop that fired me for being too slow. There was the hair salon that fired me for not being friendly enough. And then, finally, there was Vincenzo’s. Continue reading Vincenzo’s