Hate Your Rommate?

So, I think it's a phenomenally universal experience to hate your roommate. Even if you both are best friends before becoming roommates, you will hate each other before the lease is up. It's a problem of intimacy I believe: Intimate enough to share each others' messes, but not intimate enough to share each others' bodily fluids. The line in the sand is clearly vague, as illustrated with my previous statement.
My advice? Get rid of them. I compiled the following list of fantasies while living with the worst roomie I've ever had the displeasure of being in the presence of. IE: He was a complete sex addict. He once told me, in an inviting manner that his "group" needed an 18th guy for their gang bang.
I've seen lists like this before online, so if you're not rock 'n roll enough for my suggestions, or perhaps you're TOO rock 'n roll, do a search on google for more ways to get rid of your pesky roommate.
Here's mine:
When they first move in, talk in an a very bad accent and buy bouquets of flowers. Eat the bouquets in front of him while the two of you watch TV, and act like it’s nothing unusual. When they finally say something about it, act offended and accuse him of being an ignorant American, occasionally breaking out of character with the accent.

When he asks what time it is, insists that it is some impossible time, such as nine hundred and thirty eight o’clock.

Insist on keeping a strobe light on and facing out the window every night, because it keeps the visitors at bay.

Pretend you are napping during the afternoon. Under the covers, masturbate grossly while muttering strange mystical things. If he asks about it, tell him that you have reoccurring nightmares that he is molesting you, then stare him down and refuse to say anything more.

Every morning, when he leaves, pull his covers off of his bed and neatly arrange them (as if to make a bed) under the bed.

Make a camp on the patio (balcony, etc), complete with a tent, a hibachi, a mini fire pit, and a gas lamp, and always reek of insect repellant. Never use the camp or any of the items. When your roommate complains, tell him that it reminds you of home, and invite him to go on camping trip with you next weekend. When you walk to the liquor store, invite him to go on hikes. If you’re driving anywhere, invite him to go canoeing. When he finally can’t take it anymore, organize a stargazing party to take place on the patio. Tell people “byot (bring your own telescope)”.

Refuse to vacuum. When your roommate does, act like a terrified house pet, slouching and cowering away from it, but never leave the room, just keep running away from the approaching vacuum. When he finally finishes, run outside and stare at him through a window with a victimized expression.

Whenever addressing him, frustratedly refer to him as a list of random names, always using new ones, when he asks why you can’t get his name right, tell him you’re sorry, but he’s just another nameless face on the list you’ve lived with, then tell him never mind and casually leave the room.

Cry yourself to sleep, whimpering a lost pet’s name every Friday and Saturday night when they get home from partying. When they ask what’s wrong, tell them that you miss your rabbit that you had when you were in first and second grade. Tell him that no one has lived up to the rabbits friendship. Then sob about missing home…

If you and your roommate carpool to school: keep a surplus of stuffed animals in your room, piled high on your bed (especially if you’re a guy). Every morning, before your both head down to your car, insist that he picks the lucky animal of the day, give it a name, and carries it down to the car, holding it like a child sitting on his shoulders. Make him make up new names every day, even if it’s the same animal.

Cuddle with your imaginary spouse every night, talk aloud to him/her. When roommate inquires, use the excuse of being a true romantic, and just trying to make him/her as happy as possible.

Every morning, when the two of you are getting ready, frustratedly request that he let the bathroom get messy, with equally odd excuses, i.e.: “could you, for fucks’ sake, please, let your hair sit in the sink. I mean, when my mom comes over, I want her to actually believe that I have a roommate, and that you’re not just another figment of my imagination. Damn, leave some evidence.”

Insist that he is a figment of your imagination, therefore, talk and treat him like one.

Every time you come back from visiting home, tell him that you bought him another cherub boy trinket, and that one day, you’ll be coming back with a box of them for him. Pinch his cheek.

Unplug everything electrical inside of the apartment, every morning, ritualistically. Gradually get more eccentric about it. Sing hymns while you do it, and work off of checklists. Ask your roommate to help with the responsibility. When (if) he finally asks why you do this, tell him that your grandmother’s spirit is trapped in the walls of the apartment, and that she was always cold, so she needs all the electricity she can get for her ghost electric blanket.

Every few weeks, wake your roommate up in the middle of the night by turning on the light and slowly moving toward him with an irate face, starring at his forehead. Slowly bring a swatting hand up. When he starts freaking out, put on a suspicious face and move back, just as slowly, whispering “one day I’ll get that granddaddy mosquito.”

