Yesterday, Adam and I had a celebration of our masculinity. The festivities were far deeper and more significant than any “Wild at Heart” study guide could possibly have suggested. In no way did we discuss our goals, dreams, desires, or utter lack thereof. We did not encourage one another, nor did we make eye contact.

Instead, we grilled meat and then feasted upon it.

As our steaks roasted over the open flames, so the bonds of our friendship were seared and sealed. As the bovine flesh browned and sizzled, so did our hearts warm towards one another. Our incisors tore the meat, our tongues savored the flavor of the flesh, our molars pounded the steak into a husky pulp, and our esophogases hastily dismissed it to the stomach to be digested. While we consumed the grilled meat, we were entertained by the cynical, antisocial tidings of Seinfeld. Adam and I laughed and grunted our approval through our mouths stuffed with seasoned flesh. Truly I say to you, we eagerly ate the steaks, and it was good.

I don’t expect any of my women readers to understand the significance of this particular male-bonding ceremony. Indeed, I anticipate them to be revolted, as they traditionally are to my exploits. Well ladies, you can keep your deep talks, secret-sharing, pillow fights, and pajama parties. I would much rather have a gutteral meat-feast any day of the damn week. Anybody who thinks otherwise should just shut up and let me punch them.

I had a quite lovely and troubling Easter yesterday.

Easter is one of my favorite days of the year, because I get to spend some quality time with my family of 26 years, as well as for the personal, spiritual significance of the day itself. However, in addition to the traditional pleasantries like Easter baskets and ham-feasts, I also experienced a pleasant amount of awkwardness and alienation, as I am wont to do.

My family is Catholic, and we went to the Easter vigil service, which some of you might know if the biggest hootenanny of the Catholic liturgical calendar. Traditionally, the service is 11 hours long, and marked by prayers in latin, a darkened church until midnight, and incense billowing like a fricking rubber fire. The modern church has whittled it down to 2-3 hours, filled with lots of unique music, along with adult baptisms, confirmations, communion, and lots of standing, sitting, kneeling, and squatting. Somebody apparently thought it would be a novel idea to have a woman do an interpretive dance while scripture was being read. This literally went on for over 15 minutes - a passage from the Bible, and this woman wearing more scarves than Stevie Nicks would spin, hop, and flop all over the place. This was all accompanied by the punishing sound of awkward silence. Occasionally, somebody might cough, or a child would begin softly crying from watching this unsettling spectacle, but for the most part, the entire congregation merely averted their eyes and stared at their programs hoping for it to all be over soon. I, of course, while also feeling distinctly uncomfortable, was softly laughing to myself (my dad saw me and also began laughing). I have never seen anything so unbelievably pointless and embarassing to all involved. It was literally worse than the Rodney King riots.

This experience, coupled with the fun of coloring Easter eggs with my siblings (decorating eggs with such messages as, “Happy Easter/NCAA Tournament!”, and “Don’t Drink and Drive”), made for a wonderful holiday weekend. By the time we had finished feasting on swine-flesh, the whole family was feeling plump and pleasant. We spent the rest of day resting, relaxing, and watching holiday television programming reminding us of the reason for the season (most notably a Passion of the Christ-like scene where the Easter bunny was flogged for 27 minutes).

It’s been eight months since I’ve worked in a cubicle. I left my old call center job last August and I haven’t looked back since. I can’t say that I particularly miss having bathroom breaks monitored by my boss, or the fact that every keystroke on my computer had to be approved by my six supervisors. I don’t particularly miss my bosses, and I don’t miss 99% of my co-workers (Adam being about the sole exception).

Seriously, what the hell was that job all about?

Every day, I was forced to wear my headset like it was the mark of some shiftless, lazy beast. I was unmercifully compelled to have laborous conversations with anxious Filipino nursing candidates from Gardena, impatient Indian Cisco employees in San Jose, and chain-smoking women in the deep south who insisted against all reason that their email address had a “www.” in it. It was a veritable rainbow coalition of frustration and dispair.

At this job, training meetings would stretch on hours beyond their necessary limits. The trainers would drone on, reading aloud from a packet of information that we all were highly capable of reading silently on our own, utterly oblivious to the fact our eyes had rolled back into our skulls and we were to the point of trying to swallow our own tongues and welcome death.

