Blood Work and Bruises

I had blood drawn the other day; the second time within a month. Because my company was providing it free-of-charge and I enjoy needles. If memory serves me, they usually do it much later in the year, which is why I went to my doctor a few weeks back and asked him for a workup. And because you can never be too careful.
I've always felt like I'm a "healthy" person. Yes, there are times when I inject burgers directly into my bloodstream, but that''s rather infrequent. (Read that last sentence as: Yes, there are times when I enjoy the Jucy Lucy that is the staple of Matt's Bar in the wonderful city of Minneapolis.) Plus I have a hard time seeing healthy as a relative term:
I can't see myself as completely healthy when I compare myself to my brother. The one who bikes to and from the train each day, plays frisbee on the weekends, and usually sprinkles in a run 4 times a week. Oh, and he's basically vegetarian. And it's harder to see myself as healthy when I realize that the heavier I get, the more belly button lint I have.
But then I compare myself to a lot of people I know and think, actually, I'm probably the fittest person here. Which is not a good thing. I told a friend I needed to lose some weight, and she replied, "Compare yourself to the people you work with." Which is sort of like saying, "Zach, everyone you work with is a serious philanderer. But since you only philander a bit, you're off the hook. After all, those people all philander a lot more than you." (I don't think all my co-workers are this way, I just wanted to see how many times I could work the word philander in to a sentence. Philander.)
So I'm trying to get back into shape. Or relative shape. You'll never see me lift my shirt to show off the Situation. First, that's just dumb. And second, it'll be entirely underwhelming. I'm too lazy that get in that sort of shape. And I don't want to shave my stomach.
I'm sitting in the chair, nervously, while the woman draws my blood. I get nervous, because I think it's like an algebra test. I didn't do enough to prepare and I'm going to fail. I imagine I'll get my blood work back and find my cholesterol is through the roof and my triglycerides are spiking. Yet the guy next to me is eating a extra-large Coney, despite the fact that we were told to fast for 8 hours before, and he'll be as healthy as an ox. And I can't even put it out of my mind, because I still have a bruise where she apparently didn't do the best of jobs at sticking me. Three weeks. That's when I should know. And if you see me back at Matt's, ordering up a basket full of Jucy Lucy's, you'll know that despite my best efforts, I failed my blood work, and it's time to give in.

Unknown Knowns

My brother and his wife recently had a baby. I know this, because I’ve held her, and heard her cry. And had her cry while I held her; I’m not great with babies. She’s super cute, and I’m thrilled for Ben and his wife.

However, leading up to the birth was like playing a game of Clue. My brother kept us all guessing. He would send cryptic text messages that were vague enough that you never fully understood what he was talking about. Not purposefully cryptic, he just usually doesn’t send complete thoughts. And perhaps outside of the context of “hey, by the way, any day now we’re going to have a baby”, I wouldn’t have jumped to the conclusions I did with each new text. But I think, without knowing it, my brother became the Dan Brown of 12 word messages. I parsed everything looking for hidden context.

I was walking through Target when I got a text message that read, “PAPI!”. And the first thing I thought was that the baby was born (at this point we knew the sex of the baby but not the name). And I nearly ran out of the store before I stopped and thought. First, when did my brother all of a sudden become Spanish? And more importantly, wouldn’t he give a few more details than that?

I racked my brain, finally realizing that the Red Sox were playing that night, and clearly David Ortiz (aka Big Papi) did something. Which is actually what had happened. But then later that night I get another message. This one, a picture of a dresser/changing table with the message, “And so it begins.” After which I received a call from my oldest brother asking me if the baby had been born. I assured him that no, there was no baby yet. I didn’t know that for sure, but I felt like I was getting better at deciphering Ben’s statements.

I was expecting to receive texts for the next week like, “This delivery is taking forever”, by which I would know he meant the pizza he ordered. My brother was like the boy who inexplicably cried wolf. As if he didn’t realize that putting together those sounds (wuh-oo-ll-fuh) he would have the townspeople running up the hill in no time. I don’t think he did it on purpose. And while I’d like to blame it on the stress of that week and the week that followed, I don’t think I can. I think he was just unaware.

It all works out in the end. They have a beautiful daughter, and the next time I get a message that states “She’s a pooping machine!” I think it’ll be safe to assume whom he’s referring to.

It’s All in How You Sell It

A word of advice. If you have a million dollar website idea, don’t mention it to your friends and family. Not because they’ll steal it; more likely they’ll just laugh at you. I found this out when I brought up my new website idea: “My Belly Button Lint Looks Like a Spider.” It’s exactly what it sounds like. I envision it as a website of user generated content, because someone else MUST have reached in to their belly button one time, pulled out a ball of lint and hair and thought, “That really does look like a spider.” It can’t just be me. Can it?
Really, I should have explained it this way: It’s a community site, in which people can post photos, ask questions, and converse with other like-minded folks about the questions that really interest them. Questions about their bodies; how does what happens happen; am I the only one?
That's how you get people interested. You provide vague details, question existence itself, and let people imagine it is whatever they want it to be.
But in advertising you learn about the elevator pitch. Imagine you’re in an elevator and you have the length of the ride to explain your strategy. So when it comes to ideas, that’s how I think. And in this case, what came out was My Belly Button Lint Looks Like a Spider. Dot com. About sums it up, doesn’t it?

Car Trouble

I'm not one to get attached to inanimate objects. My shoes are simply shoes; my keys mean nothing more to me than my chair (actually I love my chair-but still, it's just a chair). This is all a convoluted way of saying that I can't stand when people name their cars. Or refer to it in the masculine or feminine form. "She's been making that noise all week." Can your car reproduce little hatchbacks that grow up in to 8-passenger SUVs? No? Then your car is an it. Because females have the ability to produce offspring. This of course excludes the male seahorse, which, as everyone is aware, makes the babies. I know, I didn't even have to mention such a well known fact.
So when my windshield wipers started wiping even when they were in the "off" position, I didn't get upset or complain about my poor baby. I simply stated, "huh..." Not a question; a statement. While I don't think it's anything to worry about (it's not making my car any less safe), it is, as a co-worker stated, embarrassing. Having to drive the entire way to work with your wipers on (when not needed) makes you look like the type of person who shouldn't be operating moving machinery. It's not so bad on the highway, when everyone's traveling at high speeds and no one has the time to pay attention to you, but when you're stopped at a light and the person in front of you begins realizing that man, are you going through a lot of wiper fluid. Oh, which is another thing. Every so often, so that that annoying rubber on dry glass noise doesn't drive me insane, I have spray some wiper fluid, just to keep those wiper blades lubricated.
Here's a fun tip! If you can adjust it just so between your wiper settings on your steering column, you can stop your wiper blades. Which, while somewhat tedious (but gets easier with practice), is a better option than ripping out the wiring. Of course, since it's in between positions, it doesn't always stay in place, which I found out on the highway the other day. So now I'm driving 65 mph in the middle lane and trying to stop my wipers in the right spot. Because it's not enough just to stop them, they need to be stopped in the down position, so they don't obstruct the view of the road. And more importantly, so that you don't look like a fool. I should just get them fixed, but since they've been off, I tend to forget about it.
There's really only one positive in all this: it rained the other day, and I didn't even have to turn my wiper blades on.

An apology for my absence

It's true, I haven't written in a long time. And rather than making excuses, I'll simply say I'm sorry. I still like writing, but got a video camera a few months back and have started to make stupid web videos. It's been what I've been doing for the last 4 months.
Just today I made a short film and wanted to share it with everyone.
I hope you enjoy

And if that link doesn't work, please do a google search for My Film VS Topher Grace. You should be able to find it that way.