Is it just me or is McDonald’s simple pimple vanilla ice cream cone not an incredible tasty treat? I never go to McDonalds for the food (for obvious reasons). The only thing I do go there for is iced tea, thank the Lord for their extra-large cups!

Anyway, post dinner last night I accompanied my friends to McDonalds for this amazing sweet treat. My childhood came rushing back to me, the smile could not have been slapped off my face.

You deserve a break today, go get yourself one!

***
Should I get a MacBook? I’ve been toying with this idea for the past couple of days. I want to do video blogs, make many shows, etc. Advice?

“So you’re new to LA?” he asked. I had just concluded the workshop I was leading, he had come up to me to get his parking validation, and hopefully validate me!

He was cute, but not disgustingly so. He was exactly my type, around my age, brunette, laid back and not uber-gay. I kept telling myself as he chatted me, ‘Don’t ruin this Scott by being you!’

“What do you like to do for fun?” he asked.

“Well, a little of this, a little of that, you know, I’m pretty easy-going.” Being vague is hot, or so I’ve read.

“That’s nice, I like chilling out too.”

He seemed so calm, I admired this about him. No drama, that’s what I need in my life. After going through a long stretch of being single (mostly while losing weight), I am now ready to get involved. Mr. Chill seemed like a very nice candidate.

The conversation was obviously leading towards an exchange of numbers. Trying to read where he was going with his questioning, I put my hand in my pocket to make sure I had my card on me.

The conversation reached it’s natural ark, exchange of numbers was about to commence. He pulled out his card and said, “Well, if you ever want to score some great weed, here’s my card.”

Totally read that one wrong!

Trying to back track, I awkwardly said I didn’t smoke and then began to explain why I didn’t smoke. “I used to, oh did I ever used to! But, you know, oh boy did I smoke! I was raised Mormon, so I guess, um - oh boy - it’s just not in my nature. And I’m a runner, so, uh, well, WOW! Did I ever used to smoke, I could smoke you out like no other. Ever heard of the Super Soaker? I was a Super Smoker!”

I suck at life.

He smiled, I validated his parking and he went on his way, another satisfied customer of Scott’s Uber-Awkward Train of Shame.

A friend of mine recently referred to me as an athlete. “A wha?” I replied. The concept of being an athlete is crazy, coming from my obese days. I’m a runner training for a marathon, does this make me an athlete? Factually it does, but my brain tells me otherwise. To me an athlete is somebody that competes, I am not doing this. Intuitively I am not competitive.

As a kid my father enrolled me in tee ball. If you’re not familiar with this sport, in a nutshell it’s softball but with the ball put on a stick instead of pitched. You’d think the stick would make it easier to hit, and it did for all of my teammates, for me no luck. I’d swing and swing but would never hit the friggin ball. Sometimes they would even bend the rules and allow me more than three strikes. The fourth strike would come, then the fifth and finally the sixth swing would result in my hitting the stick rather than the ball.

The only incentive I had to hit the ball was that my father offered to take me to my favorite all-you-can-eat buffet if I scored a point. The prospect of this happening began to dwindle, so he changed the offer to if I made it on base. That offer eventually became unattainable and was altered to if I just hit the ball. Sometimes I would succeed at this, but more often than not I’d go to bed hungry.

The next season he thought it would be a good idea for my brother and I to play soccer. We went into it with little interest. The coaches tried to play us but our lack of spirit for the sport was too strong, we were benched. Being benched in soccer means sitting in the grass on the sidelines. What we lacked in athletic ability we more than made up for in napping. He and I slept through most games, sometimes awakening to clap or do the mandatory “good team” high-fives at the end of every game.

I pretty much followed the same lazy course for the next 20 years, until the day I laced up and went out for a run. 100 pounds lighter I suppose I am an athlete. I still can’t hit the ball, or kick it, hell even figuring out how my own balls fit into a jock strap is confusing. An actual opponent isn’t necessary for it to be a sport, I’m competing against the fat ass I once was, and running for every other fat kid out there who can’t hit the ball.

Hmm, maybe I was an athlete all along and just didn’t realize it. It’s amazing how mind-altering Twinkie’s can be!

I am drugged. My eye lids are heavy. I’m forgetting what I’m doing just as I start the project. I was eating bread, which seemed like a great idea until I realized that bread only worked to sober you up, not to de-drug you.