At one point, somebody in some department decided that it should be the call center’s job to try to sell other products to our clients, in addition to meeting the needs that they called for. Having worked in sales before, and having found it distasteful, I suggested that this was not a part of our job description, and that some of us had originally wanted to work for this company precisely because we weren’t reduced to forcing unnecessary upgrades upon our customers. I was told that I had a bad attitude and wasn’t a team player. I proceded to sulk and mutter under my breath for the next several weeks, taking longer bathroom breaks than I was allotted, just to spite them.

Now, instead of being treated like a fifth grader, I am a teacher myself. Having learned from my former supervisors, I do my best to pander to and crush the spirits of all those in my classroom. I do this through my old company’s time-honored methods of arbitrary punishments, passive-aggressive comments, and liberal distributions of shame and humiliation.

At long last, the circle is now complete.

I was really hungry that night, so my friend and I decided to go out and grab something to eat. Like a polar bear craves baby seals, I was craving fettucini alfredo. However, when the food arrived, I noticed that my fettucini alfredo had a uniquely unwelcome flavor to it. I examined the dish. To my horror, I discovered that my fettucini alfredo was riddled with onions.

They may as well have had the waitress take a sloppy dump onto my plate.

I don’t unequivically dislike onions - given the right surroundings, their husky tang can be a welcome addition to my palette. But we can all agree that fettucini alfredo should contain nary an onion. To choke such a delicacy with scores of the foulest onion chunks is akin to hiring Mel Torme to smoothy croon at your wedding, but then forcing him to sing “Barbie Girl” 70 times consecutively before beheading him. That is exactly what this was like. It was also akin to releasing Slobodon Milosovic from prison in order to give him bionic implants, creating a robotic exoskeleton equipped with poison spray and Dolby surround sound. He would be christened Slobotron Milosotron 9000, and would bring candy and ethnic cleansing to all the children of the world while defying the U.N. with computer-enhanced swear words, understood only by those who have studied the ancient Carpathian languages.

Yes, that perfectly encapsulates what it’s like to put onions in fettucini alfredo.

On March 18th, 2004, Bridgette Herian made the fateful decision to be my best girl.

A year later, I salute her.

I salute her for putting up with the troubling meanderings of my mind. Last night, for instance, I posited this question to her: “What would your reaction be if you came into my room and caught me making out with Hitler?” Many other times I have shared tales of troubling infidelity and comic animal mutilation with her, and she just rolls with it.

Why would she put up with this, when clearly there is nothing physically, financially, or nutritionally attractive about me? I truly don’t know, but I refuse to question it. I found a girl who loves me and isn’t alienated by my terrible, hateful personality and obsession with life’s unmentionables. She doesn’t even seem to mind my irregular bathing and unnatural love of the “Beastmaster” film series.

It’s been a great year. A year I certainly don’t deserve.

Thanks, Bridgette.

I got my U2 tickets yesterday. Two general admission floor seats for their Minneapolis show in September. I’ve seen them three times, twice in ‘97 and once in ‘01, and each show has been better and more exhilarating than the last. The last time I saw them was on the Elevation tour, and we were right at the front tip of the stage, near where Bono spent most of his time.

My friend Paul and I were so close, that we could see and hear everything. Bono wiping off a few gallons of sweat throughout the show, song suggestions from the Edge, and I was one of the few to laugh at an obscure Frank Sinatra reference Bono threw out and he looked at me with a grin and shrugged at his failed joke. During “Where the Streets Have No Name”, Paul, I, and all 20,000 present vomited with glee.

At one point, in an effort to impress our heros, Paul and I started to make out with each other. We shouted, “Hey, the Edge!” and then we forcefully kissed and rubbed each other’s backs while staring at him. He frowned his disapproval, and so chastened, we simply shook hands with each other. Nodding to us in assent, he then played his greatest solo ever for “The Fly”, while staring at Paul and I shaking our hands to the song’s rugged beat. We never sexually experimented in order to impress a celebrity again.

And so I look forward to the show this fall. Paul and I have learned many lessons, and I anticipate learning so much more this time, possibly from Adam Clayton (but probably not). One thing, however, is certain: I will go backstage after the show and mutilate a cat in the presence of the band. They will politely thank me for the gruesome display, and give me a ride back home. It will be the best concert ever.

Click here to listen to “The Fly” live from the Vertigo Tour!