I never thought this would happen to me.

Figure 12: I have a tail now

I swear to god it was an accident. I never planned it out this way. If I could turn back time, maybe things would be different. Nobody can live a life without regrets, you know, and if I could choose just one thing to change over all these years so various and full of detail, I'd never have accidentally grown this tail.

Look, I understand if you don't want to be my friend anymore. I mean, I have a tail now. Things are gonna be different. I can accept that. I got no one to blame but myself. I let my guard down, you know? God help me but I let my guard down, and now I have a tail.

I thank you all in advance for your continued support/condolences as I ponder my next course of action. Certain tails are reversible, but that's pretty much only in the movies. I'm afraid this one may have reached a certain "escape velocity," so to speak, and has now doomed me to a life of sitting in ever higher chairs to keep my tail from brushing the ground. I hate high chairs.

Don't cry for me. Don't you dare. You have a wonderful head of hair with all the correct protuberances befitting. Don't waste this gift. Sometimes the Lord will open a window, and another window will open out into a door with a window, but sometimes when He closes a window He opens a window. It's like, you can see the Universe in that window. Its like, there were two footprints in some places but in others there was a third footstep, but only the third footstep was just a faint dragging line, because all along my tail was behind me, and now it is all sandy. And it's like in each grain of sand is a whole entire Universe, and in each Universe is a man, a man who has accidentally grown a tail. There is a place for us, though. Dont you cry. Don't you cry tonight. For everywhere a child is mesmerized by the ever-rising spiral of the classic barber's pole, I will be there. Everywhere a man walks into Great Clips not looking like Bob Saget but walks out looking just like Bob Saget, I will be there. Every time a woman tells her hairdresser to make her look like Jennifer Aniston, but then she doesn't, I will be there. No, don't cry for me. As sure as "two bits" must follow "shave and a haircut," as sure as each day somebody responds "all of them" to "did you get your hair cut," as sure as even the most unobservant man happens once in a blue moon to guess correctly when asked if he "notices anything different about me," I will be there, my glorious tail fluttering majestically in the breeze behind me, the mane of the mightiest lion, the tail of the mightiest ass.

Know this: the mightiest ass is me, dear reader. And this is my tail.

New looks

New look around here. Been tweakin' it. I know just enough html and css shit and all to knock humpty dumpty off the wall, but not quite enough to put him back together again. There's egg on your face.

Also I got a haircut. Once again I look like Bob Saget. That's ok, the last time I got as shaggy as I was, some dude told me I looked like Daryl Hall.

Um, what else. You guys should feel my pecs. My pecs are for some reason so strong now. Makes me want to set up a weight bench and a kiddie pool in my front yard, get a little Muscle Beach STL action goin' on (J. Richardson, K. Malley et al, ca. 1998).

Let's see, there's this hot new blog out there I got a hand in.

I been cookin' mostly non-comedy food lately. Some sci-fi (astronaut ice cream), some drama (using my tears to brine some chicken), even some biopic (I recreated the actual sandwich Hall & Oates shared backstage before their famous concert at the Apollo on September 20th, 1985) (I realize there isn't a biopic on Hall & Oates. Yet...)

And yes, in case you were wondering, there is such a thing as a porno cooking show (NSFW & also NSFTWADBHPSRB) (=Not Safe For Those Who Are Disgusted By Horrible Plastic-Surgery-Ridden Beasts). Talk about your Adult Education.

Figure 12: Adult Education, Live at the Apollo,
September 20th, 1985
(oh my god is that G.E. Smith?!?!)

Now my hair looks good. Real good.

Update: I no longer look like Bob Saget

I have also been told that I never really looked like him to begin with. But people often disagree with me about who looks like who. For instance:

Do you think Gary Busey looks like the bargain Nick Nolte?

Do you think Tom Selleck looks like Burt Reynolds?

If you live in St. Louis and know my roommate, do you think that orthodontist guy in those commercials for the clear plastic mouthpiece that does what braces do looks like the black version of my roommate?