Why am I drugged? Why not!? There are a couple reasons:
- I have a toothache and cannot get into the dentist.
- I woke up with a bad case of the hives.
- I want to feel what Britney must have felt during her performance at the Video Music Awards.

The combination of pain medication and anti-histamines is quite strange, perhaps I should have read the labels on the bottles?

Before I began writing this blog entry I thought, “If Kurt Vonnegut could write drugged up, why can’t I?” I am not Kurt Vonnegut.

The end.

I typically try to include internet abbreviations and acronyms into my internet banter and occasionally in my everyday life, in an attempt to be cool. The operative word in the previous sentence was “try.” Time and again I fail at this pursuit of internet coolness.

Blythe has mastered this skill, I give her mad props (as you may have noticed, I have no problem being the whitest human being alive, “mad props?”).

Of course I’ve got a handle on the commonly used ones: BRB (be right back), U (you), BTW (by the way), and my favorite one of them all, WTF (what the fuck). It’s the more complex ones that I aspire to conquer.

Perhaps I’m being too ambitious. Maybe I should limit myself to a certain few abbreviations and acronyms, and then slowly add more to the mix as time goes on.

The ones that I will slowly integrate into the mix are…

- IMHO (in my humble opinion)
- PMSL (pissing myself laughing)
- CUL8R (see you later)
- BIO (going for a bathroom break)
- my favorite: ASL? (age / sex / location?)

What’s stupid about the dentist is that he always makes you feel guilty. You go in there, hopefully feeling pretty proud of yourself for flossing and brushing twice a day (or is it three?), but he will always find a way to shoot you down. He’s like a Jewish mother, she’ll fix everything, but not without a heavy dose of guilt thrown in for good measure.

I have never gone to the dentist hoping for good results, my mouth is like a rice cake, will fall apart on ya after the first bite. Cavities, decay, you know name it, I got it! I swear I see little $ signs appearing in the dentist’s eyes when he ganders my set of choppers. I do everything right, if not excessively, but nothing works in the end. Even though I do everything right, the dentist still won’t believe me when I say, “It’s genetic doc, the European in me, healthy teeth just ain’t in my genetic code.”

I try to reason with him, “Don’t you see, I’m helping you out here. My shitty teeth is your kid’s college education. Each cavity represents one less book you’ve got to buy, every crown is at least a semester. Just think if I got veneers!” He just sits there, stone faced.

Dentists were the forgotten kids in high school. They weren’t cool enough, but yet weren’t enough of a geek to get beat up. They just existed, in the background, and didn’t talk. At night they would dream of overbites and root canals. As they grew older they blossomed, but not enough to be thought of as a real doctor (the ultimate catch, am I right?). One step above a foot doctor, but ultimately below a neurosurgeon. The resentment just stewed until they finally hit their stride in their dental career.

This is when the guilt manifested itself in their dental practice. They can’t fight us (us being the non-dentists of the world), we’re cooler, but they can make us feel horrible for not flossing. Because of ethics they won’t hurt us in the chair (at least not without reason), but they will secretly love it when that sharp pokey thing they use touches on a nerve and makes us squirm. I bet they even over numb areas, just so that you look like a fool for the rest of the day.

I want to find a dentist with bad teeth. I could relate him, he’d understand my problems and not poo poo on my excuses. Let the search begin!

I’ve had trouble coming up with something to blog about. Stories have been attempted, witty retorts on popular culture have been debated, even a very sad shot at a poem (Robert Frost I am not). So what could I write about? The desire to blog is stronger than the creative process required to actually do it, so why not just write the first things that come to mind:

~ Don’t you just love Tina Fey? She’s somebody I just want to go out to lunch with. She’d be a kick ass friend.

~ LA has given me many wonderful things, good friends, new experiences, a tan. But the one thing I’ll take from LA is the very special roll around my waistline. The city of angels? More like the city of angel food cake! (Okay, I’ll admit it, that was lame).

~ I saw I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With this weekend, written, directed and starring Jeff Garlin of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fame. The actual film was lackluster, the cast made up for it mostly, but still, it could have used some work. But the idea behind it, the simple desire to find somebody to eat cheese with, isn’t that beautiful? I want that. Maybe not cheese, dairy doesn’t sit that well with me (makes me gassy). Wouldn’t that be embarrassing? Finally meet someone to eat cheese with only to ruin it with retched gas. I guess I’d want somebody to eat cold cuts with. Nothing says love like salami!

