[Toward the middle of June, I read the following piece for an event with my Venice nonfiction writing group.]
I’ve bought many mops. I’ve bought yellow mops, and I’ve bought green mops. I’ve bought quality mops, and I’ve also bought trashy mops that leave blue lint on the floor. I’ve bought mops with fixtures that couldn’t wring the water out without getting my arm wet. I don’t like getting my arm wet. I’m sort of like a cat when it comes to getting my arm wet.
I bought a mop and a bunch of other cleaning equipment for my ex-girlfriend once. I didn’t think much of it except that it was a nice thing to do. She didn’t think much of it either. She didn’t even think it was that nice of a thing to do. The extent of her thinking with regard to me buying her a mop, was that she just sort of expected it. And that’s just sort of the way it went in that relationship.
As many times as I’ve bought a mop, I’ve moved. Or actually, I’ve moved more than I’ve bought a mop. In the past 11 years I’ve moved 14 times. And I’ve lost a lot of mops.
I’m not sure exactly what happens. Maybe I put them in the closet of the off-white apartment I’m moving from that I forget to check on move day. Or when I move I know where the the mop is but I just don’t feel like packing it. I don’t own any boxes for something that long. I don’t ski. Or build jungle gyms.
Yesterday I bought a mop. I wish someone had been there to buy it for me. No one has ever bought me a mop.
Instead, people call me lazy. Well, I’ve always bought my own mops. People tell me I’m arrogant. People say I’m not a nice person. Oh yeah? Well fuck you guys because I’ve always bought my own mops. When you were figuring out how to be a victim, I was buying a mop. When your dad put the down payment on your first house, I put money down on a mop. When you were mad at me for not showing up on time to help you move, well I was late because I was buying a mop. My own mop.
Then you told everyone you looked down on me for mopping my own floors. You told them you were better than me, and you told them behind my back. You didn’t have the guts to talk trash to my face, because you thought I’d make you look dumb. And you were right, I would. You can’t out trash talk me. So you went passive-aggressive. But you can’t out passive-aggressive me either.
Here’s what I mean: Instead of gossiping to your friends about how dumb you were, I bought a mop. That move was so passive-aggressive, you had no idea I did it. Then I wrote about buying a mop, and I wrote about you being dumb. Then I sent what I wrote to everyone. Well, everyone except you.
Yesterday to buy the mop, I walked from my apartment to CVS. In addition to UCLA, Jews for Jesus, The Farmacy Organic Medicinal Dispensery, In-N-Out Burger, Tommy Tacos, Pete’s Coffee, Tomodachi Sushi, Barney’s Beanery, and a bunch of people stuck in traffic, my apartment is near CVS.
Once I entered the store I went straight downstairs. I didn’t ask for help. I’m too much of a pro at buying mops for that. But then I ran into a problem known as, “not being able to find a mop.”
I searched through almost every aisle. Then I walked back upstairs to ask the cashier for help.
“Hi, do you have any mops,” I asked.
“Downstairs,” said the cashier.
“Oh really?” I asked.
“DOWNSTAIRS!” the cashier said again, repeating herself. Apparently she thought I was an immigrant who didn’t speak English. Or mentally retarded. Or an excessively loyal customer of The Farmacy Organic Medicinal Dispensary. Or a Jew for Jesus, who was too busy thinking for Jesus, while being Jewish, to hear stuff.
“I heard you,” I said. “I just didn’t see any mops when I walked down there just now.”
“Oh OK,” she said. “Aisle 20, all the way down at the end.”
“OK, sounds good. I’ll check it out. Thank you!” I said.
I walked back down the stairs.
When I got to Aisle 20 I saw it was full of Depends and other products designed for incontinence. If my name was McGuyver I could have taken some Depends, and a few sticks, and made a years supply of mops at a discount rate. But name was not Macgyver.
“Why was I sent to aisle 20?” I thought. Instead of “mop,” maybe the cashier thought I said “stop,” as in “I can’t STOP peeing on myself do you have a product in the incontinence section for that?”
Or maybe she was thinking of aisle 19. So I went there.
Nope. No mops. But now I was armed with the faith that there were in fact, mops “DOWNSTAIRS” at CVS. I searched aisle to aisle. At last, on the opposite end of the floor, in aisle 14b, I found mops. Many mops. And I picked one out.
When I went upstairs, the cashier greeted me. “Find the mop after all?” she asked.
“Yep, found one,” I said. “Aisle 14b, for future reference.”
“Oh yeah, I said aisle 20 didn’t I? That’s on the other end of the store.”
“Yep. Don’t worry about it.” I said. “I do the same thing all the time.” But actually, I didn’t.
Then I walked home with my mop. I wondered how long I would own that particular mop. And I wondered when I would move next. And I wondered if the day would ever come that someone would buy me me a mop.
When I got home I didn’t mop the floor. I set the mop in the kitchen against the wall. I left in on the dirt, on the dust and other things like that.
I talked to my houseplant.
“Hey Carla, how you doing?”
My plants name was Carla, and apparently she was just chilling.
“Has anyone ever bought you a mop before, Carla?” I asked.
It seemed no one had ever bought Carla a mop before, either. Or, she just didn’t want to talk about it.
This one time a man walked down the street. It was a street in Los Angeles. Then boom: he got shot in the head and died.
That was a more dangerous time. Like 20 years ago. Or a more dangerous neighborhood.
