Is there any better fragrance at this time of year than the smell of freshly mowed grass?

As I left my work building for my lunchbreak yesterday, they were mowing the lawn and when I smelled those blades of grass being sliced unmercifully in twain I was overwhelmed with summertime emotion and nostalgia. I wanted to go hang out with high school friends and play pranks, I wanted to get a call from a girl that I liked, I wanted to go watch a baseball game and get loaded and start haggardly screaming alienating things to the players: “I HATE YOU, RADKE!!! YOUR CHANGEUP IS WORTHLESS AND YOU STOLE MY GIRLFRIEND!!!!”

Yes, smelling that mowed grass reminded me of all the good things in life.

I resolved that I wanted to smell this aroma at all times, so I went out with a garbage bag collecting the shorn grass, along with other summertime items like twigs and chipmunks. I bundled all of this into two large bags and took them home with me. I sat down naked in the bathtub and dumped my fragrant treasure into the tub with me. I layed for quite a long time, letting the nasty yard essence seep into my pores. The chipmunks tickled as the scratched and bit me, struggling for survival. Eventually, they either fell asleep or suffocated because they stopped moving. I tried to wash my hair in the grass, but had difficulty working up a good lather, so I used some BBQ sauce to moisten it up a bit and then applied the grass and twigs before rinsing.

As I left the tub mutilated with bloody cuts and scratches, I knew that I had been renewed. Winter was now over, and summer could properly begin. While applying salve and homemade stitches to my torn skin, I thanked mother nature for her bounty. After vomiting neon green grass residue I tipped my hat to the big man in the sky, knowing that he had made me the luckiest man alive.

There’s a girl who I work with who won’t leave me alone.

This girl (who we’ll call “B”) insists on getting my attention somehow every time she passes by my cubicle, which averages about 25 or 30 times a day, it seems. Even if she’s 15 feet away, she’ll still say, “Hey Peter!” and wave until I acknowledge her. Today she thought it was amazing that we each wore jean jackets to work, I replied by saying, “We’re twins”, and she laughed hysterically for 10 minutes. Recently she passed by my desk and asked how I was doing – as a friendly joke I replied, “I’m lonely.” She laughed and went back to her desk and wrote me this email:

“I just wanted to pinch your cheeks when you said that. It was soooooooooo cute!”

It was among the more awkward emails I’ve ever received from a co-worker.

I should clarify that I’m not mean to this girl, I just feel a bit unenthusiastic about our friendship. Her seemingly overwhelming desire to become my good friend (and more) has made me suspicious – it’s like Groucho Marx’s old quote, “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”

I’ve been trying to find some opportunity to drop the girlfriend bomb on her to throw her off the scent, but I haven’t had the chance to yet. I’ve thought about saying, “Hey B, your annoying giggle reminds me of my girlfriend and how she doesn’t annoy me,” but I haven’t had the opportunity. I might also try, “Wow B, being around you reminds me of my girlfriend and how I’m actually attracted to her”, but again that seemed a bit overly mean (not that that has ever stopped me before).

Any ideas on what I should do? Should I continue being innocuously nice to B in hopes that she’ll grow weary? Should I insult her in a memo? Should I get a huge picture of Bridgette and put it in a frame that says, “THIS IS MY GIRLFRIEND!” and place it on her desk? Would that be too subtle?

Is it now safe to say that the French Stewart era in American comedy is over?

His amazing work in Inspector Gadget 2 (or IG2, as the teaser posters so preposterously put it) and Home Alone 4 notwithstanding, it seems like his career may have hit a small bump in the road.

It’s really too bad, too, because that thing that he did when he didn’t ever open his eyes was fricking hilarious. Do you suppose his agent or other people close to him ever pulled ol’ French aside and said, “Hey buddy, I think what you’re doing is great. Really some top-notch comedy. Now, I’m not one to give unsolicited advice, but you might want to think about actually opening your eyes when you’re trying to be funny. Just a thought – keep up the good work!”

I hope I’m not offending any die-hard fans of Third Rock From the Sun with this post (in fact, if you actually are a die-hard fan of Third Rock, please contact me immediately, because I have some serious questions that I need to ask you). Sometimes I just get bothered when people with no discernable talent whatsoever become famous – people like Paris Hilton or Chris O’Donnell. French Stewart is like the deformed spawn of those two.

