"Yeahhh... not my favorite."

Let me describe the two neighbors that sandwich me on either side.

Ezra lives in an efficiency just like mine, only half the size, meaning she does not live in the Embassy Suites of Efficiences like this guy. She does, however, think that my name is "Bryson."

"Bryson," she'll say, looking me straight in the eyes, with so much confidence, "we should really chill some time. You seem like a really interesting person."

"Bryson," she'll say, like one of those people who read in some self help book along the way that the best method for showing people how much you value them is by saying their name often and with gusto, "how was your day?"

She used to call me Bayless, that's the best part. For about a month actually. She used to look me in the eyes, and confidently address me as Bayless. She was showing how much she valued me.

I always have to look away when she calls me Bryson now. I didn't tell her the first few times; how could I possibly tell her now? I cannot. It's too late. I am going to answer to Bryson until one of us either moves or dies. And don't think I can't do it. Anyone who has known me for even a short period of time would be foolish to think that I wouldn't walk five thousand miles to make her keep thinking that's my name.

Then there's Craig. I've written about Craig before -- he claimed to have invented "the list." Joking, of course. That's because Craig is a joker. A funny one? In a way. It depends on your definition of the term. I think he's funny because he makes me laugh. It's just that usually, I'm laughing at him. Sometimes with; but normally at.

The first time I ever met Craig was the day I was moving in. My place smelled like a dead oppossum when I first got here. A dead oppossum and morning breath. It reeked. What the previous tenant was doing in here, I don't want to know. All I knew was that I had to get some incense going in this joint, pronto.

I don't know what scent of incense it was, but it reminded me of college, and it smelled better than my apartment. I had just lit up the first stick of it when Toucan Sam followed his nose up the stairs on my front porch and towards my open door. It was the first time we had ever met.

"Is that uhh, incense you got burning there?" Craig asked, scoping the place out without stepping inside, as if this was somehow less rude. He sniffed, sniffed-sniffed, like my doorway was the anus of a neighbor's dog.

"Yeah," I said, thinking this was just his way of parlaying into an introduction and welcome.

"Yeahhh, not my favorite," he said, completely straight faced.

I stared blankly.

"Okay," I finally responded.

"There's just something about the smell of incense," Craig said, making that face that goes along with what he came out with next. "It just ... it bothers me, ya know?"

I was the one burning incense. I did not know, obviously.

"I mean..." What did he want me to do, apologize? It's not like Craig and I share a vent. He lives in a separate building entirely, though it's right next door.

"It's just like ... spicy, or something," he said.

"Hmm." I pretended to ponder his point. "Well," I gave that a few seconds, "it was nice to meet you..."

"Craig."

Craig.

Craig must stub his toe a lot, or he must be a huge fan of some seriously shitty sports teams, because I've never heard someone howl F-bombs and curse in scary outbursts from their apartment more than this guy. I don't know what's going on in there sometimes, and I'm not ever going to ask.

Oh, and here is his newest joke that he likes to say every time he walks by my place when I've got music playing.

"Reggae, huh?" As in, "so you're one of those kids, huh?"

"Yup, Craig. Reggae. Still listen to reggae. Just like last week. Hasn't changed."

"Sounds tribal. It's like ... tribal, music." A human thesaurus, that man.

"What does that mean, Craig? Explain what you mean by ... 'tribal,'" I try and put him on the spot.

"It's funny. Most people go through a phase where they listen to reggae and then, they, go back to ..."

"To what, Craig?"

"Tribal. It's like tribal." He's one of those people who can't cut their losses on a bad joke, and just keeps digging, digging, digging, until you've reached a tectonic plate of unfunniness. "Ya mon. Rastafari mon."

"I'm not a Rasta, Craig."

"Tribal."

(Sigh)

Como se dice 'wash your freaking manos,' Jose?

All I did at work today, literally, was read about swine flu. Swine flu fever, baby, and not a dose of Tamiflu to cure me.

I hate swine flu. I am tired of swine flu. But something tells me that for the rest of the week, all I'm gonna be reading is news about swine flu.

That is, unless my friendship with Jose doesn't kill me first.




Jose is the cleaning guy at my office. He comes in between 6:15 and 6:45todos los días. It's funny that I'm able to read Spanish newspapers all day for my job, and yet am almost completely unable to carry on a conversation with Jose. But I try. Oh, do I try.

¿No has comido un cerdo hoy? I asked this afternoon when he and his wife Maria, also my friend despite a language barrier, pushed their plastic trash cans on wheels into my little annex in the corner of the office. I only know the word for "pig" because a Spanish teacher at my high school used to call my friend Nick Pigneri Cerdito, or "little pig." But "pig" is not "pork," meaning that's probably not the way you ask if someone has eaten pork today in Spanish. It'd probably be the equivalent of of the exchange student from "Can't Hardly Wait" asking, "Yes my friend, but you do not have ingested Animal Farm character Napoleon today, no?"

But Jose is from Mexico, and he doesn't live under a rock. So he understood what his good friend Bílly was asking.

"No, no," dijo Jose. (The word "no" is universal, and I am thankful for that.) "Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish." (Everything after "no," though, varies from language to language.)

It's at this point in nearly every conversation with Jose -- when he vollies back my opening serve with a stream of rapid, unintelligible Guanajuatan Spanish -- that I do my nod. (Nod, nod, smiling, nod). It's the one I do when pretending to know what Jose has just said, when in reality I have no idea. I just try and gauge his body language and tone of voice and go from there with what I try and say next, always trying to sound like a true vato, not some Gringo. At least I can roll my R's like a frrrrreaking champ.