I live in West LA. It’s not that dangerous here. Many people want to live in West LA because it’s not that dangerous. And it’s near the ocean. When I walk down the street only one thing happens: I look good. OK, or two things: someone else looks good. That’s about it.
Or three things, because if I’m having a bad day I don’t look that good. It’s pretty annoying. Then maybe some douche bag honks his horn twice. If he just honks once I don’t notice. But if he honks twice that means he’s being annoying. If he’s driving a Mercedes, then even before he honks, I write him off as a chronic douche bag honker. I don’t even notice him honk the first time. But when he honks twice I get pissed off.
If I see a guy driving a Toyota Prius I write him off too. The difference though is if he honks, he is not only a douche bag honker, he is also pretentious. So, it’s even worse. He is a douche bag honker who wants you to get out of his way because his car is more expensive than yours. He’s pretentious since he thinks he’s saving the world because his car uses half as much gas as yours. Being both pretentious and a douche bag is a horrible combination that makes me want to barf. Hey pretentious douche bag honkers, please stop making me want to barf. Either move to Northern California with your Prius, or stay down here and buy a real douche bag car like a Mercedes. Don’t stay down here and be a pretentious douche bag honker. I don’t like barfing.
No matter how good or bad my day is, I am cognizant of the two worst parts of it. That’s because everyday, they are the same two parts.
When my alarm clock wakes me up, that’s the worst part. I never sleep enough. And during not getting enough sleep, I talk. I talk so much in my sleep it wakes me up from not sleeping well. This all stems from drinking too much coffee. Or doing too much math. Or making fun of too many people online. Or something.
The second worst part part of my day is after I get out of bed and walk to the bathroom. I know what’s coming: 22 minutes of applying $1.37 worth of chemicals to my head. And grooming my hair. It is boring. And boring is annoying.
But that’s it for the worst parts of my day.
After eating breakfast comes one of those walking down the street parts. I walk 0.501 miles to work. When I walk, usually the weather is good. Since I walk, I never get stuck in traffic. But I do sometimes have to wait for on average, 37 seconds at two crosswalks for the crossing signal. When the crossing signal turns green that means I can both cross the street and not break the law. Unless I’m married to a dog. Being married to a dog is illegal in the state of California. But I’m not usually married to a dog.
Work is like a dream world where I can do whatever I want and get paid for it. But before I can get started I need to have my eyes scanned. Everyday the retinal scanner at the front of the building makes sure I am actually me. Every once in a while the scanner doesn’t let me in and I need to call Erin. “Please let me in, Erin,” I say. Usually that’s when I have a horrible hangover and can’t open my eyes all the way.
The first thing I do at work is drink two cups of coffee.
The other day I left my office and walked to the Engineering library to pick up a book on statistics. Now everyday when I drink coffee I also read that book for about an hour. I read it mostly because it’s interesting. I read a lot of other things throughout the day too. Most of the rest of the time I do a lot of coding. Sometimes I write about my work.
I make some sort of progress every day. Unless it’s one of those days I can’t open my eyes wide enough to get inside the building on the first try.
Sometimes I wonder why I’m so lucky to have this dream job. I used to not have a job at all. Unemployed, I stagnated in the sausage-fest of the Silicon Valley until I grew the balls to move out. Now I have a job and my friends are still struggling. Many of my family members are also struggling. I’m just more lucky than those people. But at work I say to myself that I’m not simply more lucky than those people, I simply enjoy doing things like walking to the library and reading about statistics more than those people. I say doing coding, doing statistics and writing about it isn’t their dream job. I’m pretty sure that’s true.
And and when I say that it helps me feel less guilty for also saying, “Annoying is the new bad.”
When I was 16 I thought to myself, “Why go through all the trouble of using hair conditioner? I’m not a model.”
When I was 17 I thought, “If conditioner is so fancy, why use shampoo? I should just use hand soap.”
Then one day I turned 18. I said, “It’s time to start using shampoo and conditioner like everyone else, and worry about more important shit.”
But I never found something more important to worry about. I just found more things to worry about. Like women. Women drive me nuts.
When I was much younger than 18 women didn’t drive me nuts. I just knew I wanted to see them naked. We’re talking like 5 years old.
Since my dad was an artist it was not difficult to see women naked. When my dad taught life drawing, I saw women naked. When he took me to see a Picasso painting, I saw women naked. If a woman was naked in an advertisement it was called “selling sex.” But if a woman was naked in an oil painting it was called, “fine art.”
But I wasn’t thinking about all that stuff when I was much younger than 18, when I was around 5 years old. I was thinking, “Whoa check out that naked woman.” She was painted in oil and that was enough.
One day I found a stack of Playboy Magazines. I quickly found they were more than enough. Oil paintings? Forget those. They were so kindergarten and this was the first grade. Skin tone produced by a 1980s airbrush left me mesmerized.
But only a few years later, even flipping through an issue of Playboy was no longer enough. It just didn’t do it for me anymore. I don’t know why, and I don’t care why.
It was not enough because God told me it was not enough. It was not enough because my hormones changed. My hormones changed because a guy named Rick farted. Rick farted because Adam ate an apple. Adam ate an apple because this one snake talked and that wasn’t a very cool thing to do.
I have not actually independently verified any of those events. However, I do know that women drive me crazy and looking at them naked in magazines is not enough. And that’s good I know something like that. It’s also good that I can admit it. But that knowledge and that honesty does nothing to help me navigate the spectrum between merely looking at a woman naked in a magazine and the entirety of options within the human experience. That spectrum leaves such a multitude of bad choices, it’s tough to hunker down and move forward sometimes.
