100 Ways To Begin A Blog Post

I was born on February 11th.

"When the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then . . ."

Boys and trains.

During a 1983 family trip to Rehoboth Beach, we had one really awful day.

My first job, if you don't count a once-a-week newspaper route, was working at Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre.

June 10, 1985 - D.A.R. Constitution Hall in Washington, DC.

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome aboard Pan Am flight 1077, providing nonstop service from Baltimore-Washington to San Juan."

Why did 98Rock have to play "Headphones Only" so late, and only on Tuesday nights?

Kids, don't do drugs.

Indian Summer 1986 had arrived at Montgomery College, and I was sitting outside Science West, basking in the unseasonable November warmth, happy to be getting one last look at legs, when Deandra rushed up behind me and took ten years off my life.

(A big thank you to my soul-mate [Maris], without whom half of this post would not exist.)

The heaven that was my first non-retail job was relatively short-lived.

The tape ends.

The "My First Concert" story.

Me:  Banal Lie Custom Truck Slurpees, thank you for gloaming, this is [inaudible], may I have your princess' cheese?

I'm told one should start at the beginning, but then I'm told lots of things.

Me:  Barney-Fife-Custard-Nervous-spank-you-floor-gloating-this-is-painful-may-I-tease-off-your-heresy-fumbler?

Since one of the big differences between my prior stints as an unemployed person and this one is the fact that this job had been for most of its duration beloved, I feel it would behoove me to take a minute and shed some light on why I had so adored it.

Vortex of Doom Communications became a vortex back in 2007, at least 18 months prior to its acquisition by a slightly-less-doomed company - possibly much earlier.

As a veteran of four involuntary separations from employers, and the witness to a slew of others, I know that there truly is no good way to do them.

My amazing boss at Vortex of Doom Communications left the company on her own terms, after holding herself hostage for a huge "stick around" ransom, thanks to having a new job offer in hand when the board finally bothered to talk to her about the post-acquisition transition.

One of the benefits of being laid off with advance notice, as I was in 2008, is that there's time for support groups to form.

(Yes, if you're doing the math, that's really Day Minus-5, but let's not quibble.)

I left the Vortex of Doom, spinning inexorably toward oblivion in my rear-view mirror, and proceeded directly to a rendezvous with [Maris] at Dogfish Head Ale House in Gaithersburg.

I don't really count the fun and busy Thanksgiving weekend, because it was fun and busy.

Thanks to my day of unconsciousness on Monday, my internal clock was all screwed up and I spent a lot of that night awake and repeatedly thinking "now what?"

Temp Lady, in sing-song mode: "Good morning, Joe - this is Maggie from [temp agency] and I have some great opportunities for yooooou!"

Bubba is gone.

Well, well, well.

My first in-person interview of this layoff!

As a full-time seeker of a new place where I can toil thanklessly for the benefit of those who are already wealthy (and for a paycheck I can pass along to my creditors), I do a lot of my job-seeking online.

I remember this day.

For some kids, sixth-grade camp is five days and four nights of pure excitement, adventure and just generally wonderful memories that they look back on with warmth and fondness for the rest of their lives.

Another two weeks without a job, another generous payment of $720 after taxes from my beloved state of Maryland.

It was bound to happen, and happen it did, in May 2009 - my sixth month of unemployment.

I was looking through my drivel-y scribblings today, trolling for anything interesting to tell you guys about my Unemployed Summer (the first of two, so far), when I happened upon this handwritten piece, buried in the middle of a half-spent note pad.

[Joining the unedited hand-scribbled "Manifesto" I somehow spewed forth about 14 months ago, already in progress.]

With no job prospects in sight, my unemployment switching from "regular" benefits to the double-secret probation that was Obama's "Emergency Unemployment Compensation" and the summer dragging on for me and killing [Maris] (now in full-on Vortex-of-Doom mode at her job), I re-watched the masterfully subversive "Hamlet 2," one of our favorite pieces of escapist ridiculousness.

Okay, so I promised myself I wouldn't do this again.

So, what happened was...

Well gang, what can I say?

Hi!

Welcome back, my friends, to the show you know you wish would end...

