Man, modern times have sure put the pressure on friendships. It used to be that I’d talk to some friends on occasion. I’d see them when I saw then and sometimes I would call them and really the only ones I kept up with on a serious basis were my close friends. Everyone else got what they got and so did I. You’d maybe write a letter, run into them at a pizza shop or whatever.

I had a few friends I saw once a year. You know what I mean? that was it. Once a year. And that was fine. I took the time I had and I talked and hung out and everyone was all right with this.

But now. Oh man, now. Now everyone keeps up with everyone else all the time. Reading blogs and twitter and data feeds and facebook and IM and email plus time in person and on the phone and suddenly I’m running to keep up with people I really don’t know that well.

Maybe I know them really well in some senses, because I’m parsing that much data about them, but before when it was fine seeing them once a year, did it matter? Did it lessen things? Not really. Now I have to try and keep up with people who would be generally just low level acquaintances in every way possible, just because that’s what’s done. It’s expected. And at times it’s simply too much.

But me being me and all I find myself feeling bad all the time. I “lost touch” with someone. Meaning I didn’t talk to them directly enough, I was only an observer of their minutiae and not a participant. I didn’t respond to their posts, their twitter, hit “like” or leave comments on their facebook statuses, I was just there. Because, well, they weren’t really close friends. Close friends are the ones you seriously make an effort to keep up with.

Except now that’s everyone. It’s so easy to keep up with them all, and I start to, because it is so easy except then it gets overwhelming and no one can keep up close with too many people and then I get frustrated. Because it’s too easy to keep up with people and that means that, realistically, it is harder than ever. Too easy means I keep up with too many people and then people slip. So now I’ve stopped keeping up with people that maybe, just maybe, they don’t care and I don’t care and yet there’s this odd feeling – this disconnect that because it is so easy to do it should be done.

So I cut back on it and try to limit myself. But it’s so easy. Fucking future, they always sell it as easier and shinier when really it is a complexity to interlinked connections that need faster and faster processing to juggle and our brains don’t get upgrades.

It’s so easy. The fuck it is.

In bed, half-asleep, when the cat comes up to be petted. Of course she does. So I sleepily reach out a hand and scratch her head for a minute. Then I put my hand back under the covers and start to close my eyes. She mrfs at me, annoyed that I’ve stopped. So I look at her.

“Hey, shush, it’s not all about you,” I mutter to her, because I am a crazy man and talk to my cat sometimes.

“Oh man, yes! It is!” comes the reply in shouted English.

Look, nothing wakes you up like having your cat reply to you in clear English. Seriously.

“Say that again,” I dared her.

She looked at me and all I get is a mrf. I tried to goad her, all the while thinking I must have imagined it. I mean the cat doesn’t speak English. She really doesn’t, except I know what I heard and it wasn’t an auditory hallucination, I wasn’t going mad, not like that no something happened, I heard her say…

“Yeah! Fuckers! HAHAHAHAH!”

Or, you know, I heard some guy outside, in another apartment, yelling.

Whatever.

Stupid cat probably does speak English and was trying to throw me off the scent.

Why do I ever go outside?

I’m standing on the platform, waiting for a train so I can go home. Headphones are in, Glee tracks are playing, everything is right with the world. I have a list of stuff to do when I get home and I’m feeling good about it all.

This old woman starts to tap on my arm. She had to be at least 80, big tan down jacket that went to her ankles just about, scarf on her head, the works. So I take out my headphones. I figure I can be helpful, right? She had to need directions or something. It was the last nice thought I had.

“Aren’t you that man from the TV?” she asked. Well that’s new. I don’t think I’ve ever been mistaken for an actor before. That’s pretty cool!

“Uh, no, sorry,” I said.

“Are you sure?” she asks, seeming to be positive I am who she thinks I am. “That man from the TV you know the one who plays the retard?”

I stop. I blink. I play that back a few times at speed. “Excuse me?”

“That nice man from the TV, on that show?”

“What show?”

“You know the one with the police? Yes, you look just like him!”

“Like the… like the mentally challenged man on the police show?”

“Yes,” she insists, smiling now, “but well he’s… well.”

“Taller?” I thought maybe he was taller, you know. He could’ve been taller. Taller would’ve been fine. But no.

“No he doesn’t look as strange.”

“Strange?”

“Well, you know, not ugly but… Are you sure you aren’t him?”

“The retarded, ugly actor from your TV?” I ask, trying to keep my voice perfectly fine while I simultaneously try to not push her onto the tracks. “No. I don’t act.” Because what else can you say?

And I turn toward her, trying, seriously here, to be nice and calm. And then… well…

“Oh,” she says, frowning, now that she can see the left side of my head, “no he didn’t have a gay earring.”

Which is when I snapped.

“Bitch,” I said, “you do not insult the Hello Kitty earring. You respect it! Got that?”

“What did you call me?”

“The retarded, ugly man called you a bitch. Keeee-rist!”

At which point I walked away, further up the platform to get away from her. Because with my luck she’d want to throw down, whip out a taser, shock me until I fell onto the tracks and then the train would come. That’s how this shit goes, it seems. I still have no idea what show she even meant! But I do hope we all learn a lesson from this:

THE HELLO KITTY EARRING

RESPECT IT!

