It’s Friday. I left work early. I’m supposed to be preparing “family dinner” tonight, which means I only have an hour to decompress and complete this post before I have to gather my wits and begin cooking. Now, I know what you’re all thinking: Evan can cook? The answer to that question is a resounding “No!” Still, that doesn’t stop me from trying every once in a while. I can make a really good baked macaroni and cheese with spicy Italian sausage and zucchini. I can also make a really good creamy tomato sauce with spicy italian sausage, which goes best over Campanelle pasta. Are you seeing a trend here? Basically, if it contains spicy sausage, there is a chance I know how to cook it. Why? Because I like spicy meats (zing?), and pasta. Ask me to cook you anything that isn’t pasta or a burrito, and you’re going to wind up with an omelet on your plate. Granted, it’ll be the best omelet you’ve ever had (call bullshit if you want, you will lose), but that’s the extent of my culinary prowess.
What else aren’t I good at, you ask? Well, let me tell you…
10. Staying In Touch – My circle of friends probably includes three people outside of those I see on a regular basis. Why? Because I can’t be bothered to call or write to people that aren’t constantly finding really creative and insane ways to ensure that they are in my thoughts. For example: My cousin asked me to send him the first chapter of my book two months ago, and I haven’t yet, because…I don’t even know why. I guess I’ve just been busy with other shit. Even though he just had a book published on an almost identical topic to that of my own manuscript, I haven’t been able to take fifteen minutes out of my life to convert a file to .PDF and attach it to an e-mail. On a related note, I also haven’t called back ten or fifty people who have left me messages in the last month. It’s not that I don’t like them (I only don’t like most of them), it’s just that I’d rather be doing other things than saying, “Hi. How are you?” for five minutes, only to hang up and feel like I’m five minutes closer to dead. Staying in touch isn’t necessarily a good trait to have, and it’s not really a bad trait not to have, so I don’t lament the fact that I’m a poor verbal or electronic communicator.
09. Not Driving Drunk – There are times when I realize that I’m at a bar and I’ve been drinking, and…whoops! It’s time to drive home. Other times, the medication I take for my crippling, chronic stomach pain interacts with a glass of wine or two and I realize I’m buzzed. Whatever the case may be, it turns out I’m not good at not driving drunk. Don’t get me wrong — I’m good at driving drunk, and in fact I think that being forced to pay closer attention to the road can only benefit someone when they are operating a vehicle…but that doesn’t make up for the fact that I’m driving drunk. In almost every other way imaginable, I am a law abiding citizen. I don’t abuse drugs, I don’t kill or rape or steal or cheat on my taxes or anything like that. It just so happens that — more often than not — if I go out drinking, I have a moment where I suddenly remember that I was the one who drove me to the bar. In recent months this has not been a problem, because the economy is bad and I don’t have excess money to go out drinking all the time like I used to…but it could happen again at pretty much any time. It was fine on the East Coast, when I could mull around Manhattan for hours, or stay at someone’s apartment until three or four o’clock without being kicked out…but out here in Los Angeles, where everything is super-spaced-out, it’s a challenge.
08. Winning Contests – I must have entered five hundred contests in my life. I’ve entered all different kinds of contents, from writing contests to musical contests to random drawings/lotteries and more. I’ve never once won any of them. I have a zero percent success rate. To me, that seems about as difficult as a baseball team going 0-162 for three straight years. You have to figure that, like baseball, any person has a chance of winning any contest on any given day. Even if its a skill competition, this tends to be the case. Why? Because people who are fucking amazing at things don’t need to enter contests. They’re already successful and they probably see it as demeaning. You would think that at some point I would have to win a contest, right? Like, if I find a really funny item on the street and send it into one of those “Found” magazines, it would be cool enough to win me a free subscription for a year, or something like that. Nope, I’ve never even won one of those fucking things. I’m pathetic when it comes to contests, and I probably always will be.
07. Sports – I’m not bad at all sports. I played tennis for many years and I was quite good at it. I even had a personal trainer and practiced on more days than not. I played Little League baseball for years and, after declining several opportunities, played in an All-Star Game once. But I also tended to hurt myself a lot, because I’m a frail Jew-y piece of shit with weak bones. I broke my pinky in first grade playing tag in my friend’s basement. I broke a finger playing football in middle school. I broke a finger and dislocated another playing football at overnight camp. On that occasion, it went undiagnosed for a week, and I played in a tennis tournament without a splint or anything. I got to the quarter finals, too! Still, that doesn’t make me good at sports. I can barely throw a football anymore. I can barely swing a wiffleball bat anymore. I’ve recently come to the sad realization that — for as much as I love watching sports — I’m just not good at playing them.