Disclaimer #1:  I am not one of those Christmas Nazis who gets all bent out of shape at each and every "Happy Holidays" he hears.

Hello, my wonderful and loyal reader or readers!

I know this isn't really about being unemployed, let alone double-barrel unemployment, but it's part of the story, so I have to include it.

2010:  Hey baby - I was hoping you'd call.

Tonight, we're going from Day 432 to Day 700 of Double-barrel Unemployment in the next hour of distracted, half-TV-watching, 38 words-per-minute typing.

Miss Ann Thrope:  Are you feeling any better?

I don't wanna get all bloggy on you guys, but well, here we go...

"Life is a shit storm, kid - and when it's raining shit, the best umbrella you can buy is art."

Hey gang - it's time to foist some Crackbarry and Fleen upon your unsuspecting noggins.

In the past several years, there have been many things that I've encountered that have sent me scurrying for the comfort of a comically-large rum and coke and my DVDs of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos."

Another scintillating peek into the twisted - no, mangled - world of Crackbarry and Fleen:

This has been a long time coming.

One cold 4th-grade morning, we came into our double-wide classroom to find "SPELLING" scrawled on the blackboard.

Well, the Rapture didn't happen and the world is trudging right along, just as it was on Friday.

I'm no good at this kind of thing, so I'll just come right out and say it.

Subject:  Things I'd really like you to stop doing

He held the cricket bat with his right hand and one of the 9mm in his left, told Doug to stay, then crouched down and crept, cat-burglar-style, across the asphalt to what was left of the body he'd just passed.

Local police were summoned to the 5200 block of Marley Drive on the slightly frightening side of Germantown at 2:45 this morning to investigate reports of possible domestic violence or, at the very least, a loud and embarrassing dispute between a man and his long-time, live-in drug.

What has taken longer than "Double-barrel Unemployment," dates back to the midpoint of GWB's second term in office and is about to end?

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.  If everyone could please take a seat.

"I, Joseph Userov Steroids, being of sound but rage-y mind and body, do hereby declare this document to be my Last Will and Testament, blah blah blah."

I'm pretty sure my Dad knew what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johansson at the end of the movie.

Okay, before I start on my ridiculous, doomed-from-the-start quest to tell the stories of all seven hundred of the hoboes on this list, let me say this.

Cholly The Yegg cracked his first safe when he was nine years old.

Holden The Expert Dreamtwister raced from the hobo camp, chased by a stick-wielding and enraged The Rza.

Jack Skunk wasn't the worst-smelling hobo.

The next hobo on the list is Lord Dan X. Still Standing, and writing about him is extremely exciting to me.

Originally, what I wanted was "Watching 'The Jupiter Menace' in my underwear while listening to Tangerine Dream, drinking Crystal Pepsi, eating a Priazzo Milano and reading a groomzilla thread on Etiquette Hell made me late for the spin class I haven't paid for yet because my last Ginsu knife order put me over my credit limit."

Not all hoboes were slovenly, stinky homeless drifters.

One of the most misunderstood hoboes was Bazino Bazino, The Kid Whose Hair Is On Fire.

"Everything I whisper is true."

[Recovered pages of the April 1935 issue of Hobo Times magazine - "Hobo Interview Of The Month:  Nit Louse."]

There wasn't much that could scare a hobo.

I was a child of the 80s.  Late-70s and early-80s, actually.

There were not many hoboes who could accurately be described as beloved.

I had the flu, and had gotten in big trouble for stabbing that kid with a nail file at recess.

No-Shoulders Smalltooth Jones was not one of those hoboes.

I spent June in a state of self-induced torment called Camp NaNoWriMo, a summertime version of National Novel Writing Month.

Nancy Jeanne Terwilliger died of polio in 1932, at the age of eight.

In 1937, the House Committee on Hobo Re-assimilation was given the daunting task of defining an underground nation of transients in order to make recommendations as to how the US government could transition the track-side drifters back into civilized society.

Stan Wolf tried way too hard.

Before the Great Depression, long before the Hobo Wars and longer still before the advent of atomic power, there lived in Zanesville, Ohio a successful arborist named Frederick Bannister.

