I'm So Tired Of Losing My Man Card...

Since I work for College of Charleston, I get to use the gym facilities for free. I go during my lunch break since it's right next door to my office. The only drawback is that there aren't any showers on site so I come back to the office sweaty. That's no fun because a) I still have to work and b) I make a giant sweaty heart on my chest every time and everyone finds it necessary to point it out. While nothing can really be done about the heart shaped awesomeness, the girls that I work with told me about a sure fire way to de-funkify myself....baby wipes. So picture me in my office pulling the wet wipes out of the tube and rubbing them everywhere. I must admit its refreshing but dammit they stink and they make my office stink and up my creepiness factor. So to recap, I grew a mustache, drank water from the crotch of an angelic statue, and work in an office smelling of eau de moist toilette. I'm officially creepy.

Sunday night was the final episode of Lost. The show got me good. The next day I was sad since I've been watching it for six years and now its gone. Really weird feeling. I was talking about it with my buddy Michael O'boyle and he agreed. That show is powerful and kind of how he and I got to know each other. We worked in the same place for a short time but would talk all about the show and throw different ideas off of each other. Very cool way to build a friendship. Now the show is gone and I am facing some rather severe consequences. By that I mean one consequence and by that one consequence I mean Glee. I no longer have an excuse not to watch that damn show with Kristen anymore. I hate that show. I hate that show because it is catchy. I hate that show because now I think I'm becoming a fan of Lady Gaga. The song Bad Romance was on the show last night and it stayed in my head all day long. I'm pretty sure I didn't sing it out loud but I'm not 100% positive and that scares me. I don't want to be a performance artist but it might be unavoidable.

Since I watched Glee, Kristen agreed to a man movie tonight. That man movie was Macgruber. Go see this. We both laughed till we cried. Probably the stupidest movie I've ever seen but it was stupid smart and therefore actually funny...really funny. I want a mullet to go with my baby wiping, crotch sipping, mustachioed ass. Hell yes! (first and only time I'll ever use an exclamation point on this page)

Dragging Ass On The Cobblestones

I haven't jogged in a long time. Before we moved, we were regularly running 5-10 miles at a time and considered ourselves in great shape. When we got out here, that changed. Moving is extremely stressful and didn't really leave me wanting for any more exertion, mentally or physically. Not to mention the fact that the running trails around the Creek are often clogged with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle-toothless-tattooed-woman-in-wife-beater-tank-top-and-jorts as they're chain smoking while I'm trying to exercise.

That changed today. Melanie is a girl I work with who also runs a variety of 5K's, 10K's, half and full marathons. Being the unabashed badass that I am, I volunteered to go run around Charleston during our lunch break today. As it goes, it seemed like a good idea at the time. The long and short of it is she kicked my ass. As an aside, when we started we ran by my buddy Richard. The dude didn't even notice me. I was literally three inches from him and I started screaming and flailing my arms like an idiot. Apparently he had his headphones on and was oblivious to me making a fool of myself in public while I was trying to get his attention. Boy did he pick the wrong dude to make enemies with. He's completely blacklisted. I spent half the run trying to convince Melanie that the guy was actually my friend.

We ran by Colonial Lake and down Murray Blvd. which runs along the brick ramparts overlooking Charleston Harbor. We stopped in White Point Gardens for a water break. I've never had such an awkward time trying to get a drink of water before. The water fountain was either a statue of an angel or a little kid, I couldn't really be sure. All I know is that the water was coming out of it's crotch. I don't think there's any way to write about this tactfully. I'm either a sacrilegious ass or a reiteration of the guy people thought I was in my mustache blog. This time I didn't have aviators on though. I bent down and went for it because I was thirsty. To my knowledge, nobody was staring or reporting me. Twice in a week would really suck. Melanie and I didn't really talk about it after that because some things are better left unsaid.

We started on our way back and I'd held my own up this point. However, the sun was out in full force and I started feeling it. As much as I didn't want to, I had to stop. I begged Melanie to keep going so as to save me the shame of getting my tail whipped by a girl. No go. She stopped and walked with me. My head was low and hers was held high in triumph. This happened at least two more times after I started running again. My dad was right, they should have named me Susie when I was born.

We eventually found ourselves back at the admissions office. I looked like our three-legged cat dragging himself across the floor. Melanie barely broke a sweat which made me feel even worse because I can't begin to describe how funky and sweaty I was. I'm seriously hoping she didn't see my tears when she said we could stop. At this point, I needed to find something to drink and she had this Coconut water thing and told me to go to this place called Caviar and Bananas around the corner to grab one. I did this in all of my sweaty glory. Yeah apparently the people at the hippy store don't like it when you come in sweaty. The check out girl LITERALLY curled her lip and threw my credit card and slip at me. I'm honestly not embellishing that at all. I am with this part though: I punched her in her blonde-ass face.