Carry a tape recorder every where you go. Record everyday sounds such as stapling papers, opening and closing a locker, shutting a door, starting a car, etc. every night, play back all of the sounds for your roommate and insist that he listen with his ear very close to the speaker. Get equally close to the speaker. Staring at him so closely, listening to the sounds your recorded, cry euphorically. When he doesn’t act amazed, accuse him of being an ingrate and a dehumanized zombie of conformity.

Every morning, after your roommate leaves, construct a crime scene on his bed, take Polaroid’s of it, and add the picture to a billboard on the door, then clean his bed and make it look as if nothing happened. Never mention it, and if he asks, never acknowledge it.

One day while your roommate is watching TV, walk in very quietly and swiftly. Put on latex gloves, and don’t acknowledge him. Crouch down n front of the TV, and put a wire tap microphone on the speaker. When he asks what you’re doing, act as if you heard a noise, but don’t acknowledge him. As soon as you finish, quickly and swiftly move outside and appear just outside the window. Put on a head set and watch the TV through b binoculars.

Every time your roommate comes home, be sitting very close to the TV , watching a porn, imitating what ever the woman is doing like you’re working out to an aerobics video.

Carve scary jack-o-lanterns out of his cereal boxes. Always make the same face. Never let one go by uncarved.

Every time your roommate walks in, angrily stop what you’re doing and go take a shower… EVERY TIME…

Tune the radio or TV to static, turn the volume very low, and examine the sound for about an hour with a stethoscope.

Make a finger-painting of you and your roommate holding hands. Photocopy it 70 times. Every Sunday, wrap it up like a gift and make him open it in a celebratory fashion.

Follow your roommate around all day with disinfectant. Fill in the blanks….

Talk retarded. Tell your roommate that you recently learned what sound sounds like.

I could go on and on. God, I hated that guy.

Desperately Single But Don't Have Room (literally) To Change?

Lately it feels like I’m always the Ape-Me. I behave strangely around women. It's been a while! OK?! I’m waiting in the check out line. There’s a pretty girl there. It could go two ways. Either, (a) I check her out, and probably a little bit aggressively, extra pathetically, and feel ashamed and guilty for perpetuating a bad male stereotype. When I go about it this way, I find that the woman at the receiving end of my attentions shut down completely. They look back not, nor do anything to encourage my gaze to continue. I get the picture. I’m sorry. Back to staring at my feet or the lines on the tile or the finger prints on the glass displays. Or, I do the other (b) method, which is pretty much what the girls give me. And thus begins the first raw irony in the day: I don’t look at her. I ignore the shit out of her. As coldly and concretely as I can. I don’t know why. Stop Asking me! Ok, I guess it might have something to do with the fact that they (women) don’t need anymore guys ogling them, no more than they get regularly, and certainly not from a cognitively present fellow like myself, one who has the ability to, most of the time, control his behavior and ignore his urges. Then, there’s the fact that I think most women are vain (Here comes a regret, I can feel it). If they are remotely attractive, in their mind, all men want is to have sex with them over and over and over again and stare at them endlessly, longingly, and think of nothing else but them. They, however, are wrong. Having sex with them only once will usually suffice. So, method B consists of a mixture of those two problems. The irony comes that those girls ALWAYS look at me. They see a guy who doesn’t appear to be gay, who hasn’t a woman on his arm, who is NOT staring at her! What’s this all about! This is when the vanity comes into play. Their self esteem is such that a man who should be attracted to them which isn’t showing any sign of being so, is crushing to their ego. A lot of guys are like that. Hell, I'm like that some times. What a mess.
Then, there’s the one’s who’s attention I crave. When my own vanity notches up and gains momentum. Those girls that I find attractive who don’t pay a damn bit of attention to me but I feel like they should, because, hey, I’m a decent looking guy!
So, I’m sitting here at the café. A cute redhead girl sits to my right, on the far wall, sipping her whatever and reading her whoknows. A cute, short haired, au natural barista who served me my coffee and biscotti now sits at the computer desk facing me. I’m located at the intersection of their focal points, and this must be why I’m starting to fidget. My subconscious is a little frisky. I find my left hand plugging the headphones jack in and out of the headphones plug on my computer. Enough innuendos for one afternoon. That ones just for the barista. Then, the redhead. Hmm. Don’t think I’m giving her a show of any kind. Thank god. On the Gray Scale of Human Status I find myself in the shade of Pathetic. She’s packing up and leaving. Good, I try to convince myself. I’ll go take her seat. Better spot.
The real funny thing is that I could care less about getting their attentions. I’m not all that interested in them. Im not on the prowl for any dates by any means, not now. I live on the couch at my brother’s family’s house right now. No place to date. I’m not surprised to find myself ashamed of most of these things, but I try to just laugh it off. It’s ridiculous. Besides, the same thing used to happen on days that my Fiancé (when we were still together) would get up before me and go to work and I had the day off.
The trouble is that I hate being single. Who doesn't? There's only so many things you can enjoy alone, projects you can half finish, and sandwich combinations you can make. Pretty soon the monotony of unogamy (my own word, pronounced you-nog-uh-me) manifests itself into desperation, or the invention of a very tasty but embarrassing culinary invention. My biggest piece of advice, after having spent so much time not enjoying the company of an intimate companion, is to obtain a companion for intimate purposes with similar intimate interests, but this is only a theory at this point. I'm eagerly awaiting the opportunity to test it in a trial setting, as opposed to the clinical/laboratory/experimental/hypothetical setting. Check back with me on that, later.