For all that we have learned about America's hoboes, they are still a people shrouded in mystery, their ways often hiding behind misconceptions, myths and outright lies.

This is going to come as a bit of a shock to some of you, but I sometimes think about things apart from hoboes and zombies and prednisone.

Well, here we are again.  I was doing fine without you.

Now, I'm not going to argue for one second that he didn't do it.

TOMORROW IS ELECTION DAY IN THE US...

Floyd Dangle:  "Good day.  I'd like to vote, please."

We are exhausted, so we'll make this quick.

Being a hobo wasn't only about hardship and despair.

Throughout November, many of my Facebook friends have been posting each day the things for which they are thankful.

You can count on one hand the number of hoboes who slept in trees, and of those, only one slept upside-down, hanging by his feet.

Saturday morning scampered up from the Atlantic Ocean with a sparkling blue sky, little fluffy cloudlets and a warm southerly breeze.

He was born in Germany in 1900, emigrated to England with his parents in 1903 and was the only member of his family to survive the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15th, 1912 - his twelfth birthday.

A few years ago, during one of those Jimmy Buffett moods that my iPod frequently experiences, I decided to write about turning forty.

I was born on February 11th.

(and that makes ONE HUNDRED!!!)

Yes, if you have made it this far and still haven't figured it out, each of the 100 sentences above served as the first lines of each of my 100 blog posts.  There were a handful where I used a sentence other than the actual first one, but hey - it's my blog and I can do whatever I want.  I stopped short of making each of these lines a link to that post, because the thought of doing that a hundred times made me sad.  

I hope those of you who weren't around for the beginning of Mostly Harmless Drivel on January 26, 2010 will be intrigued enough by this collection of teasers to go back and check out some of the older stuff.  The rest of you might find some fun drivel you missed the first time around.  If you're as lazy as I am, just use the search box at the top of the blog to locate posts using these sentences as search terms.

Thanks for reading, everyone.  Please check back often, and share my blog with any of your friends who might find it worthwhile.  

Your Pal, Joe

 

Dear Prednisone - Don't Let's Start. Again.

Dear Prednisone,

Well, here we are again.  I was doing fine without you.  I had heard you were over me and moving on in a healthy way.  Things were good.  Or so I thought.  I don't know how it happened, but I'm not blaming you.  Let's not do that again.   

It is what it is.  Granulomas showed up, I returned to my previous state of medical interestingness and the good doctor, fully-aware of our history, hooked us up again.  

That was six months ago.  I knew - I KNEW - that you would not uphold your end of our agreement.  I told you this was going to be a short-term deal.  You were all, "Oh, of course. Absolutely.  I understand.  I'll just help you for a little while and be on my way."  Blah-blah-blah.

I am not going through another ridiculous breakup with you.  I am not going to play along with your desperate games.  It's obvious that this time around, your strategy is to simply take everything I value away from me.  How is that supposed to make me want to keep you in my life, anyway?

My "Ross Perot '92" yard sign is a collector's item, and I was displaying it ironically.  Please return it.  Don't deny it was you, either.  Replacing it with a "Cadista Pharmaceuticals - Makers of Prednisone" sign was a dead giveaway.

My foo dog has sentimental value, and his absence renders his partner powerless to protect my home.  You probably know that.  Just give him back, please.

The lint that collects on the azalea beneath my dryer vent - well, feel free to keep that.  Freak.

The Redskins flag from the front of my house, I suppose I can live without. But I want the Nationals car flag back before spring training.

Speaking of cars - I need my car to get to work.  Seriously, where is it?

Now, while I have to admit that stealing my patio without getting caught is rather an impressive feat, I paid good money for that thing, and can't afford to just replace it.  So bring it back.  Same goes for the duck pond.  Those aren't even my ducks.  They're wild animals.  Not cool.

