Billy does Vegas, Episode 2

So, my dear reader friend (MDRF), can I just tell you something?  I love the word accouterments.  It is an awesome word, and I‘m proud to announce that I used the word 6 times today, correctly. 

 

I photosynthesize all the time.

MDRF, here is a song that you can listen to while you read my blog.  I love music, and occasionally I find these little gems that just put an absolute smile on my face. 

    

This second link is another great song.  Some of you will remember my deep love-slash-fear for Miley Cyrus.  I even like some of the songs on her new album, but when I look at how fame has ravaged her, it just makes me sad-slash-glad that my parents shied away from the limelight.  We try and keep it on the DL, but here is a picture of my mom. 

Just kidding, but by the way she sings along and dances to Mama Mia in our living room, one could easily assume that she was a coauthor to the music. 

On with the post!

In this weeks episode of Billy does Vegas, Billy watches as a narcoleptic car driver gets rescued by a gothic male prostitute, and subsequently picks up said prostitute outside of a Home Depot. 

I wish I was kidding, and I only made up one detail in that last sentence. 

In all honesty, I was sitting at a traffic light when the left turn signal changed from red to green to yellow, and then to red again.  I honked several times before I realized that I couldn’t see a head in that vehicle.  I was about to jump out and investigate when a man, whose hair was the same color as watermelon skittles, wearing a black cape with black denim shorts and Frankenstein shoes, ran into the intersection and began knocking on the window. 

The man in the car instantly woke up, and returned his seat to the upright position.  Considering that our respective vehicles pulled up to the intersection at the same time I’m not entirely sure how he was able to fall asleep so quickly, or so soundly.  The gothic man then hoped in the front seat, and the two drove off.  

It really is a story as old as time.  Man falls asleep in car.  Man gets rescued by another man, and the two live happily ever after, that is until Man 2’s pimp realized that he’s lost out on a niche market, and hires the mob (which I assume we still have) to retrieve his money maker. 

Ohhhhh, I almost forgot.  While this was happening a 40 year old man (whose skin was going on 75—it was kind of that consistency of oranges that you buy from Costco with numerous good intentions, but only eat one, while the rest of the box doesn’t so much mold as it turns into nerf material) wearing only shorts ran across the street pushing a purloined shopping cart over loaded with alcohol, while a woman chased him (she wasn’t screaming, so I assume it was some type of Bonny and Clyde thing…but less lucrative).

All I can say is that I have yet to be bored in this city. 

Billy does Vegas

Alright, Today is my first day as an official Vegasonian (or do we call ourselves Las Vegans?).  To commemorate that I am posting the first installment of Billy does Vegas.  It isn’t anything major, just a few observations. 

It is hot up in here. 

No, it actually isn’t terrible.  The worst part is that my cold water faucet kicks out mildly scalding water.  I can tell it’s the cold faucet because the hot water spews forth lava.  Needless to say, I’m drinking more canned soda.  It seems like a safer option, rather than scorching my tongue. 

How did the Irish become so synonymous with alcoholism that, even in Vegas—where Irish people can’t live as the sun would sear their skin like a tuna steak, there are bars named after Irish people?  Poor Irish people.  I still love you, though I am sure we need to stage an intervention. 

Oh, MDRF, can we have a chit-chat for a minute?  How are you?  Was your commute to work stress-free?  I sure hope so.  Mine was a delight.  While stopped at the light on Sahara, heading northbound, I noticed a car heading right towards me.  Driving southbound.  In the northbound lanes.  Don’t worry.  She turned before entering the intersection, but she did get close enough for me to notice that she was Asian.  I know it is a stereotype that Asians are bad drivers (and this experience did nothing to correct that) but seriously though.  How did Asians get such a bad rap as drivers? 

Also when I told the ladies at my work about the experience they all said that the woman was clearly drunk.  IDK about that. 

Giving Up

Well, It is lunchtime.  I’ve just observed several English courses, and I’m still enthralled with the job—which is a relief, because the part of my brain that keeps me interested in stuff has been fried from my many cross country trips.  C’est la vie.  

This morning marked the end of a 3-month hiatus from the gym.  Injuries, moving, work, and road-trip made it very unlikely that any gym-stuff was going to happen.  So rather than battle it, and deal with the crippling guilt of a missed day—which I might add, is the same level of guilt associated with the trifecta of swear words, the sin of murder, adultery and not loving Dame Maggie Smith—I decided to just embrace it.  It, however embraced me, and the result was…terrifying.

Do you know what happens to your body when you stop moving, but continue to eat the same amount of cheese?  Your blood congeals, like fondue.  And your entire body—including your bones—turns squishy…like Brie.  Also, I would kill for some Blue Stiltson right about now.