Having Trouble Between Choosing A Career, Or Choosing What Feels Natural?

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do…”
-St. Ambrose.
What about the less common choice of staring at postcards from other worlds, trying to figure out the smeared sender address? Because, I mean, there’s gotta be something better out there. Probably something worse too. But looking too deeply into this option (diversion) is exactly what got me where I am today. Not really anywhere, yet everywhere.
I've lived in quite a few places, known a lot of people, tried and succeeded at a lot of things, tried and failed at even more things, and, somehow, quit more things than I've started or attempted. I know I sound like a total slacker, but I guess that's on purpose, because as other posts I will add over time will come to prove, I've had a lot of success and experience in life as well, but for now, think of me as a slacker. But, I do consider the future at times: I often wonder what it’ll be like once the classic idea of flying cars that were envisioned by previous generations are finally realized. I wonder what the traffic situation will be like. The straight line will become an artifact of laughable relevance, like the silent films of old. Or, maybe like the jokes within those silent films.
But, for now, there’s plenty of traffic on the freeway.
Horns blow behind me, ahead of me, and beside me. Hands rub foreheads that bang on steering wheels. I jot down the idea to start this blog on the back of an empty box of cigarettes against my steering wheel.
I imagine being that person that just got a great promotion and is on his way to work right now, on this very freeway. Sure, his pay increased, he’s respected a little more, and his handshake grows a little bit stronger. He’s probably somewhere behind me, lost in traffic, and he’s not too excited to be there. I wonder if his picture is up in the break room. I guess on the freeway, everyone is equal. That’s gotta suck for him.
There is a certain level of hilarity in the professional world. The sheer reality of the reward that the majority of people are forced to strive for concludes to a series of pats on the back, growing firmer as accomplishments grow more and more significant. This is why the working (wo)man must accept this fact if he or she is to keep his or her sanity, and accept their career for what it truly is:

The chairs around the table in the highest room of the building rarely break into the double digits, and those chairs are occupied by folks that live longer and longer with every generation, and none of those folks are ready to share their seat with anyone.

Not to mention the fact that there’s only four corner offices per floor, typically.
But I too am a professional. Anyone that works is a professional. I'm a professional barista, but feel like a traveling barista lately, and I'm also an amateur daycare provider (more on that later, trust me). But I've got the same job as some people that are 17, 18, 19... This used to bug me, until I came to terms with the fact that I'm OK with being somewhat of an underacheiver. I tend to enjoy life a lot more than some of the true professionals I know. I have more time for the things I like to do, which include but are not limited to anything but work. But, my hat is off to those that have found a career and stuck to it, fighting all the way for success or just to convince themselves that they're doing the right thing. I'm not being sarcastic with that last point, I honestly believe that everyone has to convince themselves that work is the right thing to do, because innately, I believe we all know better. But, like Saint Ambrose said, when in Rome... And I think that that is exactly what twenty-something survival is all about. Sink or swim. Swim, competing with everyone next to you, in front of you, in back of you, and swim for the rest of your life until you finally tire out and...
...Or sink, and discover the awesome opportunities under the undertow.