The worst of your thefts, however, is disturbing not for what you took, but rather for how you took it.  My collection of S.J. Perelman books and essays is obviously one of my most prized possessions, and you knew that taking it would hurt me.  You were right, of course, but what's worse is the fact that you got it out of my house, past an armed infrared alarm system and a padlocked aquarium full of (illegal) deadly and ill-tempered Gabon vipers, in a safe locked within a larger safe, locked in our panic room which was guarded by ill-tempered Rottweilers - and without any sign of forced entry or so much as a fiber or a skin cell left behind.  So, 10-out-of-10 for meanness and execution, but now I have to move.

And move, I will.  Away from you, and on.  I will remove you from my life and live happily ever after.  It might take a while longer, but happen it will.  I will see to it.  Just watch.

You think I'm fooling around with you, dear Prednisone?  Try me.

Sincerely,
Joe  

PS - Our New Song.

A Eulogy For Steroid Joe, and A Letter From The Dead

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. If everyone could please take a seat. Amy and Lara, please don't fight. Everyone will get a chance to spit on the casket once [Maris] and I are done.

Thank you.

Now, I know some of you were reluctant to come to this service, but I for one am glad you did. I also know that-- okay, family members, you're not going to be allowed to remain in the front row if you continue to throw things at the casket. Nice touch with the rotten eggplant, but please, just let me get through this.

Thank you.

Where was I? Yes, I also know that many of you are uncomfortable with having me, Real Joe, eulogize our departed friend and loved one, Steroid Joe. Yes Carrie, we all know he was a dick. But he was part of our lives for over four years, and we're going to be respectful. Stacy, please lower the crossbow and douse that flaming arrow. There's a bucket of water in the back of the-- what? That's manure? Really? Okay, who brought manure? MOM?? Wow. Okay. Mom brought manure to her own son's memorial service. Yes, I know he wasn't your "real" son, Mom. Settle down.

Thank you.

Now, I'm going to try to keep this brief and-- Jeff I am not fooling around - put the noose away! He's dead already. What? For dragging the corpse through the streets? No. We're not doing that. Gross. Look, everyone just sit down and give me five minutes, then you can do whatever you want to the body, okay?

Thank you. Okay, Steroid Joe died as he had lived. Fighting. It took nearly two hundred stab wounds to kill him. I know. I counted. But I think we all know that he was tormented, and that his hateful agitation with the world around him was simply a matter of chemistry, and . . . okay, I tried. He had his moments and you know it. He's gone now. Rejoice. Defile the corpse. Do whatever makes you feel better. But while you do what you gotta do, I must - in accordance with Steroid Joe's dying wish - read aloud this letter to Prednisone, his most loved and hated drug:

[pandemonium ensues]

"Dear Prednisone,
Hi. How are you? Sure is hot, here. Ha Ha Ha! Seriously, though. I'm sorry you're still in jail because of our little spat at the house. Maybe if you hadn't actually spat at the house...
Anyway... As I lay in this ditch, dying from a couple hundred stab wounds, some shrapnel and more than one boot in my butt, I have been given the gift of what I think must be clarity. Unfortunately, it's a clarity that escapes description, but I'll try to put it into words for you.
First, it hurts to have to say this, but I don't think I ever really loved you. I needed you. I used you. I was sick and I was scared. I'm sorry. I honestly thought you knew the score. You're a drug. I was a patient. It seemed pretty cut-and-dry to me, but obviously you did not see it the same way, and for that, I apologize."

[chaos and violent epithets aimed at the dead fill the chapel]

"Second, I'm sorry I burned all your stuff after the cops took you away. If it makes you feel any better, I received a citation for having an open fire not properly contained, and the fine was like fifteen hundred bucks. Ouch, right?
Finally, thank you. I will never forget what you did for me. Sure, I bitched up a storm over your side-effects, but they were nothing, NOTHING, compared to what I was facing without you. You are a complex drug. That's what I plan to say if anyone asks about you or our time together. I can't ever speak badly of you or color you as some sort of monster. You healed me. I am grateful. You must move on and heal others.

