Friday Night

It would be a question anyone would ask if they saw me at the end of Friday night. Why do you have olive oil and vodka in your ears?

The answer would be surprisingly dull.

My Friday night consisted of playing PS3 and watching Disc 1 of Dexter Season 3. After a couple of glasses of red wine, I noticed that my ear was itching.

I have a certain... concern about wax in my ears. I'm not obsessed with it, but once I start thinking about it, it kind of freaks me out. I imagine it building up inside my ear canals, compacting into a solid mass until I won't be able to hear any more. It doesn't help that I sleep with ear plugs which I imagine pushing the wax back deeper, patting it down like top soil.

I went to the bathroom and grabbed a q-tip to clean out my ear. I could feel a piece of wax in my right ear that was stuck to the inner side, somewhere down the canal. My wax is dry and flaky so I imagine it was really caked on in there. This concerned me immensely.

A quick search online yielding an interesting tidbit: olive oil is a natural ear wax softener.

A minute later I was dipping a q-tip into some olive oil and into my ear. Fun fact: q-tips can hold a lot of liquid. When I pushed it into my ear, I could feel oil drip down into the canal.

But it worked! I got the wax out and decided to do my other ear. A few minutes later, I was fairly pleased with myself. Except for the fact that I had olive oil in my ears.

It should be fine right? I mean, it's just oil. But doesn't oil go rancid after awhile? That can't possibly be good for my ears. Ah, it will probably just get absorbed into my skin. Or turn into a rotting mess of fat attracting flies and disease!

I jumped into the shower and soaped up the outside of ears. My plan was to flush out my ears with water and whatever soap mixed into it. I tilted my head and pointed my ear at the shower spray.

The right side went fine without a hitch but the left side... I felt a familiar sound as water snaked its way up inside my ear and didn't come out. This used to happen to me all the time when I was a kid and went swimming. It's an awful feeling.

I got out of the shower and immediately started hopping up and down on one foot, banging my head like Rainman throwing a fit. It wasn't working. I added in a sideways, headbanging movement that probably only served to twist a couple of vertebrae out of alignment.

Back to the internet seemed like the only hope.

I tried the ear plunger method, the palm plunger method. Both didn't work. I considered the real plunger method but had visions of driving myself to the ER with a plunger sticking out of the side of my head.

One site suggested a few drops of rubbing alcohol into the ear would help dry the water out. I quickly ransacked my medicine cabinet. No rubbing alcohol. I looked around my apartment and saw a bottle of vodka.

Vodka is pretty close to rubbing alcohol, isn't it? Except you can drink it. So there I went, sticking another q-tip this time into a vodka bottle. I put it into my ear and felt the vodka slide down the canal. It was cool which means it was evaporating, right?

After an hour, nothing had changed. Defeated, I crawled into bed. My ear, at least, with the oil and the vodka, had an interesting night.

Oh and the water in my ear? It was gone in the morning.

Bringing Scary Back

Remember that first Halloween episode Roseanne when the family dresses up and they all have awesome scary costumes? That's what Halloween has always been to me. That's what it was to begin with. A time to be scared.

These days, like with a lot of things, Halloween has become an excuse to be funny or slutty. Now, I don't have a problem with either really. I like funny clever costumes or slutty revealing costumes as much as the next guy. But that's all I seem to ever see now.

What happened to the scary, fucked up costumes? Why wouldn't you want to be scary? Maybe it's because I grew up on horror movies and Halloween is the time of year when I can get behind the hockey mask and scare instead of being scared.

At our office Halloween party the winning costumes were in order:

3. Robin (from Batman)
2. Dick in a Box (yeah, I know that was years ago)
1. A girl with a fake moustache, sombrero, poncho and a sash that read "Salsa Picante"

Yes. Number 1 was as racist as it sounds but nobody seemed to mind. But I dunno, if someone had showed up in a rice patty hat, fake fumanchu and buckteeth with a sash that read "Soy Sauce" I would be upset. But that's just me.

What did I go as? Christian Bale from American Psycho. I was pretty happy with my costume except for my hair of which I have none. If you remember the movie, Christian Bale had a mane of yuppie hair. I looked briefly for a wig but couldn't find one to match.

A couple of my coworkers voted for me. Wouldn't you?

View

Two seasons have passed.
My god they move so fast.
I tried to make it last
But you're fading from view.

The only comfort I find
the falling rain at night
tapping against my mind.
Pushing you from my view.

Maybe I'll reach for you
Tell me what would you do
when I hold you like I did
like I've been wanting to.

This journey of ours
Didn't think it'd be so far
Tired, I think we are
Do you see what I do?

Your body is near
Closer than I fear
The falling rain I hear
And I try to keep you in view.