~ I’m amazed at the type of information people will offer to strangers. At my office we get lots of calls from the general public because of the event we’re planning. Somebody just called in asking information about when it was, what time, etc. After I gave her that information, she said, “Oh good, I’m glad it ends then, it’ll give me enough time to get to my waxing appointment.” I asked what she was getting waxed and she got offended. “That’s rude of you to ask, that’s personal.” I backtracked, saying I thought she was talking about her car. She hung up. How was I meant to feel a fool, I wasn’t the one who brought up waxing in the first place!

That’s all for now, later friends, smile lots!

I think my Multi-Vitamins are really awkward pills. It’s the only explanation I have for the daily, yes daily, awkward situations I seem to encounter. I’m not blaming anybody else, 9 times out of 10 it’s awkward because of something I did.

I was student body president in high school. At the meetings I was a stickler for order, I wanted all to be quiet while the meeting was in session. At one of the meetings there were little outbursts, nothing too dramatic, so I would casually say, “Please be quiet.” After the little outbursts continued, I grew angry, explaining the importance of order in these meetings (I was such a tool). I spotted the culprit and called him out on it, asking him why he couldn’t be quiet. “I have Tourette’s.” Holy hell!

I once dated a really obese man to prove a point to myself. I didn’t want to be a shallow dater, so I accepted my friend’s offer to set me up with his friend who was so, oh so very… huge. I was really big then, at least 250 lbs, but he was bigger. I went on a couple dates with him (I’ll do anything to prove a point - even to myself), and eventually things got physical. We’re on his bed, getting intimate, when he paused and went for a box under the bed. Smiling, he asked if I wanted to have fun. “Um, sure…,” I said, afraid I was about to be cut up and stored in his freezer for future meals (maybe that explained his size). He pulled out an assortment of strange sex toys. I let him introduce his “friends” to me (I didn’t want to be rude and interrupt his moment), gave a shit excuse and left.

Sometimes people can be intimidated by my dominating presence on the phone. Yesterday I was speaking with somebody who couldn’t help but stutter, take deep breaths in mid-conversation and just all around seem very nervous to talk to me. I usually play these conversations out, rarely calling attention to the nervous nelly on the other end of the line. Yesterday was different. “Just take a breath, I won’t bite,” I said. This didn’t work, so I stressed the point again. Getting frustrated that he couldn’t calm down, I asked him if there was anything else I could help him with. He said, “Will there be special accommodation’s for me, I have Epilepsy.” Ugh, sometimes I really suck at life.

Maybe today I’ll ask a lady when she’s due, only to learn she isn’t pregnant. Even better, I’ll ask a black man about soul food, only to learn he’s from London (I don’t know how I missed the accent). I’m just going to embrace this part of my existence. It might get me killed one day, but don’t the great ones die young anyway? “The Legend of Scott,” I can already smell the myth-making!

It’s hard being a young professional. There are so many responsibilities through out the day.

Typically I start the day with MySpace. I check out my friend’s new default pics, choose a unique background color for my layout (usually go with green, it represents my own personal productivity at work, work hard/make money, you see the connection), and typically get linked up to YouTube via a video from a profile (I prefer the ones featuring obese people lip-syncing to popular songs of the day - you can tell a lot about a person by their YouTube fetish!).

Somehow I make it to Facebook, my friend’s status reports clue me in on what their doing. “Dana is currently watching TV,” “Jason is trying to fit into a 32 waist slim-fit jeans,” “Linsey is contemplating what to have for lunch.” So I contact them about lunch, Jason wants low-cal while Linsey wants to treat herself. We debate this for a while, occasionally I check Calorie-Count.com for more information.

So lunch at McDonalds runs a bit too long, but I tell my boss it was work related (I admit that Britney’s vagina being a topic of work related interest is a stretch, but…). Once back at my desk I map out my run the next morning, gotta stay healthy for work!

Around 3pm I’m on Craig’s List. It’s amazing the sort of stuff people are just giving away for free! That reminds me, I need to check if I won that eBay auction of Dolly Parton themed salt and pepper shakers.

By the time my frustration levels have reached fever pitch due to the web’s slowness while updating my Blogger account, I notice it’s already past 6!

“Wow, what a day, right guys,” I say to my co-workers as I pack up. “See you tomorrow!”

And they say our generation is apathetic!