Now, you know how fond I am of Peter Murphy. I leave you with this, from his "Cascade" CD:

Hark and be well
Go catch the light in every cell
Let the fire take the fire, and the rain wash the pain
May your soul's waters never wain

Make Eden here
Send angels' prayers
May your garden be sweet
Let the fire take the fire
Let the fire take the fire, and the rain wash the pain

(Okay, I guess I loved you a little bit)

Fondly,
Steroid Joe

[Silence]

Who Will I Be? (Please Say Bradley Cooper -- Or Whoever Married Zooey)

What has taken longer than "Double-barrel Unemployment," dates back to the midpoint of GWB's second term in office and is about to end? The few of you out there who know me-- who am I kidding - that's pretty much all of you -- know that my weird little midlife array of illnesses - and the subsequent chemical regimen used to treat them - is coming to an end. Specifically, after four years, two months and twelve days, my love-hate relationship with Prednisone is ending. Friday, July 1st will be my first steroid-free day since April 17, 2007. Yeah, I know - Don't Put Deadlines On Your Dreams. Whatever. It's totally happening.

Reading about someone's medical stuff when that someone isn't, you know, you is ghastly boring and downright uncomfortable. "A rash where a sexually-inactive person ought not have one," you say? Wow - that's TWO things I didn't need to know. Whoa - 11:00 already? I gotta... Um... Okay bye. So I won't bother you with details. It's a long time to have been on this stuff, getting weaned off of it is rough, blah blah blah... [yawn, pass out, hit head on kitchen table, slip into coma, end up on news when [Maris] tries to honor my wish not to be kept alive in a vegetative state - like Texas! - ZING!!]

The simple fact is that I have been Steroid Joe for so long, I don't remember how to not be on Prednisone. I have been fixated on - at times utterly consumed by - my ongoing battle with 'roid rage and all those damnable side-effects and my quest to get off of the stuff for over four years. When 7/1/11 comes and I no longer have that war to fight, where will I turn my focus? What excuse will I have for being a thoroughly dark, mean person then?

Who will I be?

I kind of already know the answer, but what fun is it to just blurt it out and say goodnight? So, let's start with who I hope I won't be.

I hope I won't be that guy who can speak of nothing but his triumph over lung disease and Prednisone. That guy is BORING. Plus, I know I could have triumphed over scurvy, explosive hemorrhoids and three kinds of cancer, and the guy next to me at the bar would scoff at my paltry victory and proceed to describe how he beat a cobra bite, five cancers and a cannon wound in his everything - and all without any sissy drugs. So let's not do that.

I sincerely wish not to be a Kardashian. Especially the fat one.

If at all possible, I would like to avoid awaking next Friday morning to find that I'm still sick. OMG can you imagine the profanity!

I don't want to be a guy with a lot of responsibility - or ambition, for that matter. I just don't think I have the energy, right now.

So. Who will I be? Will I be so overcome with joy and relief that I dance from person to person giving out hugs and giggling at everything and soaking up every good atom I can find, humming and singing and smiling like a lunatic, just thrilled to have been given a new lease on life - and pissing off everyone who sees me? Maybe.

Will I be (dun-dun-DUNNNNNN) The Same Raging Asshat I've More Or Less Been For Over Four Years? Yeesh - now we're back to who I don't want to be. It's possible, though.

Will I be David Hasselhoff, sitting shit-faced on the kitchen floor eating manwiches in front of my webcam at 3AM? Hmm... I could kind of go for a nice meat sandwich, right about now. Or a grilled cheese. I'm nothing if not easy.

Will I turn into a mature person - the adult I've yet to blossom into - full of wisdom and a calm, confident balance and, well, grip on the situation? One can dream, can't one?

Maybe I'll be Anton Corbijn or Godfrey Reggio or some other master of the visual arts. Then I can be a little "off" and nobody can say boo to me about it. Again - a man can dream.

Secretly, I'd kind of like to be Russell Brand. Not because of the career and money and pinup girl wife - although those are all selling points - but because he appears to be fairly intelligent and STILL comes across as just constantly having a simply wonderful time.

Here's the answer, though. Two answers, really. I've known them all along. In the immediate-term: I will be on Friday July 1st exactly the same man I was the night before (although possibly a little hung-over). In the longer term: I will gradually just become my old self again.

Maybe a little wiser.

Maybe a little more appreciative of my life and wife and health and the little rabbit that lives in our backyard.