And so, My Dear Reader Friend (MDRF), I decided I had endured enough.  Injury or no I was going to start working out again.   

Crossfit is the most hellishly despicable thing I’ve ever done, and I’m including the time I ran the Wasatch Back, drove across the country by myself, and went shopping at Walmart in Council Bluffs after 8pm on a weeknight—and I loved every second of it.  Let me tell you how this experience went with a phrase that should probably be embroidered on a pillow:

You’ll pass out before your die,

and you’ll throw up long before that.

So keep going.

Me, circa forever

As I crouched over the toilet heaving for ten minutes (did you think this was going somewhere different?  I mean, I’m currently writing so… passed out, and/or dead are both off the table) I couldn’t help but smile.  I smiled because I knew I had accomplished something.

MDRF, My propensity to give up is astounding.

It is a lot like this.

It is such an accomplishment that I’d suggest I deserve an award, but would probably give up before the ceremony.  In fact, in writing this post I’ve almost given up 4 times, so if you’re still reading I commend you.

This propensity means that I infrequently push myself, and I never, if not rarely, get to the point that I’m actually sick, and this is in all facets of life. Imagine if you’d pushed yourself so hard in school that you actually got sick while doing homework.  Imagine if we pushed ourselves harder in other facets including; jobs, religion, hobbies or relationships.  

No, but seriously.  We have a committed relationship.

I think most people are in this situation--not the Downton Abby situation, the quitting situation--and it is a societal consequence of our media saturated developments.  As the poet Lorde says, “maybe the internet raised us.”  A result of this is that we all think we’re celebrities and have the real-world know-how of the kardashians (ugh I was going to include a pic, but it just depressed me even looking up the kardashians.  Lets all set a goal, right now, that in all things we should strive to give it a better effort than Kim did with all three of her relationships).

We all like to give up, and honestly it doesn’t pay off because crouching over the toilet, knowing you gave it all, and smiling, might be the greatest thing on the face of the earth.

MDRF.  Here is to tomorrow.  To pushing ourselves further.  To returning to Crossfit cause we know it is gonna hurt, and to giving more in all facets of our lives.  

The long and winding road...

Well MDRF,

Padre and I are now in WY.  We decided to switch off driving each tank of gas.  With a loaded trailer, and these headwinds, that means we each get to drive about 100 miles.  That sounds terrible, but honestly it has actually made the time go by really quickly. 

Padre is currently taking a shift and instead of sleeping I decided to write (I’ll of course post this later, after all, we are driving, and I don’t have internet access, and we are literally in the middle of nowhere.) because we’ve had two experiences that gave me pause. 

To begin with, I love encountering new cultures with their own traditions.  For example, in most of western society it is customary to have gender specific facilities for potty.  We like our dude-stuff not getting in the way of our chick-stuff.  It came as a bit of a shock when the first gas station we stopped at only had one restroom. 

“Not big deal,” I thought to myself, “I’ve used unisex facilities before.”  My thoughts did not stop there. 

“Odd, the door doesn’t close.”

“Oh, goodness, look at that.  It is a unisex community bathroom.”

“Also, not a big deal, I mean, as long as there are dividers.”

“What?  There aren’t any dividers? Even at the urinals?”

“Yes Urinals plural, and they were right next to the sinks.”

“Well, both of the stalls are occupied, so I guess we use the public urinal.”

“This isn’t a big deal, I mean people all over the world urinate in public…granted they are usually drunk, or homeless, but no matter, as long as no one else decides to walk in.”

“What am I hearing?”

“Wait, is that man singing jubilations about an effective bowel movement?  Well I guess it is the small victories in life.”

That MDRF, was quite a unique experience.  It wasn’t so much awkward as it was confusing.  It is as if the designer of the aforementioned potty thought to himself, “Privacy is an odd notion.  In neighborhood we always used the same bathroom, at the same time, regardless of what company we had over. 

It almost reminds me of a particular Monty Python skit. 

Long story short, bathroom break successful, though the most entertaining thing was watching multiple people enter the restroom with their thoughts as clearly portrayed on their faces, as my thoughts were on my face.

The drive was joyously uneventful.  We didn’t encounter any cops, which I was assured would be a possibility because human trafficking in a uhaul is all the rage; and we eventually made it to WY. 

Upon entering WY we decided to get gas.  A man driving an oversized truck pulled up to the pump next to us.  He made eye contact with me, smiled, and got out of his car. 

“Goodness, Wyomingans are a friendly bunch,” I mused. 