Maybe I'll reach for you
Tell me what would you do
when I hold you like I did
like I've been wanting to.

It's Broke

There are things in my apartment that don't work very well or are just broken and have been for many years. I'm not sure why I don't do anything to fix them. Some may call it laziness.... actually most would call it laziness.

1. French Press Mug
Ok, this first one is really not true anymore since I did buy a new French Press coffee maker. But for a long time, the caraffe broke and I was left the strainer/lid part. I realized that it fit perfectly into a large gift mug I had gotten for Christmas awhile back. They came in a set of two. So I would put the coffee and hot water in one mug, then use the strainer to press it down then pour the coffee into the other mug. This was especially embarrassing when I had company over and they wanted coffee.

2. Light Bulbs
Replacing light bulbs ranks up there with trimming my toe nails in terms of things I'd rather do when I'm dead. The light bulb in my fridge went out a couple of months ago and instead of getting a new one, I got the idea (imagine a light bulb over my head) to take the freezer light bulb and put it in the fridge. Freezer's aren't supposed to have light bulbs anyway. The light fixture above my dining table is 2 out of 5. But that's partly mechanical failure. The 3 bulbs that don't work have become frozen in their sockets.

3. Smoke Detectors
Ok, only one doesn't work and that's because the genius who put it up, put it right next to my heater vent so when it gets hot enough, the detector goes off. So I unplugged the damn thing. Of course the potential drawback is if a fire breaks out in my living room, I will be barbecued but other than that it's totally worth it.

4. Hall Closet Doors
The doors on my hall closet haven't been able to shut properly since I moved in. The latches are all broken plus there are about a hundred and fifty coats of paint on them making them too big to close together. They slowly start to swing open so if I'm not careful, I whack my face on them coming around the corner.

5. My Toilet
I fully believe my toilet doesn't actually flush anything. It swirls things around like a blender until eventually any waste matter inside breaks down to a subatomic level leaving only the water behind. Seriously, holding the handle doesn't shit. I think it just pisses the bowl off and he spins the water around faster.

I really should get these things fixed. There's no reason to. But then, what would I have to write about?

Getting in Touch With Yourself

Would you suck your own dick if you could? It's a question that's been pondered for generations by some of the world's most elite scholars. I'm no different. I've contemplated my answers from time to time.

The question is more of a philosophical nature rather than that of physical limits or coordination. 99.99% of the male population will never be in a position (pun intended) to answer the question literally.

Therefore, we move into hypotheticals. Sort of like how the only way to consider question regarding the Theory of Relativity is to assume the existence of a spaceship that could travel at close to the speed of light. We will assume there is some flexible motherfucker out there that can suck his own dong.

Now the obvious answer to the question is: shit no! That's gay!

While this argument holds some merit, would pleasuring one's self with one's own hand also be considered gay? If not, would you let some dude give you handy in the back of a gas station?

So let us say that the sorts of things you would do to yourself are absolved from being categorized under the inclinations of the gay variety. Now what would the answer be?

The obvious answer in that case would be: shit yes! Free blowjobs whenever you want!

Again, on the surface this may seem like a good thing but consider the following. Contemplate the impact this would have on the nation or the world as a whole. Men would never leave the house. They would be in their bedrooms, rolled up into a ball with only a bottle of water nearby for days on end. Economies would collapse. Infrastructures would deteriorate. Only dentists would thrive with all the cases of advanced TMJ popping up (pun not intended) all over.

There has to be a line drawn somewhere. There have to be things you can only do with another woman aren't there? What if we continue on with our hypothetical and not only can you blow yourself but you can put it up your own pooper as well. What then? What purpose would we have for women? I guess there would always be dinner on the table and our laundry would be clean. Hi oh! Zing! But I digress...

In the end, I believe the correct answer is no, you should not blow yourself even if you can.

Well, maybe 30 times. 40 tops.

Women

Look I never wanted to be George Clooney or Brad Pitt. I just wanted to be a guy who was adequate with ladies. Maybe I'd have a casual ease about me that women found attractive or I'd come across as dashing and witty rather than cynical and bitter. I never expected to be one of those guys with ten different girlfriends or the guy who could get laid whenever he wanted.

But I never wanted to be who I am. I never wanted to be awkward and shy to the point of paralysis. When I see a pretty girl my first instinct is to ignore her vigorously if you can imagine such a thing. God forbid I should ever look her in the eye or even worse, utter a semi-intelligible phrase to her. No, I'd rather do what I've done since high school which is take a mental snap shot of her then go home and write pages of bad poetry of fantasy relationships we'd never have.