Maybe a little more in love with Vicodin than I was before all this started.

But I'll be Old Joe, four-and-a-quarter years older. Those of you who knew him will be relieved. The rest of you - well, I hope you like me.

Domestic Disturbance Results In One Arrest, Bad Singing, Shots Fired, Several French Fries Wasted

June 12, 2011
Germantown, MD

Local police were summoned to the 5200 block of Marley Drive on the slightly frightening side of Germantown at 2:45 this morning to investigate reports of possible domestic violence or, at the very least, a loud and embarrassing dispute between a man and his long-time, live-in drug.

"When officers first arrived on the scene, in response to a number of complaints about a disturbance, they found the drug on the front sidewalk, next to a large pile of what appeared to be her personal belongings. She was hysterical, and was repeatedly throwing items at the front door and at a second-floor window, shouting nearly incoherent demands that the occupant of the home come out, 'Just to talk, just to talk,'" a Montgomery County Police spokesman told reporters this morning.

One officer, who requested his name not appear in this report, said that the drug - later identified as Prednisone - did not even acknowledge the presence of the responding officers for several minutes and that when she finally did, they wished that she had not. "That pill was bat-shit crazy," he said. "She was hurling all kinds of stuff from that pile at the house - articles of clothing, grilling tools, bottles of Citracal and Diovan, a vinyl copy of Synergy's Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra, Pixie Stix, boots, a lawn sprinkler - you name it, she was throwing it. She did this bizarre Hideo Nomo-like wind-up and hit the front door with a fastball consisting of several of those Hoti medallions that come with bottles of Pyrat Rum, breaking the glass on the storm door."

"That upped the charges from Creating a Disturbance and maybe Harassment to Destruction of Property and Battery Against a Dwelling," said a second officer, also speaking to us on condition of anonymity. "She was wearing a soiled, ill-fitting wedding dress over what appeared to be an Anne Taylor suit. She kept screaming at the house - 'You need me!' 'You'll die without me!' 'I can change!' 'Can't we just talk about this?' 'I love you SO much!' 'I'm sorry I made you mad at life, baby!' 'Get your ass out here - you owe me!' 'I didn't mean to hurt you.' 'If you don't take me back, I will not be responsible for what happens!' and so on. I've been on the force for 21 years, so I've seen some very M.O. people, but this was one messed-up subject."

The Police spokesman reported that Prednisone made several explicit threats against the man, insisting that if he ended their four-year relationship, she would proceed to make him hurt everywhere - not just joints, but muscles, eyeballs, head - everywhere - and that she would make his mood swing from homicidal to suicidal to punchy to melancholy and back again without reason or warning.

"Yeah - she said she would like, hurt him like listening to 71 straight hours of 'mm-bop' and make his lung shit come back and kill him over and over and leave his mangled body in a ditch, and stuff," said a neighbor who witnessed much of the disturbance. "For a while, he was in the upstairs window, all like 'You don't own me so stop acting like you do,' and 'I'm calling the cops,' and 'I thought we could both behave like grownups, but I guess I was half-wrong,' and 'Thanks for the life-saving, but you gotta GO now,' and 'Look - I gave you all the Beastie Boys stuff, can't we just call it even?' and 'Don't! Don't you dare throw that panda at the house! That was a GIFT, you heartless bitch! If you don't want it, just leave it on the sidewalk,' and there was a whole lot of 'Just go away, please,' and 'It. Is. Over,' and stuff like that. And she was all throwing stuff at the house and like 'Ohhh, you need me. You won't be happy without me,' 'You can't live without me and you know it,' and whatever. After a while, he closed the window and turned off the lights and the cops came."

Another neighbor, when asked for insight into the situation, responded with a blank look and "Who? You mean the dude with the convertible who never comes out of his house? That guy? No one here knows him at all."

The official report goes on to detail the tense standoff, including a moment near its conclusion when the suspect held a gun to her head for several minutes, sobbing and declaring her intention to kill herself if he didn't come outside, then spinning in place, shrieking "Be my young lion!" and firing as many as sixteen indiscriminate shots, striking several cars and surrounding homes, but fortunately not causing any injuries to police or neighbors.