Overall I felt great albeit humbled and ashamed to have my ass handed to me in such dominant fashion...by a girl. But hey man, its 2010 so it's okay for that to happen. F you if you disagree. That's all I've got going for me right now. Hopefully I can start this running kick again and get back to where I was again soon. Also, and how badass is this, Melanie put me in touch with a dude who is going to teach me how to surf. Kristen doesn't know this yet, but we're watching Point Break this weekend. I don't know whether I should call myself Bodhi or Utah but I'm going to start talking about Fiji, and Bali, and the Pipeline. Noland on a surfboard will be the coolest thing EVER since my mom let me dress up like a ninja for Halloween in Kindergarden...which was awesome except for the battery-powered glow in the dark pumpkin she made me carry for safety. All blacked out ninja uniform plus hood and a bright orange pumpkin. Ain't nobody messing with my mama's baby boy. But I digress. I wish I wasn't balding so I could grow my hair out and let it get sun bleached so I can hang out with my new bros while I'm catching tubes and shit. This place is fun.

Sam Elliott Eat Your Heart Out

I slept late on Friday so I didn't shave before work. Didn't feel like shaving on Saturday because its the weekend and I'm a dude therefore I do what I want. Sunday was heathen/beach/mother's day or as I like to look at it, an opportunity. I wanted to see if I was sly enough to walk out of the house with a mustache. This is one of those things that girl's can see even if they're three rooms away. They know when the stache is present because it exudes absolute awesomeness. Apparently the awesomeness on mine had petered out a bit or not quite reached it's potential depending on if you're a glass is half empty/half full type of person. I actually made it out of the house and into the car fully muffed and I had a decision to make. Do I tell Kristen now or do I fully commit? I committed. Hindsight being what it is, I now wish Kristen was more intuitive.

We made it halfway to the beach before she beheld me in my full, facial glory (I will thank you not to make a sick joke out of that but if you do, then bully for you). She slapped me. At least that's what she says she did. Felt more like an elbow to my jaw but I'll yield to her on this one. At this point, I feel pretty cool and pretty confident. Let me also mention that I have my aviator sunglasses on. We make it out to Isle of Palms with Kristen walking quite a few feet ahead of me so you can't even tell we're together. From the parking lot, you have to walk past a children's playground on the way to the beach. We set up our stuff and then I ran back to use the rest room, having to pass the playground again. I take a look in the mirror, sunglasses still on. Good God Almighty, I look like a cross between Lt. Dangle from Reno 911 and Kip from Napoleon Dynamite. I'm in trouble and I have to walk past the damn playground for a third time to get back to my beach chair. I'm not saying that the parents were necessarily staring, but I sure wished Kristen and her flying elbows were a little closer when I was walking by to defend my honor. Maybe if I would have taken off the sunglasses, it would reduce the impact of the stereotyping going on but then people might know who I am if they saw these beautiful blue eyes.

Once I made it back to the beach chair I didn't move and I didn't look at anyone. I kept a book around my face. When we finally decided to leave, I thought I'd play it cool and act like I was scratching my nose the whole way back. I don't really recommend that because you wind up looking like your picking your nose for 100 yards as I walked by the playground AGAIN. Needless to say, the mustache experiment came to an end the second I walked back into our house. I'm back on my neckbeard quest because that will must make me look even bad assier. We shall see.

On a completely different note, might I point out that the best beach volleyball movie ever made was on tv Saturday night. Side-Out rivals only the shirtless, blue jeaned volleyball scene from Top Gun as the imagery most likely to get Chris Noland to play volleyball.

Excuse me Flo? What's the Soup Du Jour?

We live in one of the must culturally diverse, cuisine rich cities in America. When Kristen got home from work we decided to go out to eat because we were both starving. Whatever did we choose to sample from this fine dining mecca? Hell Yes we went to Denny's. I've never been to Denny's before. I moved 1000 miles across the country to go eat at mf'in Denny's. And you know something? It wasn't bad. I sure didn't know what I was in store for but my expectations weren't huge. I was pleasantly surprised when I only saw one customer with a wife beater tank top with ubiquitous gaudy shoulder tattoo. He was missing most of his teeth and had cutoff shorts on. Basically I'm telling you he was the total package. If he would have had a bandanna on his shaved head or a jean jacket I would have gone up to shake his hand and thank him for making my initial Denny's dining experience the tits.