Here’s something to try: Next time you have some free time go home and drink alone. Do that if you’re depressed. Or do it if you’re not depressed, it doesn’t matter. And really drink a lot. Your hormones will stop bothering you. Rick will stop farting. The snake will stop talking. God himself will come down and tell you that what you are doing is good. Actually if you pay attention, you may realize that God isn’t really doing that. But when you’re completely drunk out of your mind, who has the fortitude for such attention to detail?
Soon you’ll find out that getting drunk by yourself just isn’t quite the same as it used to be. So in order to make it exciting again, take up new substances. Or just drink more. Eventually, by searching for good enough you’ll make yourself sick. And that’s the problem with trying to find good enough that way. I used to think I could find good enough like that, but now I know I can’t.
I used to think that having sex with one woman would be enough. Oops. I miscalculated. Then two. Three? Four? The problem with desire is, you always want more. That’s why they call it, “desire” and that’s why they don’t call it, “being a nice person.” But in America if you don’t follow or tell anyone your desires they call it, “being a pushover,” and they call it, “Get the fuck out of the capitalist system unless you want to sweep my floor.” If you can somehow tell people your desires so that they become what other people want, they will call you a “shrewd businessperson.” They will tell you not to ever sweep another floor again. In this regard, I know my place in society: I only need to sweep my own floor. Unless I’m doing volunteer work.
I like my place in society and I like that I know what it is. It’s good to know where your place is, and not good to not know. And that’s my other problem with that spectrum between merely reading Playboy Magazine, and doing loads of drugs and having sex with tons of women. I am good at many things, but I don’t know where I fit it in to that spectrum. I am not good at judging what is appropriate in that spectrum. And all explanations for why I am not good at that are equally useful and equally useless.
If a woman is naked in The Bible it is not called “fine art.” It is not called “selling sex.” It is called the first part of the Book of Genesis before Adam ate the apple. When I was much younger than 18, when I was 5 years old, that first part of the Book of Genesis was my favorite place in The Bible. Of course, I had to sneakily read the Bible at my cousins house. At my school we had this thing called a Torah which was sort of like the Old Testament but it didn’t have any pictures in it. So the first part of it the Torah was not my favorite part. I did not have a favorite part of that book.
Incidentally, now the first part of the Book of Genesis is no longer my favorite. That’s because the bibles I read don’t have pictures in them. And plus I know how to read better. Knowing how to read better taught me that looking at pictures of naked women in books and magazines wasn’t enough. And now that I can read better, I can afford fancy shampoo and conditioner.
April 1st, 2010 · Humor
I’ve noticed a positive correlation between the following three events:
- A man lives in the Northern California Bay Area.
- A man has a girlfriend.
- A man is pussy whipped.
Meanwhile some of those same pussy whipped people warned me not to move to Los Angeles. Especially West Los Angeles. Many times.
“They’re so fake there.”
“The traffic is horrible.”
“They’re all so arrogant. Like everyone walks around there thinking they’re awesome.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well I think that too. I am awesome.”
“What? Well get the fuck out of here.”
“OK. I will.”
Upon arrival in West L.A. I promptly made a friend. His name was Huey.
The first day we hung out, we got high and listened to rap. So far so good. We were being real and we weren’t stuck in traffic. But was my friend arrogant?
I asked Huey for his daily things to do list.
“Simple,” he said:
1. Go to the beach.
2. Get a blow job.
3. Look in the mirror and say, “Aw yeah, looking good!”
Apparently I was out of luck. I wasn’t going to be able to prove any of my San Francisco friends wrong with that list.
“How arrogant!” I said.
“Ian,” said Huey, “have you ever followed that things to do list?”
“Well yeah, but I didn’t admit it.”
“Well, it’s time to admit it,” said Huey. “This is Los Angeles. If you want something, you admit it here. Now repeat after me: Today I want to go to the beach…”
And I did repeat after him. And it was good. But then later when I was getting a blow job it wasn’t so good. Well, the blow job was good, but the girl that gave me it wasn’t. She liked me, but only out of pure superficiality. She was so shallow.
“Man, this is terrible,” I said.
I missed San Francisco, a place where girls disliked me for very intelligent reasons. Plus we were stuck in traffic. And we never made it to the beach.
The next day I called up my friend Tom, who lived in San Francisco.
“Tom,” I said. “What’s on your things to do list for today?”
“My things to do list? That’s simple.”
1. Be an Athiest.
2. Say something like, “On my way to the store to buy some organic soy milk, I heard something really interesting on NPR,” which sounds like a description of shopping activities, but is actually an indirect statement about how smart and liberal I am.
3. Start political Facebook groups that have no impact on reality whatsoever.
“That’s your things to do list?” I asked. “Hm.”
“Yep,” said Tom. “Speaking of which, have you joined my new Facebook page, ‘People AGAINST Re-naming Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan!!’”
It was like Tom had smacked me in the head with a rock. “What?! They are going to change the name of Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan??”
“Yep!!”
“Holy shit!!”
“I know!!”
“They can’t let that happen!!”
“I know!!”
“How many times have you been there??”
“Well… never!!”
“Oh, well I’ve been there twice!! But if they change the name I’m never going to that mountain again!! I can’t walk around and enjoy nature on a place called Mt. Reagan!!”