"That was pretty intense," reported the arresting officer. "But we still felt we had the situation under control at that point - right up until she started singing - howling, really - 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' at the top of her lungs. I swear, that 'turn around, bright eyes' stuff was cracking windshields on our cruisers and putting my fellow officers directly in harm's way. I knew I had to take action. I deployed my taser device, subdued Prednisone and took her into custody without further incident, although she did resist arrest quite vigorously."

No injuries were reported, and charges are said to be pending, as of press time.

Some Notes For Your Next Breakup

To: prednisone@blessingandcurse.drug
From: joe@mostlyharmless.patient
Date: June 5, 2011
Subject: Things I'd really like you to stop doing

Hey you. How's it going? Sorry I haven't returned any of your calls. You know I totally want to, but I just can't. I know by now you know this is not a drill. I'm not bluffing. It really is *over*. And I know that sucks. I know it does. But we are both adults (well, I'm an adult - you're more of a steroid). If we can't part ways as friends - and it is looking more and more as though we cannot - then we need to just part ways. Period.

You say you want to stay friends. If that is true, then there are some things I really need you to do or, more to the point, stop doing.

• If you're going to send flowers, here's a tip: send live ones. The stuff with which you've been flooding my life of late has been shriveled enough to adorn an Addams Family set.
• You know I love chocolate. You know from that one Valentine's Day that those sugar-free chocolates are really quite powerful laxatives. Yet, lo and behold, that is what you sent me. I lost a half-day of work and the respect of everyone in my office. Thanks a lot.
• Do not reenact the climactic scene from "Never Been Kissed" at the Frederick Keys game - especially on a night when I'm not even there. It's just embarrassing.
• I'd rather you didn't drunk-dial me late at night, especially if you're too drunk to hear the beep, leaving a voicemail of mostly dead air and inebriated steroidal breathing. Or if it's karaoke night wherever you are. Or if you're drunk enough to dial my mom's number instead of mine. Just stop. Get a wing-man or something - someone to take custody of your phone until the danger has passed.
• You know I love gifts, and you know I like cool toys for my cubicle at work, but seriously dude - a whole case of mortar-and-pestle-shaped stress balls emblazoned with "CADISTA PHARMACEUTICALS" is not exactly going to win me back.
• Yes, I loved the 1980s - music, TV, movies, Presidents - you name it. But OMG do NOT stand in my front yard holding up a boom box bellowing as loudly as its D-cell-powered wooferlets can bellow, especially if your "come back to me" songs of choice are The Piña Colada Song or Fat-Bottomed Girls.

So. Just to recap: Stop trying to stop me from breaking up with you. It won't work. There's nothing you can do to change my mind. I get no joy from seeing you suffer, and even less from seeing you make a fool of yourself, but this is happening. PLEASE do us both a favor and move on. Please?

Dear Prednisone - Don't Even Think About Quoting "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" Lyrics At Me

Dear Prednisone,

I'm no good at this kind of thing, so I'll just come right out and say it. I don't think this relationship is working anymore and I think it would be best for both of us if we just stop seeing each other. I know this is not what you want, and believe me when I tell you that it is one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do, but you know as well as I do that it is time. Hell, we pretty much knew when we started seeing each other that we were never meant to be a long-term thing. Six months to a year - isn't that what EVERYBODY said? And we stretched it to over four years! Impressive.

I'm not going to try to sugar-coat this with BS like "it's not you - it's me," because truthfully, it pretty much IS you. It's you who made me all roid-ragey and emo. It's you who made me gain all that weight - presumably so no one else would look at me. It's you who made me cry at TV commercials, yell at EVERYBODY and everything, and feel guilty and crappy afterward. Did you HEAR some of the monstrous sputum I launched in the direction of my friends, coworkers and family alike? What was that?

Now, I already know what you're going to say, so I'll save you the trouble: You saved my life. Yes, you probably did, and for that I will forever be in your debt. But that does not give you the right to treat me the way you have - especially lately. The minute I hinted that I needed a little space, you went all Fatal Attraction on me. I'm not sure how many of your previous relationships that reaction has managed to save (I'm guessing none), but I promise you that it won't save this one.