While this post may have been unnecessarily mean and spiteful, sometimes we need to be bluntly honest with people we love, or in French’s case, people we find grating and obnoxious.

Tonight my Anthropology class will have the pleasure of watching me talk out of my butt for 30 minutes.

I have two presentations to give this week. One of them is this Thursday in my graduate class, and one of them is tonight in my community college class – I’ll let all of you take a wild guess as to which one I’ve spent more time preparing for. My presentation tonight will be as a group, and we’re talking about the deep and powerful mysticism of Japanese Tea Ceremonies. I’m sort of the MC of our presentation, and I have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s actually really funny to me at this point, and I’m looking forward to shoveling horsecrap down the gullets of my classmates while confidently smiling and speaking assertively. This presentation is so far from anything academic that it’s hilarious. We’re showing a clip from “The Karate Kid, Part II” for crying out loud.

“And so here we see Miagi’s old enemy Sato trying to break a huge log with his bare hands – he likely just came from a tea ceremony before this scene started. And now Daniel-san and his arbitrary girlfriend frolic on the beach while we hear Peter Cetera sing “Glory of Love”. This 1980’s power ballad is the traditional musical backdrop for most Japanese Tea Ceremonies.”

It’s actually quite funny how if we sound like we know what we’re talking about and speak confidently, that we can get away with saying just about anything:

“This tea ceremony has been practiced for millions of years, and it is still practiced in Japan among humans and goats alike (and man-goat hybrids). Peter Cetera himself (who is one-quarter goat) is the TeaMaster and he brews all the tea for consumption while singing that he is the man who will fight for our honor.”

Yes, I’ll be a fine educator someday…

I’m really bad at shaving.

For some reason, I’ve never really seemed to be able to shave properly. Either I cut myself or I miss a spot, or I’ll avoid both of those pratfalls while still experiencing horrible pain. It isn’t pleasant, and for that reason I generally only shave once or twice a week and display my stubble as a sign of virility.

Last weekend after I shaved it looked like I had just gotten done making out with a mountain cat. There were cuts all over my chin, and I was bleeding everywhere. I felt cheated, however, as sucking face with a mountain cat would probably have been more enjoyable than simply taking a shaving razor and cutting myself open. Granted, the cat’s whiskers might have tickled a bit, and there likely wouldn’t have been much of an emotional involvement, but it still would be pretty awesome.

At any rate, as I was sopping up the crimson blood that now covered my sink and bathroom floor, I pledged to myself that I would shave no more. Instead, I will grow a thick, filthy beard. I will proudly walk with my chin up to better display the tangled bush that hides my face. My beard will be home to several field mice who were orphaned in a mining accident; I will nurse them back to health as they lay nestled beneath my chin. Then, to complete my makeover, I will change my name to The Duke and begin wearing a top hat and monacle. I will tip my hat to passing ladies and politely offer the time of day to anybody who asks. People will complement me on my nappy facial hair and I will flip a two-bit piece to them with a wink and a smile.

Yes, it’s good being The Duke. Just ask my old friends Dan Haggerty and Uncle Jesse.

I was listening to the radio yesterday morning, and they were talking about the results of a recent survey of what women notice about men. About 60% of women reported that the first thing they notice about a man is not his face, not his body, and not his personality…

…they notice his shoes.

I’m having trouble getting over this. It’s just so incredibly arbitrary (as if I were to say that the first thing I notice about a girl is her fingernail hygene). I was teasing Bridgette about the fact that during one of our first conversations she mentioned how she liked my shoes. My response was something like, “Huh? Oh – okay I guess.” I didn’t know how to respond to such a compliment, and I obviously did not understand the significance of it.

Clearly, women must understand how men use shoes to reflect the deepest parts of our soul. We communicate with our footwear what we are unable to impart with our words. For instance, today I am wearing shiny black dress shoes with a one-inch heel. This indicates that I am a dark and mysterious man; I am austere and not easily understood, and suffering from cripplingly low self-esteem. By looking at my shoes, women are better able to survey the debilitating issues I struggle with and therefore avoid eye contact with me while scurrying away as I retreat into the shadows.

So men, use your footwear wisely. What are your shoes saying about you today?