I was ashamed of myself. What was I doing down in L.A. getting blow jobs and enjoying the weather when I could have been up in San Francisco, SAVING THE WORLD!!??
“Alright Tom, I’ll head up to San Francisco this weekend. Let’s hang out and come up with new ideas for Facebook groups,” I said.
“Oh. Uh, OK. Awesome! See you when you get here, man.”
That was on a Monday. Tuesday followed. Then Wednesday and uh. What day came next on that particular week in Los Angeles? Oh yeah, Thursday. The weeks are ordered the same down here.
On Thursday I emailed Tom to let him know I was coming the next day. Then on Friday I left work early. I was headed up to Northern California.
But as I was nearing the Bay Area I got a text from Tom.
Hey Ian. Wasn’t sure what exactly your plans were for tonight so I’m just going to hang with my lady.
What? I had given him almost a whole weeks notice that I was driving to the Bay Area. Then I had very specifically informed Tom in my email exactly when I’d be arriving.
I called and texted Tom but no response. Alright, well fuck that guy. I called up my other friend, Arnold. He was in San Jose.
“Hey Arnold, this is Ian. Man what are you doing there? It’s totally loud.”
“Oh, hey Ian. Yeah I’m having dinner with Allison’s family.”
“Again? Geez man, that’s all you do.”
“Haha. Yeah. Maybe.”
“Well, anyways. I know it’s short notice but I’m in town.”
“Really?!! Awesome man!!”
“Yeah, anyways I was wondering if you wanted to hang out tomorrow.”
“Oh. Uh. Well, gee, OK. You know, let me check to see what’s going on.”
“Huh?”
“Well, let me check to see if I’m free and if so I’ll let you know.”
“Why do you need to CHECK if you’re free? Why don’t you KNOW if you’re free?”
“Haha. Well, uh I just need to see for sure.”
“Just need to see for sure if you’re having dinner with Allison’s family?”
“Haha no man! Geez, I’m gonna kill you!”
“Alright whatever.”
The next day my phone rang. Slowly, slowly, slowly I opened my eyes and saw it was Arnold. I was too hungover to answer. But later I checked my voicemail and my ears were assaulted with a syllabic abomination:
Hi Ian, it’s Arnold on a Saturday. I think I better just stay home today. I’ve had a really long week full of long hours and I better just stay at home and rest. But hey!! Next time you come up here let me know!!”
Yeah right. Stay at home and rest? More like, stay at home and bake cookies for Allison’s family.
What was wrong with these people? They used to be so cool. I drove home to Los Angeles, utterly defeated.
My spirit in Southern California over the next few days was not one of being at home, but one of escaping from neglect. I was just going to have to get used to this new place.
Finally I made it to the beach. Often. More blow jobs followed. It was tough not being able to participate in all the great social issues in Northern California, but somehow I started to actually kind of enjoy Los Angeles. I carried a mirror around with me. Because I was looking good. And in L.A. when you’re looking good, you admit that shit.
Things were starting to go well. It wasn’t so bad. I was actually kind of starting to wonder why I ever even missed San Francisco at all. Or well, did I ever miss it?
But one night at about 2:30 AM I heard a bunch of sirens. Then helicopters started flying overhead shining lights everywhere. I heard rustling outside my bedroom window.
I grabbed my 9mm and peered outside. Who the fuck was out there?
I walked to the other side of my room. Slowly I opened my bedroom door.
I headed to the front window of my living room WHEN A MAN GRABBED MY HAND AND STARTED SHOUTING AT ME. I hadn’t seen him in the dark.
Or well, he wasn’t shouting but his voice was booming.
“PUT THAT GUN DOWN BOY YOU’LL HAVE NO USE FOR IT AGAINST ME!!”
I was so shocked that I dropped my gun.
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked.
“I AM THE MASTER OF BEFORE TENSE!!”
“Before tense?”
“YES, BEFORE TENSE!!”
“You mean like past tense?”
“No, before that.”
“What is before the past?”
“Pre is before the past.”
“So you’re the master of uh… pre… uh?”
“THAT’S ENOUGH QUESTIONS BOY I AM THE ONE WHO DOES THE TALKING HERE!! I AM THE MASTER OF BEFORE TENSE!!”
“Oh. Why are you in my apartment?”
“I AM IN YOUR APARTMENT BECAUSE WE HAVE A PROBLEM!! YOU DO NOT RESPECT SAN FRANCISCO!!”
“So? Fuck San Francisco.”
Just then I felt a shooting pain through my testicles. It was like that time I had epididymitis only worse.
I fell to the ground. It was not good. THE MASTER OF BEFORE TENSE backed up and removed something from his robe. He threw it on the ground. It was a golden statue of a cat.
“CRAWL ON YOUR BELLY BOY!! BOW DOWN BEFORE THE PUSSY!!”
The pain in my balls was quite horrible. I shoved my face into the carpet.
“IAN!! YOU WILL GO BACK TO THE BAY AREA!! YOU WILL NOT OBJECTIFY WOMEN!! YOU WILL SPEAK ONLY OF MONOGAMY AND MARITAL EQUALITY!! YOU WILL HAVE THE SINGULAR GOAL OF NAMING MOUNTAINS AFTER THE DEVIL IN SPANISH AND PROVING THAT A DUNG BEETLE CAN HAVE MORE FACEBOOK FANS THAN GLEN BECK!!”
“What? Why?”
“BECAUSE THOSE ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES IN THE WORLD!!”