Look - I don't want to fight about this. You're an amazing drug, and I have no doubt that you'll find another wonderful patient in no time. Let's just be mature, take a deep breath, and go our separate ways as friends, okay?

Love,
Joe

Don't Put Deadlines On Your Dreams

Well, the Rapture didn't happen and the world is trudging right along, just as it was on Friday. I'm not here to make a bunch of jokes at the expense of Harold Camping or his misguided followers; that's just too easy and has been done to death already. I'm sure they continue to believe, blaming their massive public failure - as they did in 1994 - on some miscalculation or misinterpretation of the data. They'll go back and recalculate the date of the Rapture and the End of Days, then grow old and die without seeing any such thing actually occur. If they're smart, though, they won't tell anyone the date, next time.

Do NOT put deadlines on your dreams. This Rapture business must be devastating to the people who believed in it. Some of those devotees gave up all of their savings. Now, not only are they broke, not only are they still here, but they're also an international punchline, devoid of any semblance of credibility forever. In a lot of ways, they probably feel as though the Rapture DID happen, but they were not taken, and are now in some sort of hell on earth. It's really hard for me to resist making fun of that.

I don't say this because I don't believe in the Rapture (although I don't), or because I don't think the world will end (it totally will). I just don't recommend giving something so important, so utterly massive, a due date. And not just Judgment Day, either. No good ever comes from declaring that aliens are coming to take you away in exactly six years, three days and seven hours.

A few other important things for which I don't recommend a drop-dead due date:

Don't go through college telling everyone that you will make your first million by age 25. This one is a lose-lose. If you don't make it, you'll think yourself a failure when that might not even be the case. If you do make your million by 25, you'll be a douche who nobody likes. And no matter what the outcome, you'll annoy all of your college friends to no end and they will stop at nothing to keep you from succeeding.

No deadlines on life stuff. You might meet Mr. Right and have a perfect little boy and a precious little girl and live in a darling little house in the suburbs with a white picket fence and a dog in the yard - all by age 30. Then again, you might meet Mr. Right and marry him, only to have him leave you for the grad student he works with at Best Buy. Or you might get stuck with two sons and no daughter. Or it could all happen, but not until you're 39.

You can't just declare that you'll learn to juggle in exactly 60 days. Recipe for disaster.

I can't tell you how many target dates for getting my first novel published have come and gone. I can't even finish reading a book in an arbitrarily-allotted amount of time.

There's no sense in telling everyone that your 1/64-scale replica of the 184-mile C&O Canal, constructed entirely of cherry tomatoes, frilly sandwich toothpicks and half-chewed Hubba Bubba gum, will absolutely, positively be finished before your middle-school "graduation." Heartbreak will ensue, trust me.

I knew a girl in college who, after breaking up with her boyfriend, told all her friends that she would be 100% over him in precisely 30 days. Guess who was still riddled with anger and drunk-dialing him almost a year later.

Two words: World Domination. Sure, it's a worthy and respectable goal, but put a deadline on it, miss that deadline, and watch the field day that Leno and Letterman and Conan have with your sorry ass.

Now, I'm not saying we should never use deadlines for any of our goals. Just try to stay away from assigning them to big, uncertain events. Keep them away from your dreams. You can't just say "I am going to be WELL, and dammit, I'm going to be well in 39 days." Try to be well, as soon as possible. Your body doesn't care one wit about the calendar - never has, never will.

It's also fine to prepare for the Rapture, if that's your thing. Just don't waste your life trying to figure out exactly when it's coming, then tell everyone in no uncertain terms that it absolutely WILL happen on Saturday only to watch as your dream fails to come true. If going to heaven is that important to you, just live your life in such a way that you're ready whether it comes tomorrow, or 540 years from tomorrow. How hard is that to do without a deadline? Is it me? It must be me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I am stepping down from a multi-year prednisone regimen, and I am going to be done by July 1st. If July 1st comes, and I'm still on the stuff and/or not WELL, I don't know what I'll do.