One day, when I was a kid, I looked at the TV and asked why my grandmother was on it, on an awards show. Not the grandmother who caused me to electrocute myself, fall off a six foot ladder and then stepped on my head while laughing about it – no the mean, crazy one I didn’t like.

Of course my grandmother wasn’t on TV. Her doppelganger was. The one person in the universe who looked exactly like her, to a scary degree. The person who would confuse me when I saw images, even today.

Yes, I’m talking about George Burns.

It’s very odd when your grandmother, the crazy drunk, looks like George Burns. First of all you never really learn to enjoy the “Oh God” movies. Not ever. Secondly, well there’s the problem that your grandmother looks like a tiny draper man. It’s disconcerting at first.

Of course then you get older and realize a bigger problem:

They both kinda look like E.T.

My commute this morning was a bit strange. I was standing on the platform, waiting for a train, when I felt a tapping on my shoulder. I turned to look and a little old lady was smiling at me, tapping my arm. Even though I was looking at her, she was all a-tapping. So I took my headphones off and waited. I figured maybe she needed train directions or something like it. It’s happened. But no.

“Have you heard the word of Jesus?” she asked me, with a big ol’ smile. I wanted, frankly, to scream. Really? Bothering someone in the morning with this stuff? Seriously? But no, I wouldn’t give in. I would be – awesome.

“Is it ‘Booyah’?” I asked her. She looked confused. Literally, standing there with her mouth open. “There are a lot of words. I’m not sure which one is Jesus’. Did he write his name on it or something? I mean if I was the son of God and all I might pick ‘Booyah’ or maybe something no one would guess. Is it ‘Argleblargle’?”

She closed her mouth and started to look annoyed. Well, good. Now she knew how I felt. “No,” she said testily, “I meant the Good Word.”

“Oh. Uhm, well that does limit it. What’s the Good Word?” She started to say something but I cut her off with a quick “Don’t tell me, I’ll get it!” and a wave of my hand. “It’s ‘Funkadelic’ isn’t it?”

She outright glared at me and started to turn away in a huff. I had struck a nerve. Her God wasn’t funkadelic at all. How lame is that, right? I could see the train drawing close, and started to put my headphones back in. She stood there, frowning. The train roared into the station. “Are you sure,” I asked loudly as the train ground to a halt, “it isn’t ‘Funkadelic’ because we both know it should be!”

And then, you know, I got on the train and came to work.

Morning.

Friday night I went downtown to grab some food with Hammerpants. After we ate we considered maybe seeing a movie. So we walked up to Union Sq and didn’t feel like seeing anything there and so we decided we’d see what was playing at the little theatre on 12th. We came into view of the marquee and this is what I saw:

Then the following conversation occurred:

Me: Oh, holy shit we’re going to that.

Hammerpants: What?

Me: An Armageddon / Wild Things double feature? I don’t care if we’re out until 4AM, we’re doing this. We’re doing this so hard.

Hammerpants: Uhm.

Me: Oh holy shit, it’s on, motherfucker.

Hammerpants got a look on his face like he was trying to find a way out of this predicament. Maybe by gnawing off a leg. Maybe by pushing me into traffic. He didn’t know what to do. He also knew I was dead fucking serious.

Hammerpants: Uhm, well.

Me: This is the best thing ever.

Hammerpants: Really. Uhhh. No.

Me: We’re so doing this. Fuck yes.

So we get there and two things happen. First, the last showings for things had already started. Secondly they were showing Waiting for Armageddon and Where the Wild Things Are, and not as a double feature, either. They just had limited marquee space.

So Hammerpants got out of it. I spent the rest of the three hours we were out and about occasionally going “You know what would be awesome? If we were watching an Armageddon / Wild Things double feature right now. But the fucking theatre lied to us.” And every time I’d say it, Hammerpants would laugh and then, subtly, sigh in relief.

Fucking theatre lied to me, man.

Earlier this week, I sent a gift to Lauren, my oft-times editor and co-plotter and collaborator on many laugh-y things. I sent her a gift because, well, I felt like it. Like a late Xmas gift or something. Whatever. The point is a company had sent a box to her dwelling.

Like I always tend to when I ship things to people as surprises, I put my phone number down in the contact info. Just in case, I tell myself, besides no one has ever called me about a package, so where’s the problem? There ain’t no problem here.

There was a problem.

So I’m at work and my cell rings. I’m free enough to answer it and it’s a number I don’t recognize so I assume it’ll be a ten second “wrong number” call. And then the voice on the phone asks me if I’m Lauren. I think I muttered a confused “Buh?” What I didn’t know was that Lauren’s middle name must be “Buh,” because the guy continued on as if I had said, clearly and loudly, “Yes, I am who you wish to speak to, foolish mortal!”

So he tells me I have a package waiting for me. Suddenly things made sense. It’s true, until then I had no clue why someone was calling me Lauren and making my phone ring. But then I got it. They were letting the person who had their number listed as the recipient know the package was there.