“Oh I thought social activism was was just like, the style or something.”
Lightening bolts shot through my testicles.
“YOU WILL BELIEVE THAT SAN FRANCISCO IS THE MOST LIBERAL, PROGRESSIVE PLACE ON EARTH!! IF SOMEONE DESCRIBES SOMETHING PROGRESSIVE YOU WILL ONE UP THEM WITH A STORY BEGINNING, ‘Well, in San Francisco, that’s normal…’ AND ENDING, “Have you been to San Francisco lately?’”
It went on and on like that. The agony. The torture.
I passed out.
I awoke in the morning. Someone was shaking me. It was time for a blow job.
“Your door was wide open!” she said.
“Oh yeah, some dude came over last night. Anyways, I’m ready for my blow job. Go ahead.”
“Geez you’re such a pig! It might do you some good to listen to something besides rap and hair metal you know.”
“Oh,” I said. My testicles started killing me. “Well, actually I was thinking. Really thinking. I was wondering if you’d like to be in a monogamous relationship. Like just you and me. Together.”
“Hm. I don’t know. Why? So you can pin me down?” she asked. “So you can own me? You don’t own me. You don’t own these lips! Get your own lips! Get your own blow jobs! I’m outta here!”
She got up to leave. My nuts were throbbing.
“Noooo!!! Please don’t go!!”
She stopped at the door and turned around. “Well, I have news for you. I’m moving. Moving to a place where people are smart and not stupid. A place where people are real and not fake. A place where people are politically correct and not insensitive. I’m moving to a place where people are polite and not obnoxious.”
“Geez. Sounds horrible, where the fuck is that?”
“It’s not horrible, it’s San Francisco. And unless you want to kiss these blow jobs goodbye, you’re coming with me.”
I was in pain. I couldn’t make it on my own anymore. Not after that visit from THE MASTER OF BEFORE TENSE.
“Alright,” I said.
The next day I quit my job at the university.
Then I packed.
Then I called up a corporate executive I knew. He had a name like, “Fred.” He told me a software development job in an the Silicon Valley was waiting for me. The job was in an office park, and that office park was far away from drug dealers, females, and any other sort of fun whatsoever.
Plus I could commute to that job from the mecca of social consciousness, San Francisco, and live with my partner in monogamy.
Yay.
And that was that. Decision made.
So, today I announce that I’m moving to San Francisco, I have a new girlfriend, and I can’t hang out for one year.
March 1st, 2010 · Memoirs
Most people say nothing important when they’re talking to me. They go on and on, blah blah blah talking nonsense without getting to the point. Even worse is when after all that irrelevant noise, they expect me to treat them like they’ve done something interesting.
The other day some dumbass came over to my new apartment. A family friend. I’ll call him Richard since that’s a dumb name.
It had been a long day, and I was relaxing.
The first thing Richard remarked upon was my lack of furniture.
“You need more furniture. This arrangement isn’t very conducive to getting pussy.”
I had just moved in to my place right near campus. “Uh, well I just moved in this new place right near campus,” I said. “Like one week ago.”
Then later Richard asked about my life, which was nice. But when I answered, he interrupted me.
“Too much thinking Ian, not enough cock and balls.”
Then he interruped me again.
“You gotta start hittin’ that shit man, come on.”
The whole night was like that. He never shut up. It was exactly like he was a Brooklyn salesman and I was someone who wished he would leave. Except that he wasn’t a Brooklyn Salesman.
Anyways, the reason he acted that way was he wanted something from me. He wanted me to help him with a website. He wanted to bust my balls into doing it. But his attitude wasn’t going to work.
Here’s some advice for you would-be non-douchebags out there: If you want to motivate a person to do something, try the following:
* Offer something valuable.
* Lead by example.
* Be important.
But instead, you act like you’re trying to pick me up at a bar. You act like you’re Donald Trump. But you’re not Donald Trump. You try to break me down. You can’t break me down. You try to tell me what to do. You can’t tell me what to do. There is only one person who can tell me what to do, and that’s me. Whatever you have to say about what I should do is a subtraction from the impeccable message I have delivered to myself. All you dumbasses out there who want to get rich off my knowledge can stop being a subtraction, stop being a detraction, stop being a distraction by keeping your mouth shut. Instead of running your mouth you should be opening your ears and sitting the fuck down. And that’s because if you’re standing up when I drop the knowledge, you’ll fall over.
But Richard isn’t the only dumbass I’ve ever met. Let me tell you about Nancy.
Nancy is a girl who once said to me, “I want to be a bitch.”
Geez, talk about a warning sign. I should have ditched that ho when I had the chance. But due to the kindness and compassion in my heart I continued the friendship.
One time she needed help moving. I was unemployed with plenty of time, plus I had a truck so I agreed to help.
Nancy had three friends in the whole world at that point. In addition to me, another friend from that microscopic list agreed to help her too.
But I stayed up really late the night before I helped Nancy. Well, actually I stayed up late partying with Nancy’s friend.
Then the next day instead of showing up at 10 AM, we showed up at 1 PM. There was still plenty of time to help Nancy move, but Nancy said we showed up late. How can you be late when you’re the one helping, and you’re the one with the truck? I don’t know. But even though we ended up helping Nancy move with plenty of time to spare, she was pissed.
Then during our late lunch Nancy ran a demo called, “passive,” “aggressive,” and “aloof.” Nancy wanted us to suffer, simply because we didn’t do things exactly the way she wanted us to.