He approached me and Padre, and said, “I was wondering if you guys would like a bunny.  I just don’t have time to take care of it anymore, and I really want to give it a nice home.” 

I realized he was indeed holding a rabbit.  My hopeful epiphany about the friendly state of WY was quickly soured into something that made me vehemently wish I was carrying a gun for protection.

“No thank you,” I said, pointing to my trailer, “I don’t have time for a rabbit.”

He kept trying to talk about how the rabbit just needed a good home, and I kept politely declining; though my politeness was turning to silent rage at the audacity it required to accost someone at a gas station, car hooked up to a pump, and try to hawk your unwanted pets.

The young man got back into his car and drove off.  He didn’t buy gas.  He didn’t try and ask other individuals if they would like a bunny—which seems stupid because I’m sure there was some lonely divorcee at a different pump, desperately thinking of a way to build a connection with his estranged children, while simultaneously sticking it to his spouse, and her new husband Criss (not Chris, as he regularly likes to point out), or some other hypothetical situation—like a real salesman.  No, instead, he simply harangued us for several minutes, then got back in his vehicle and drove off. 

Who does that?  It just seems like such an odd thing to even try.  What is the thought process which precipitates this unique experience? 

I’m sure we’ll never know, and I certainly have no desire to track down such an unstable youth.

Besides, if you need to get rid of a rabbit I can think of at least 5 ways to dispose of one, all of them far more humane than inviting a total stranger at a gas station to adopt it. 

$5 footlong, and we promise the chicken isn't rabbit.

And that, MDRF, is why sleep is important.

As I sit at my computer this morning I am coherent enough to accept that I might ramble a bit in this post.  I might go on, and on, and on about topics with little relevance to the world, my friends, or even me.  For example:
Marriage rate in Utah
correlates with
Per capita consumption of high fructose corn syrup (US)


Upload this image to imgur

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Marriage rate in Utah Marriages per 1000 people (US Census)	10.8	10.2	10.4	10.2	9.9	9.8	9.2	9.6	9	8.4
Per capita consumption of high fructose corn syrup (US) Pounds (USDA)	62.6	62.5	62.8	60.9	59.8	59.1	58.2	56.1	53	50.1
Correlation: 0.941978

While many of my friends are married, with children, and yard work, I like to think that my singleness is effectively contributing to the decline of the obesity epidemic.  The graph shows correlation, but I think it meant causation.   Yeah.  I'm pretty sure causation is the right word.   And since high fructose corn syrup and obesity and undisputedly linked together, the single adult population is effectively defeating the greatest epidemic of our generation (next to pleated pants and polio). What does this all mean?
This all means that I've lost my mind.  You see, last night I slept on the most uncomfortable mattress of my life, mine having been stored in a temporary trailer awaiting a trip to UT.  "Slept," is the wrong word, because that implies that my mind entered a REM cycle, and my body went limp.  

It should look like this.

This is what it actually looked like:

soooooo close.

Honestly, this was the most uncomfortable mattress I've ever been on.  No matter how I positioned myself my limbs fell asleep from loss of blood, I somehow pinched a nerve to the point that my leg has ached all day.  

Welcome to Target! It only looks in disrepair to attract the hipsters.

However, this is what my attempt at sleep looked like:

Despite having gone to bed at a reasonable hour, I didn't sleep.  FINALLY at 3 am I decided to go and get something done.  

It was a great time to be on the road, with an unbelievably plentiful number of drivers.  I would assume that a goodly portion of Omaha was also sleeping on bad mattresses...either that or I interrupted the annual Midnight Home Invasion Conference (MHIC).  This is one of the BIG DEAL conferences, attracting crowds from all over the world to present relevant scholarship on burgling.  This year's keynote address was given by Dr. Teejay Campbeen on the psychology of floral patterns in wallpaper.  Riveting stuff.  I think next year's conference will be held in the bustling metropolis of Broken Bow, NE.

I just realized I don't actually have a point.  I was going to try and transition this story into some valuable life lesson, but the story ends with me buying a pack of Red Bulls and a styrofoam cooler from a Walmart, and then hopping next door to get some Egg McMuffins cause I was starving, finishing the morning off with some homework and SNL reruns, and finally collapsing on the floor sobbing.  It looked a lot like when you lock you SIM character in a room with no toilet and they cry for hours.

I guess I could try and extrapolate that sleep is important, rest is needful, and that is why God commanded everyone to rest from their labors for a day, but I feel like that cheapens the meaning.

In any case, I hope you all have a great day.  Hopefully I'll get some grand insight, or maybe I'll just go take a nap once my second breakfast of Red Bull and snickers wears off.