Do you think the two guys with beards on Top Chef look the same?

Do you think that Brian Wilson looks like Bjorn Borg? Do you?

Do you think that kinda chubby stupid guy on that show where Charlie Sheen was the mayor's assistant looks like the dad on the Wonder Years?

Do you think Fred Willard looks like Alan Thicke?

Do you think Ramses III looks just like Thutmoses?

Do you think Charles deGaul looks just like Robespierre?

Do you think Pete Sampras looks like that kid from My So Called Life, only all grown up and more agile?

If they were all in a lineup, could you distinguish Martin Sheen, Michael Douglas, Kirk Douglas, Charlie Sheen, and Emilio Estevez? Could you?

Do you think Phillip Seymour Hoffman looks just like this kid I knew in 10th grade? Do you?


Do you? Do you think that? Do you think those things?

I think I might look like Bob Saget now

(I got my hair cut)

I fixed my van, but it was never broken

My van broke down on the highway. Getting on the entrance ramp, it kind of lurched like it wasn't getting any fuel or something, then went normal agan, then started doing that again, then shaking a little, then it died, so I popped it in neutral and thankfully rolled far enough to get past this guardrail and pull onto the shoulder.

I got it towed. It was complicated, because I was in the middle of helping my friend move, and we were close to his old place, so that would be a cheaper place to tow it, but then again starting the very next day he would no longer live there, and neither would anyone else I know. But that's where it went anyhow.


Figure 12: My van looks like this dude's van




Over the next couple of weeks I'd go down there with my friend who knows about cars. We changed the plugs. We checked the wires. We looked for loose hoses. Our next frontier was gonna be the distributor, then maybe the fuel pump. But all the while I had this Nagging Feeling.

I put my finger on the Nagging Feeling last week. I went and got the book for my van, and was reading it, and was about to laugh and feel superior when I was going through those troubleshooting checklists that start with the most obvious things, when a few pieces of information finally gelled together, Encyclopedia-Brown-type style, in my mind. It was like this, but imagine it being said aloud in your inner monologue, which sounds like Frank Drebin, and maybe in the background there is some noir-ish jazz music:


Figure 12: Lieutenant Frank Drebin



--Fact: when the tow truck guy asked what happened, I started going into a long-winded explanation, but then realized I was boring him, so I said it basically felt just like it does when you run out of gas.

--Fact: It wouldn't run at all later that night, but the next day it ran for about a minute, and a week or so later it ran for about ten seconds, and then it wouldn't run any more after that.

--Fact: the whole week before the breakdown I'd been marvelling at the suprisingly good gas mileage I got in my old van.

--Fact: one time about a year ago I lent my van to someone who said they'd fill it with gas, then they gave it back and it said it was only a little less than a quarter full. They told me they had put $50 worth in. I drove it a while with the needle stuck there, then it went down and had worked so well since that I forgot all about it. Until now...

--Fact: Red plastic 2-gallon gas tanks are only like $4 at Target.

--Fact: But they're kind of hard to pour into your gas tank because they don't have that little hole on the other side.

--Fact: My god-damn van was just out of gas.

--Fact: I'm an idiot.

--Opinion: It was embarassing.

--Question: Can you imagine if I took it to the mechanic? That would be really embarassing.

--Fact: I'm gonna go drive my van to the barber and get a haircut once I finish this cup of coffee.

why I quit doing anything else on the internet

Because now I just keep spending all my time here.


Also, my brothers and I developed a new kind of knock-knock joke (not a funny kind). Here is a prototype:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Tom.
Tom who?
Tom Brokaw-- not the famous one, though.


I don't want to be This Kind of blogger, but also let me tell you a sad and funny story. Well, it isn't a story really. It's just, I got my hair cut and I felt like I looked ridiculous. Then I thought I had to fart but instead I shit my pants. Just a little bit.

I'm 31 years old.