But fuck that. It was time to eat, drink and be merry. Nancy’s friend and I ditched all that negativity, and partied.
So Nancy got even madder that we didn’t take her attitude seriously. She didn’t like our behavior. She wanted to change our behavior. But did she have something to offer? No. Was she leading by example? Nope. Was she important? Hell no.
I wrote earlier that that Nancy had three friends, including me. Well, Nancy’s one other friend (who lived out of state), I liked quite a bit. And Nancy knew it. So, while I was partying Nancy immediately called up that other friend and spread a bunch of gossip. She told her I partied. She told her I got naked. It was all true. You’re thinking, who gives a shit? But Nancy put a negative spin on it. Before that phone call, her out of state friend sort of liked me. But not after it. Nancy did everything she could to ensure her friend wouldn’t like me. That was Nancy’s way of saying, “You should do what I want you do, Ian.” Instead of actually being important, she connived influence. Instead of having something to offer, she took something away. Instead of leading by example, she was a bitch.
And that’s not the way to live. Slowly but surely that attitude caught up with her. Or not so slowly.
Now Nancy is unhappy up in Northern California. Her short list of friends got even shorter. Like you could itemize that list with one hand even if all your fingers were chopped off. Oh and she says she’s out to make big bucks, but hasn’t made any. It’s kind of hard to make money when you are dumb and have no friends. It’s kind of hard to be influential when you could mail your list of friends to the North Pole for free because it doesn’t weigh anything.
So, do yourself a favor. Don’t be like Nancy. Or Richard.
February 23rd, 2010 · About
I accidentally didn’t renew the ifitfeelsgooddoit.com domain name for a few days. Just a mistake.
A number of people have asked me if I will continue writing in my blog. Answer: yep. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll write about, but I know I’ll write more frequently again. Could be soon. Right now I’m relaxing on a chair.
February 1st, 2010 · Fiction
It’s been a while since I posted any fiction on here. Actually it’s been a while period.
Anyways, a short story I wrote will appear in Children, Churches and Daddies, Volume 205. You can read it online for the price of zero dollars and zero cents. (Scroll way down or search on the page for my name.)
If you really want to splurge you can order a print copy of CC&D, Volume 205 for $7.47. Like the plane with a dollar sign and period.
January 27th, 2010 · Memoirs
Recently I get asked a lot if I still like my job. The answer is: yep. It seems like people are expecting me to get sick of my job and go crazy. Then write about it. I don’t blame people for thinking that. I used to wonder the same thing. Or worry about it.
But now I don’t. If I do get sick of my job, it won’t be for a while.
It’s as surprising to me as anyone else that I feel that way.
But I know why I do:
- I like math a lot. Now I get to read about math all the time.
- Generally I like learning new things and now I get to read books and learn new things often.
- I have not matured at all since the day I finished grad school. I have continued to live my life as a student, as if everything is new and complete change at most one quarter away. That is both good and bad. And that is me in a nutshell. I dropped out of high school, but have always regretted doing that. Whenever I think of high school, I wish I could go back in time and attend a day. And that’s me in two nutshells. Since 2004 I have missed school tremendously. Now I am back on a campus.
- And not just any campus. UCLA feels like the center of everything — like that new Jack in the Box commercial. A bunch of people in toga outfits dance behind Jack. Well the building behind the people in Toga outfits is Royce hall, because that commercial was filmed right in front of the UCLA library. The center of everything. And I like being in the center of everything.
- I also like being part of a community, and UCLA contains a large social infrastructure. There are many clubs to attend. Right now I’m taking yoga at the John Wooden Rec Center. Next month I’m going on a camping trip with UCLA Outdoor Adventures.
- Most importantly I actually like what I do. I enjoy my life from 8 to 5.
It’s weird liking my job this much. So much of my previous lifestyle was a reaction to hating the so-called corporate culture of wherever I worked. Now I like my supervisor, and I like who I am. I actually feel good when people ask me what I do. I feel good telling people what I do. But because I like my job so much, I don’t write like I used to. The part of me that wrote like I used to is resting.
Getting high: still great. Listening to rap: still great. Making friends laugh: still great. Reading Bukowski: still great. I haven’t stopped doing those things. Writing is also still great, but I don’t do that as much. I look at more art now. I play more video games now. I’m in a different world now.
But when it comes to coffee and math, those are the most great. Or maybe they aren’t the most great, but I like them a lot more than I thought I did. In that sense I was wrong about myself. In that sense I am someone I didn’t expect.
December 31st, 2009 · Memoirs
I’m color blind. That’s something you probably don’t know about me. And I file that aspect of myself under, “cons.”
One popular trend is to justify human attributes with the theory of evolution. Actually I believe so strongly in the theory of evolution, it feels silly calling it a theory. But using evolution to justify weakness is even more dumb than not believing in it. And by dumb I mean pointless.
I know there is an evolutionary explanation of color-blindness online somewhere. Let me find one.
OK, found this from Wikipedia:
There are some studies which conclude that color blind individuals are better at penetrating certain color camouflages and it has been suggested that this may be the evolutionary explanation for the surprisingly high frequency of congenital red-green color blindness.
See what I mean? How the fuck is that explanation going to help me tell my socks apart?
And you can justify anything using evolutionary logic.
From Ian Bowman, 2009:
There are some studies which conclude that being a stupid motherfucker makes you less likely to trip out when someone says, “Suck my dick you fucking douche bag,” and it has been suggested that this may be the evolutionary explanation for the surprisingly high frequency of being a really stupid motherfucker.
