As my girlfriend and I prepare for our first camping trip as a couple, I am determined to do something that has never been done before: I am going to use the skills I learned as a boy scout to impress a potential mate. At this point in our relationship, I am just as concerned with impressing Ann, as I am unclear about what traits are impressive. I lead her through REI with all the confidence of an Eagle Scout […]
Ebola? I spit on your Ebola. Let me tell you about the plague that came to Europe 668 years ago. It is known to history as the Black Death, and we think it killed about 200 million people worldwide. In 1966 the Rand Corporation did a study for the U.S. Government. They were asked to look at natural disasters in history and find one that came closest to thermonuclear war. The Black Death is what they picked. Now, the thing […]
There’s this scene in the 1995 film “Now and Then” where a rival boy group, The Wormers, go skinny-dipping. The leader of The Wormers is Scotty Wormer, played by a then 12-year-old Devon Sawa. At one point in the scene you can clearly see Sawa’s bare ass as he runs away from the camera and into a lake. This scene was rewound, paused and squealed over at every sleepover I attended in the late ‘90s. The same year “Now and […]
Control is very important in scientific experiments. But for me, the most nonscientific person I know, there is one instance where control is a necessity, where minimizing as many variables as possible is the number one task at hand. I speak of the weigh-in, the moment when you step on a scale and wait for a number to appear. It’s like waiting for a slot machine to complete its rolls so you can see what matches up – your jeans will […]
Technology is so great, helping me stay connected, helping me build my business, helping me… find dudes to date. A match.com date is like spinning a giant wheel of fate and then click click click wink. I start talking to a downtown consultant who loves to brew beer. His photo shows that he is athletic with kind eyes and that he has his shirt on (please men, stop with the selfies in the bathroom). His emails do not mention his […]
I was a Reactor Operator onboard the USS Los Angeles from 2001 to 2005. That means that I spent a majority of my time watching numbers on a panel in a tiny room hundreds of feet underwater. Since I got out, I’ve found that every time I bring up the boat (subs are referred to as boats, surface ships are ships), I’m asked the same general questions over and over. What’s life like on a Sub? Did your captain have […]
Listen. Do you want to know a secret? I’m going to teach you something important. I’m going to teach you how to get what you want. Are you ready? Say it out loud but pretend you’re joking. When I got hired at St. Gregory the Great HS, the diocese had just unceremoniously fired the entire administration and staff. They left only Sister Mary, the wise old nun who embodied the school more than any other living soul, to assign the […]
This piece was first developed with 2nd Story. I’m sitting in a navy blue sedan, across the street from Danny’s – the bar – and it is hot. Humid. Sticky. The air full of something that manages to smell like both brownies and piss at the same time. The kind of air that, no matter how many times you shower, leaves you with a thick layer of sweat and dirt that never seems to go away. My thighs are sticking […]
It was late summer of 2012. I was 24, and it was the first time I had a pap smear come back abnormal. The nurse practitioner who called to break the news and schedule a follow up procedure told me that these things are pretty common and that at one time or another, just about every woman at some point in her life has an abnormal pap, and it’s usually nothing to fret about. Regardless of what’s normal, I don’t […]