I had a turkey sandwich and it rocked. Kristen had a grand slam breakfast with cheesy hash browns which rocked even harder. I finished them for her. She didn't necessarily appreciate that but I don't care because I had my toothless wonder as my wingman and I would receive no backtalk from her with him by my side. Kathie our waitress was on the ball. She greeted us at the door and offered our pick of tables. We could even have a booth by the window. Hell yes please. She kept our glasses full with our tasty beverage of choice. She let us know that they only serve Coke products therefore removing the otherwise inevitable anxiety of ordering a Diet Coke only to be asked if Diet Pepsi was okay. That made sense in my head but I have no clue if it translated well. All in all it was a great experience. Good food, good service, and the best company you could ask for in a 24-hour restaurant. This might be weekly date night central for the Nolands.

On a side note: Until we move, we are f'ed. The only gas stations anywhere near us are Sunoco's and BP. Do we support the jerks who talked about my nuts or the jerks who destroyed the Gulf of Mexico. Your thoughts are welcome.

Only In The Creek

Kristen was on call this weekend so I rode up to the clinic with her while she took care of the animals in the hospital. On the way back, I pulled into a gas station to fill up her car and while doing so, decided to wash her windshield. As I'm doing so, someone from inside comes on the loudspeaker yelling, "scrub it, scrub it like you've never scrubbed before." I'm thinking okay thats cool, someone inside is bored and he's entertaining himself. Good for him. Then I hear, "scrub it like you're scrubbing your nuts. That's right you scrub your nuts because you're gay." I look around and everyone else pumping gas is just aghast. I'm livid at this point but don't really feel like going in and confronting anyone. That's not really how I work. Kristen's in the car wondering what the hell just happened. I get in and drive off completely incredulous at what just happened. Being the sometimes passive aggressive person that I am, I wrote a letter to the company as soon as I got home.

There's fun and then there's idiocy. I've done some immature things in my life but, to my knowledge, never really crossed any sort of moral boundaries (with the exception of Andy Ryan and my little side business in middle school and the Captain Shreve yearbook that Kevin Bruce and I authored). Seriously this was just stupid and the kind of thing I really think someone should lose their job over. I won't be going back to that company for gas again. Since it's such a large corporation, I doubt I hear back from them regarding my letter but I figured it was the least I could do. We called a real estate agent today and hopefully will be moving a little closer to Charleston proper very soon.

Chris Noland's Animal Adventures

The three legged cat is not in a good mood this week. He's started begging to go outside which is both good and bad. Good because he uses the litter box less, opting to go outside instead and consequently our house smells fresher. And by fresher I mean less like cat pee saturated litterbox and more like our dirty dogs. Bad because he has three legs which is an obvious disadvantage when it comes to defending his turf because other animals, unlike humans, do not stop to ooogle the awesomeness that is his missing leg. They just attack.

However, being the ninja that he is, he sometimes escapes through the door, usually by some means of misdirection causing us to turn our backs while he bolts through the open door. Long story longer, we decided to put a rabies tag on him just in case he escapes long term and is picked up by some glutton for punishment who does not mind a jaundiced, low and left leaning, eternally grumpy cat.

Kristen's clinic was out of cat collars though so he has a small dog collar on which is HUGE on him. In addition to the rabies tag, he also has a name tag with our phone numbers on them. Again, they were out of cat tags so he has a big dog bone on his collar that says Tucker. All total these things weigh about eight pounds. Tucker weighs nine. Tucker can't walk now. His head is weighed down on the floor so he just sort of pulls himself along the ground with his front paws. I might have to stage an intervention.

About 3am this morning I woke up with charlie horses in my legs and in a panic because something heavy was on my chest. OD, our affable yet adhd afflicted 50 pound dog had somehow opened our bedroom door and hopped on the bed and onto my chest, completely negating my ability to move. He was also sound asleep and would not wake up. And no joke, he snores. My arms were asleep and I was trapped. Kristen refused to wake up no matter how much I screamed. I sounded like Eric Cartman trying to crap out Disney Land, begging her to get OD off of me. No luck. I resigned myself to my misery and eventually fell back asleep. I'm in pain right now. I woke up to our halfway toothless, balding pomeranian Pee Wee licking me in the face. Sounds cute until he stopped, looked at me with his adorable little pomeranian face....and farted. Thats his thing now. He's seriously like an old man. Just doesn't give a damn anymore and farts whenever he feels like it no matter who's around. I'm not sure if I'm disgusted or proud. Probably a little bit of both. Such is my life being married to a veterinarian.