Segue here. OK, done with the segue. This morning I couldn’t tell my socks apart. My ex-girlfriend’s last Christmas gift to me when we were still together was a few dozen pairs of gray and off-white socks. She knew I was color blind. Sweet gift, huh?I think her plan was to be more useful. It worked, but then she took her not color blind eyeballs away.
Maybe that’s how I’ll update my Facebook Profile:
Looking For: A Freakin Woman To Help Me Tell My Socks Apart And Shit. P.S. Socks Given To Me By My Ex-Girfriend And Shit. P.P.S. Hope You’re OK With That. P.P.P.S. Or I Could Just Throw My Gray And Off-White Socks Away When You Show Up. Fuck It.
Speaking of love and dreams, thank you for all the love you showed me after my last post.
I want to follow that badboy up with a second post that rocks your world. But another con of me is that I want to summarize my whole life in every paragraph.
I won’t do that this time though. I’ll just start with today.
This morning I couldn’t tell my socks apart.
December 9th, 2009 · Memoirs
When that company fired me in September of 2008, I was devastated. I had never been fired before. The work at my prior job was boring, but they liked me. Now suddenly here I had done nothing right. I had been making around $100k. It was a lot of income to say goodbye to.
What hurt the most though, was I had failed.
But I was also relieved.
I didn’t have to get yelled at by that Executive Vice President again.
I didn’t have to walk through that anonymous office park in the Sausage Fest of the Silicon Valley again.
I no longer had to have conversations with corporate executives with names like, “Fred.” Again.
And fuck that company. I didn’t care about comparison shopping. Especially when I knew I had been helping line the pockets of corporate executives with names like, “Fred.”
That’s why I was relieved.
Then I went home and watched Monday Night Football. It was the first time in five years I was home early enough to see the whole game. Then I went to cafes. Lay on the grass. Looked at the sky. Got drunk. All my favorite things.
I went to Portland, Las Vegas, Japan, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Taiwan and New Orleans.
I was having fun, but I was also having devastation.
I was now terrified of the I.T. industry. It had brought me four years of depression. When I looked at descriptions of Web Development jobs I felt sick to my stomach. In offices I became anxious. I couldn’t stop thinking of my failures.
I applied to teach English in Japan. When it came time for the one-on-one interview, I freaked out. The same smell was there. The same fake smiles. I left the interview feeling relieved.
Since the job interview was in Southern California, I went to go see my dad. We hadn’t spoken in more than a year, or seen each other in more than four — a major source of angst. But on that day I was very happy to see him. I was glad to have him in my life again.
But I found out two weeks later I didn’t get the job. When that happened I felt like an idiot. I didn’t get the job. Everyone wanted to know how I didn’t get the job. Or why I didn’t get the job. I didn’t know.
I applied for another English position with a less respectable company. I showed up late to the interview because well, I don’t remember why.
Then they offered me a job, but not in September of 2009 as originally stated. The offer was for April, 2010.
What would I do until then, I wondered. Then I realized I could do whatever I wanted to do.
I liked Southern California, so I moved down to Long Beach in June of 2009. Some people think I moved down solely because of a girl who lived there. Judy. I was excited to be closer to her, but I moved to Southern California to be in Southern California. So many people asked me about that girl though, and I told them that it was true I was happy to be near her. Right on, they said. That’s great. I also said it was great. Judy said it was great too. But then Judy had other plans.
First she acted like she was being stalked by someone else. She was a victim, she said. She wanted to be with me instead, she said. Her and that guy weren’t talking, she said. OK, I said.
Oh wait, she said. Me and that guy are talking now. Oh I am so sad, she said. I miss being with him. Or wait actually me and him were together this whole time, she said. My bad. I was actually secretly maintaining this whole other relationship. Well, she didn’t say that. I just sort of figured it out.
Then 24 hours later: “Let’s have dinner. Let’s have dinner and come over to my place, Ian. I miss you! I want to be with you! What? What’s the problem.”
That’s Judy. That’s what happened with Judy. Like five times.
Then she was terrified that I would write about it on here. She didn’t want that other guy to learn “things he shouldn’t know.” She wanted to “protect him.”
There are people who want to do whatever they want to do. Then they get mad when you simply describe what they are doing.
Well, that’s just too fucking bad.
So no more Judy. Goodbye Judy. But I was already in Long Beach and I wasn’t going away. So I stayed there, living below poverty level on the edge of the ghetto. I slowly made some friends. My roommate was my friend. My neighbors were my friends. We could get drunk. We could be real. There were no excuses needed. There were less excuses offered.
But I didn’t have much going on.
I volunteered at the Long Beach Boys and Girls Club. That was the best thing I did. I helped those kids learn math, reading, science and joke delivery. But the thing they really wanted to do was use a computer.
“I want to go to the Jonas Brothers Website!”
“I want to use Microsoft Paint.”
Their demands were not extravagant. But those computers were not extravagant either. Or completely functional. Sometimes those computers would have problems. For example, they wouldn’t be able to load a webpage called Google. Google where my beloved ex-girlfriend worked. I missed her more than ever. Where was I? I was not working. I was volunteering. I was trying to help kids. But no one from my old life was looking. None of them saw me there in Long Beach with those broken computers.