Perhaps this why I always fall for girls at work. What did Hannibal Lecter say? Something about coveting thy neighbor? Well he was on to something there. Because I've fallen in love with every cute girl that I've ever worked with. But in a workplace environment, I have a fighting chance. I feel comfortable at work and I can build up some sort of rapport with a girl. Have a bad conversation? No problem, I'll just see her tomorrow.

Workplace romances are potentially troubling though as you might imagine given the phrases in existence out there such as "don't shit where you eat" or "don't dip your pen in the company ink." There's a lot of history behind those cliches.

One girl I ended up going out with at work whom I broke up with told me in no uncertain terms that she thought I was gay. This sent me into a spiral of heterosexual doubt that would have made George Michael proud. Being homosexual was never even a faint thought in my mind till now. Phone calls were quickly made to my closest friends asking them if they knew what was suddenly so obvious to others. They told me I was crazy and/or drunk and I was relieved but also a little disappointed. Being gay had its own sort of appeal. Mainly in that I hear that gay man have no trouble getting laid.

So where does that leave me these days? Pretty much back to where I was in high school. No confidence with zero prospects. Well, I've moved from bad poetry to bad blog entries.

Volunteer

In college when I was pre-med I was a volunteer for the ER at San Francisco General. It was a coveted spot since we had all heard the volunteers could do chest compressions on patients. This sounded very exciting to salivating pre-meds who got their daily doctor fix from ER every Thursday night.

I signed up for the Saturday 8-11pm shift. I wanted the 11-1am shift but those were snatched up by the volunteers with seniority. We all wanted to be in the shit and that was the best shift for it.

As volunteers, we basically did everything and anything that was needed. Sure there was the daily staple of keeping full oxygen tanks stocked, running samples to the lab and taking patients to their room, but there was lots more.

Yes I did chest compressions on a patient. Two of them. I've written about the woman before. The man was an old man they found slumped over at a bus stop. If you're doing chest compressions on someone, they are not in good shape. He was dead by the time I got my hands on him.

Once I held down a child as the doctor stitched up his head. He was screaming and thrashing. If he moved too much, the doctor could miss a stitch and it would be worse than it already was. When it was over, I noticed a bruise on on the boy's leg, where my arm was. Did I cause that or was it the car crash?

Another time I actually did a stitch. A doctor saw me peering into one of the treatment rooms and invited me in. Then she asked me if I wanted to do a stitch. This was a wet dream come true for a dorky pre-med. Of course I said yes.

She told me about the sterile field and showed me how to open up a package of gloves and put them on so that nothing foreign touched the outside. It took me a good five minutes to get the hang of it. Over and over, she told me that my hands were now sterile and I shouldn't touch anything other than other sterile objects and the patient. I nodded then grabbed my stool to scoot in closer. We looked at each other for a moment then she shrugged and continued on.

She told me how deep to push the hook through and not to pull the wound too closely together otherwise the edges would push up leaving a raised scar. I tied a square not and she was impressed. She didn't know that I had swiped suture kits and practiced knots on raw pieces of chicken.

We were enforcers sometimes. An old woman with dementia got up from her bed and tried to leave her room. The nurse, who was preparing an injection, told me to stop her from leaving. I blocked her and she looked up at me with scared, desperate eyes. "Let me leave! I want to leave! Don't keep me here!" She started to push past me. The nurse told me to stop her. So I held her by her thin arms as she wept.

Other times we were just an extra pair of hands. I was standing near the entrance of the ER chatting with a doctor and nurse when a young black man ran into the ER from the hospital side entrance. He was covered in blood and breathing heavily.

"My friend!" was all he could say. The doctor said, "Where?" and the kid pointed towards the front of the hospital, the main entrance not the ER entrance.

The doctor looked at me. "Grab a gurney." I had just dressed one around the corner. It was one of the newer ones, not the old ones with the wobbly shopping cart wheels. So I pulled that one out and the three of us pushed the gurney through the length of the hospital, following the bloody kid to the front of the hospital.

When we got outside, there was an old car parked there, shot up. Another young black guy was in the front seat, leaning against the window. He didn't look good.

We pulled him out of the car and onto the gurney then back to the ER.

They got the surgeons in there with him straight away. They started to crack open his chest when they shut the door. I found the other guy in another room, being examined. He looked at me.

"They're looking after your friend," was all I could say. I couldn't tell him he was gonna be ok. I couldn't tell him anything than what was actually happening.

He didn't answer me. Just turned away.

I never cried from anything that happened at the ER. Maybe it was because it wasn't like I was a doctor or a nurse or anything. I was more like an observer. Sure I saw a lot of things, but I don't know if I was personally invested in anything besides just regular human compassion.

However, I do still think about my time there. Often.