06. Flirting – Sometimes I can be amazing at it, other times…not so much. Like when I attended tennis camp at age 15. A not-bad-looking slut and I were sitting together on a bus going to the local mall for a night of…I don’t know why they sent us to a mall. That was stupid. Anyway, she thought I was cute and I thought she was cute, so I turned on the even charm, and before we even reached the mall she’d not-so-subtly offered to come over to the dorm room where I was staying for the week and ride my dick for a while. Having never known the pleasures of sexual intercourse before, my thoughts quickly turned to, “What if I suck at it?” and I got cold feet and decided to lock myself in my dorm room and jerk off for the rest of the week. That’s just one embarrassing example from my life. There are many. Hopefully I won’t have to worry about flirting again for a while…but it still scares me to think about how dense and horribly uncouth I can be in such situations.
05. Confrontation – As a freshman in high school I wrote some horrible things about this loser on the Internet, and he threatened to kick my ass. Every day for two months he’d come up to me at lunch and ask me if I wanted to meet after school and settle our issues. I would say, “Ok, see you there,” and then run home like a pussy every day. He’d ask me what door to meet at, and I’d run to another door on the opposite side of school. It wasn’t that I was afraid of having my ass kicked…maybe it was…it was just that…the guy was such a loser, he’d clearly lost already, so what good would fighting do when he was already defamed and broken down? Anyway, one day he finally realized what I was doing and found me after school. He approached me aggressively, and then I saw that his eyes were all watery. He asked for an apology, and I realized that’s what needed to happen for this annoyance to finally draw to an end. As a senior in high school, I heard a rumor that he had tried unsuccessfully to bed this girl who ran in my circle of friends, so I made it my business to hook up with her. I did. I think that guy is probably dead or in jail now. My point is, I don’t like confrontation, and I usually run from it at every opportunity.
04. Keeping An Open Mind – I can’t do it. People often tell me to stop thinking about how much I hate a band or a movie or a person and try to find some level on which I can appreciate it. It never, ever, ever happens. I’m pretty much convinced this will never change. I don’t want to give The Shins another chance. They fucking suck so fucking much it is unfathomable just how much The Shins fucking suck shit. I can’t do it. I just can’t. For example, a new trailer for The Watchmen leaked today. I’ve been as cautious about the movie as any huge fan of the book, and each of these trailers frightens me. The first one had that horrible Smashing Pumpkins song from the Batman movie playing, and it was all slo-mo action bullshit, just like that stupid 300 movie. The new trailer has a horrible Muse song playing, and keeps up with the super-slo-mo action sequences and slow-than-fast stylized bullshit, just like that stupid 300 movie. As much as I want to approach the movie with an open mind, as much as I want to enjoy it…I won’t be able to get thoughts of that South Park episode where they rip on 300 out of my head. I think it’s a psychological illness.
03. Blogging – Don’t placate me. I know I suck at blogging. I devote way too many words to stupid bullshit or self-centered bullshit, and not enough words to more important or interesting stories. My tone is always bitter. Often I try to find excuses not to update the page. I don’t really come off sounding like a good person. I guess if I was better at blogging I would be making more money from it. Too bad that won’t happen. Why? Because I just fucking told you: I’m not good at blogging.
02. Trying New Things – I’m thinking specifically about roller coasters, new foods, and pretty much anything that falls outside of my general routine. Why? I don’t know, it’s probably another psychological illness. I like what I like, and why should I have to adapt or try new things? I’ve been on a bunch of thrill rides and I don’t like them. I don’t think going on another roller coaster is going to finally change my mind. I’ve finally reached a point where I can eat what I believe to be a good amount of food. I’ve tried 49 new things this year. I’m pretty sure there aren’t that many more amazing food items out there I’m missing out on. I’ll try some meat dishes, but I don’t know about those fruits and vegetables. I don’t want to try more kinds of sushi because I equate cold foods with unprepared foods, and you can only read so many stories about bad sushi equals food poisoning before you decide once and for all you’re not going to eat it. Yeah, I’m horrible at trying new things. It’s probably one of the two things I’m worst at in life.
01. Being Healthy – The other of course, is being healthy. I’m not healthy. I don’t exercise anymore. I don’t eat right. I never really have eaten right. I’m pretty much a mess. I got fucking denied health insurance for some reason, even though I don’t have any medical history whatsoever. It’s like the insurance company read my mind and figured out what my diet consists of, and rejected me based on the fact that I probably won’t live to see my fiftieth birthday. As a freshman, my friends made fun of me because I used to eat bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches during fourth period study hall every day, and at the end of the year I went for a blood test and the doctor said my cholesterol levels were way too high. Even though I only weighed 130 pounds through college (it was pretty hideous sometimes), I couldn’t have been less healthy. I just ate Pizza Hut P’zones, bagels, soda, and chicken fingers. Now all I eat are bagels…pizza…and…shit. I’m still fucking unhealthy. I’m getting older and fatter (maybe?), so I can tell it’s starting to catch up with me. And now I’m going to prepare a carb-heavy, sausage-fueld, creamy pasta dish. Fuck!