I looked for work. I ran out of unemployment insurance. I stopped drinking. Well, Monday through Friday afternoon. Well, for the most part. Then I was more able to complete tasks. I was now able to sustain a week of constructive activity.
What was I doing with my life? What could I do to support myself?
I started going to church. Not a temple or a synagogue. Church with Jesus Christ. And I started praying a lot.
I started doing stand-up. That was another good thing I did. The audience at an open-mic was there for everyone, but not everyone had the balls to get up in front of them. Not everyone was me. That was the point. I was me, I said, and here I am, I said, standing in front of you with a microphone. People criticized me. But those people couldn’t do what I was doing so fuck them.
Instead of sending in short stories to magazines and waiting around to be rejected, I could just get up on stage and express myself. I was happy to have a place to do that.
I really wanted to find a temporary or part-time job until I moved to Japan. But there wasn’t much temporary or part-time work I could do besides software development. In fact, I couldn’t even find temporary or part-time software development work. I found out that being overqualified was a real thing. I would have done just about any writing job. But no writing job would hire me.
I applied to a full-time web development job. It was in Santa Monica. Cool, I could move to Santa Monica, I thought. But then I felt sick applying for it. I felt sick interviewing for it. I felt sick going home and thinking about it. I didn’t care if I got it. And I didn’t get it. Or well, I never heard back.
Some days I would put my head down on a table. And I’d keep my head there for a long time.
Then I had an idea.
I found someone who needed help with Computer Science. I began tutoring him. Then I found I liked it. The hourly pay was good. I was tutoring general theoretical concepts, and C++. I missed those things. I missed my ex-girlfriend, C++, and general theoretical concepts. I enjoyed getting drunk. I missed reading about math. I did not miss doing Web Development.I missed studying interactive computer graphics algorithms. I did not miss working at a comparison shopping website and lining the pockets of corporate executives with names like, “Fred.”
I went home and typed “C++” into craigslist. And I saw this:
A laboratory at UCLA seeks a graphics programmer to develop, test, and deploy 3D software for interactive database-driven visualization of brain imaging data and results. Must have a masters degree in computer science and 3 years of experience in graphical programming. Skills in C++ and standard 3D programming languages (e.g. OpenGL) preferred. Applications should include a CV, key examples from a portfolio of work in 3D graphical application programming.
I had all that stuff. I had a masters degree in computer science. In grad school I specialized in visualization of, among other things, brain imaging data. My thesis was called, Performance Analysis and Automated Resource Selection for Distributed Visualization Pipelines.
I stood up. Then I left my body there. I did not sit down for a long time. I knew I would be working for UCLA.
Well, as long as the craigslist ad was real. I thought it might not be. I emailed that anonymous craigslist address my thesis, and hoped for the best.
A few days later I got an email. Hello from UCLA. “When can you come in for an interview?”
Well, I could come in for an interview soon, as it turned out.
“Great. Bring some code that you worked on. We very much look forward to meeting you.”
Well, first I needed to find that code from the grad school era. Then I did. Then I had to search through the code for cuss words. There were a lot. Then I searched through the code and deleted “badboy.” Badboy was all over that code. There was more badboy than cuss words. I was really into saying “badboy” when I was in grad school. Badboy, and ninja. Those were my two favorite words from 2002 – 2004.
Then during all that deleting and recompiling something else happened. “Ahh. Graphics algorithms. Math.” My synapses were firing again. “I missed you guys! I’m back! Let’s party!” It was all the stuff I wanted to do five years ago. Instead I had graduated and began working at a printer company. Then I quit and began working at a web development company. And I did those things because I thought I had to. I didn’t think there was a job where I could work on visualization or graphics.
I went to the interview at UCLA.
The interview was more like a tour. The tour was more like a formality. And the formality was more like a job offer that I received one week later.
I called my parents and told them I had a job again. My mother started crying. My father thought he was even more awesome than before. My Chinese step-dad turned up KOIT on the way to work. Then at lunch he poured more salt than usual on his baby bok choy.
I called up my sister, who started at UCLA in the fall. I told her I’d be near her. Fuck yeah and shit, she said. I can’t fuckin wait. And shit. She said.
OK she didn’t really say that. But she was into it.
I looked for an apartment in Westwood, the part of Los Angeles that UCLA is at. Westwood is about thirty miles northwest of Long Beach. That’s more than an hour in LA traffic. Westwood is next to Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and near Hollywood and Culver City. So, the Westwood area has plenty of writing and stand-up going on.
So, I could continue my writing and stand-up.
The only sad moment was when I went into the Long Beach Boys and Girls Club for the last time. We had done good work there. I had seen one girl go from not even knowing how to spell her own name to reading at near grade level. She was in third grade. This one boy I helped with his drawing. Just by coincidence he always asked me to show him things I could do, like wings and eyeballs. He gave me a drawing which I hung on my wall. Another kid showed me how to make a bunch of paper airplanes. I put one of them in my room, too. There were a few kids that just wanted someone to spend time with them. It didn’t matter what we worked on. That was fine with me because during a year full of self-doubt, I wanted to spend time with someone too.
The head manager of the club said whenever I felt like it I could show up on Saturdays. And I will.
Then on November 16th I went in for my first day of work at UCLA.
My supervisor was positive and relaxed. It was about time I had a supervisor like that. He was from Seattle, but acted very Los Angeles.
He spent about an hour describing the nature of my work at the lab.
Then he gave me my first assignment:
“Alright, let’s solve this badboy,” he said.
Clearly I had come to the right place.