Except knowing that I started to worry. I mean I had just, inadvertently, claimed to be another person! That’s gotta be a problem, somewhere. What if, I thought, they ask again? Do I come clean or just say “Buh” again and hope it works? I couldn’t admit to them that I wasn’t Lauren, because then I would have to explain and the entire phone call would become so odd as to implode the universe. But then I would have to keep up this living of a lie. What if, I pondered, they called back later? Would I have to still be Lauren? Where would the lies stop?

And for a few seconds I entered this odd mindset where I would have to telephonically pretend to be Lauren, and avoid her finding out until I was slowly stealing her life, over the phone until something like… I dunno… C. Thomas Howell saved us all, or whatever. In the 80’s. With a mullet. .

And then I got over it, hung up the phone and tried to explain all of this in one short txt msg to Lauren. Whom, I am sure, shrugged and thought “Well, he’s batshit crazy, whatever, package, hooray!” But for a tiny bit there I was ready to star in an 80’s action/crime/thriller. I was.

Buh.

Around 3AM I heard a noise. I had been half-awake for a few minutes, as I often wake up in the middle of the night, on and off, long enough to remember it. It was a distinct thump, with a mad flutter behind it. I laid there, facing away from the window, heard the thump and then, within a second, felt a thump against the back of my head.

I startled. Wouldn’t you? I mean, my brain made a quick connection between the sounds and a bird, and then something fell against my head, and I mean fell, like an uncontrolled whump of landing.

It was the cat.

See, Kenzie had been asleep on the other pillow. Curled up in the cutest little ball you ever did see. And when this pigeon had tried to land on the windowsill, and it seems, missed a bit, causing it to crash against the window a bit, stumble and fall off the windowsill in a hurricane of mad flapping, Kenzie woke up.

She woke up and startled at the sight and noise. Her amazing cat-like ninja response?

Startle and stand up and fall over backwards, landing against my head. Which is what startled me. So there we are, glaring at each other, both of us constantly glancing at the window. She’s bitching and snarfing at me and is in a state of panic and confusion. I’m putting all this together and straightening it out in my own head.

So I pet her for a while, while she complains. It’s a very clear “Don’t you get it? We could’ve died, man! That might’ve been a grenade!” and I’m just petting her. Every few pets she turns away and scampers over to the window. She peers out, sniffs at the gap (the window is very minorly open because my radiator won’t turn off and it’s that or boil) and comes back to complain and be calmed some more.

I give up and try to go back to sleep. I lay there, facing the window this time, and Kenzie curls up on the other pillow. Then she decides, no, what if they try to take over the city again, she can’t be caught napping. So she sits up and stares down the outside world a while. Then she curls up. Then she goes to sniff at the window. Then she curls up.

So I grab her and hold her against my chest and pet her more and try to go back to sleep.

Which is when another bird made a fly-by. Just close enough that Kenzie decided to sit on the windowsill. By the time I got up this morning she was elsewhere, but I’m pretty sure she stayed there until dawn. Waiting.

The city is safe. If they try anything, why, I’m sure she’ll defend us all, by falling over in surprise, again.

Most years I try to take a small vacation in Mid-March. Ish. Around then. Anyway. This year I am simply not sure where to go. I like to go visit places where I can hang out with people I deeply enjoy the company of. My current options seem to be:

Baltimore
SF
LA
Portland
Orlando
Ohio
Atlanta

Of course some venues are harder than others. Places I would need to arrange for accommodations get pricier (Baltimore or Atlanta, really, mostly due to dogs and bad allergies) but then so do further out places. So, yeah. I’m not sure where to go for this vacation, or even if I decide to take it this year. But assuming I do take a vacation, guys, where should I go? This is, generally, a leave Weds or Thurs and come home Sunday or Monday type of quick hit trip. A long weekend. Maybe a full week at the very outside.

So, got ideas?

Feb 16th @ 8pm come see me, Vito Delsante and Nick Tapansky whore it up and laugh it up at the Comic Book Club with hosts Justin, Pete and Alex. The Comic Book Club is a live, weekly show about, well, comics. It’s perfectly hysterical, to be honest. So I’m a bit excited to be able to announce this very special event. Details below, but short form: Feb 16th, 8pm, @ The PIT, tickets are $5. Real details and such are below. I hope to see some of you there!

COMIC BOOK CLUB: A Live Weekly Talk Show about Comic Books

Hosted by Justin Tyler, Pete LePage, and Alex Zalben

Featuring:
***Popgun Spectacular!***
w/ Adam P. Knave
Vito Delsante &
Nick Tapansky

Tuesday, February 16th @ 8:00 PM

Tickets: $5
Online: ThePIT-NYC.com
Phone: 1-800-838-3006
Questions? 212-563-7488

The Peoples Improv Theater
154 West 29th Street, 2nd Floor
Between 6th and 7th Aves.

Check out the website:
http://www.popcultureshock.com/comicbookclub

Check out the web stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/comicbookclub

The show is sponsored in part by Midtown Comics:
http://www.midtowncomics.com

Check out the podcast on iTunes:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=273148505