So at this point in our daily tennis match over the net known as a nearly impenetrable language barrier, it's 30-15, me. The awkward question making light of the swine flu (15-love), followed by his backhand winner of Spanish-Spanish-Spanish (15-all), met with me feeling really good about myself for really hitting the sixth letter of gobierno like a Zeta on a shop owner that doesn't want to pay rent. Thirty-fifteen.

Then he worked me, game-set-match, as we tried to continue the conversation to a point beyond head nods and smiles. We (tried to) talk about swine flu, and his home in central Mexico, and the fact that Jose has three sons still living in Guanajuato, which I'd heard of once before, in a Robert Earl Keen song. I always liked the sound of that place. Won-uh-wato.

I wonder if Jose wonders what it's like there right now. All joking aside.

But since I'm a heartless bastard, we must return to joking, of course.

The entire time, I noticed that Jose had a runny nose. And that he was sniffling. Aaaand he was wiping his nose with his hand, which he probably had no intention of washing.

Which, ladies and gentleman, is the best way to spread swine flu.


¡Lava los manos, Jose!

That's what I yelled at him. He nodded and laughed. I wonder if he understood what I was saying.

Eat More Chicken, six days a week.

I never get good stuff in the mail. None of us -- me, nor the four previous tenants of unit 111 who are still getting letters from every coupon issuer in the southwest United States -- ever do. Do I want to save a dollar on toothpaste? Of course I do -- but not if it means I have to spend $20 on other body cleaning products to qualify. I find it very ironic that it wasn't until I moved to the biggest hippie town in Texas that I began to receive smalls redwood forests worth of spam mail in my box every day.

At least I'm riding my bike to and from work now instead of driving, so I can try and balance out the environmental effects of my existence. I feel like a third world country that just sold all my carbon credits to the U.S. or China.

But I did find a good coupon in my mail box on Thursday. This was a legitimate something-for-nothing offer; the only catch was the distance. I-35 and Ben White is certainly too far for a bike. But the Chick-fil-A out on I-35 and Ben White is also known as "directly on the way back to Houston." Suddenly the thought of a free 3-count chick-n-strips and a FREE chicken biscuit was making the prospects of going home for a weekend taste a whole lot nicer.

I would, if I could, on Easter Sunday, jerks

I tacked the coupon -- which is about three times the size it needs to be -- onto my bulletin board. I knew I'd be driving by that very location this Sunday, for Easter.

It was all working out perfectly. Jesus dies approximately, what, 1,976 years and three days ago? Then he wakes up, and directly because of that, 1,976 years later I'm driving right by the Chick-fil-A on I-35 and Ben White, and I just happen to be holding a coupon in my hand for some free shit.

The law of unintended consequences doesn't have to always have a negative connotation.

Then I remembered: Chick-fil-A is run by Christians. It's Easter Sunday.

Omfg.

I haven't been burned by Jesus like this since I missed Ballard's no-hitter my fourth year in college because of Easter brunch. But unlike that scarring event -- (Mike Ballard, a left handed pitcher for the AAA Oklahoma City Redhawks, was a friend from my first year hall who I saw pitch dozens of time throughout his college career, only to miss his final regular season start, which turned out to be a no-hitter) -- this one wasn't technically Jesus' fault. This was Chick-fil-A's fault.

"Oh, we love God so much that we're not even open on Sunday."

I haven't seen such blatant broadcasting of piety since the hair shirt. Get out of my face, Chick-fil-A. We get it; you're all going to Heaven. Now give me my goddamn chick-n-strips, the 3-count, and my chicken biscuit!

You don't even have to break the sabbath, guys. You don't even have to sin. Just outsource your Sunday operations to a cadre of duplicitous Jews. Or franchise it out to some infidel Muslims. Or even subcontract the work to a handful of perpetually cynical atheists. Shit, me and my friends will do it for chump change. I'm looking for part time work on the weekends anyway.

Chick-fil-A is all about the letter of the law. I'm harping on their violation of the spirit of the law. You can't sneak one past God. What Chick-fil-A thinks He's viewing as piety, I know He's viewing as them foresaking their flock. Is the appearance of being a good Christian corporation more important than serving their brothers and sisters in Christ? Especially when they're on the way to celebrate Easter with their family?

I think we all need to question them on their true motives. Here is a link to their "Contact Us" page.

Contact them. Ask them what their deal is. Ask them what's really driving them on this issue. Tell them their parishioners feel abandoned. Tell them Bayless told you to do it. When this movement starts picking up momentum, I want credit as the man who led the revolution to open Chick-Fil-A's on Sundays.

I hate the f福留 孝介ing Cubs more than any other team in baseball.

福留 孝介!!

But I love Kosuke Fukudome.

Opening Day is maybe my favorite day. The buzz of Christmas day fades with time, in direct proportion to the strength of your belief in Santa, and to your inability to purchase material things with your own money. Opening Day, though, never gets old. It's the only day of the year that Pirates fans can honestly say, "We are in this thing." The American Dream is alive on Opening Day, even for people from Kansas City.

The Astros (from this point forward known as "we") played the Cubs tonight. We lost, 4-2. The main reason I didn't really care, besides the fact that we've got 161 games to catch up, is because I got to meet Mr. Toots.

I don't know how to really spell his name, but I sure can spell it phonetically: Mr. Toots. And I thought I had it hard growing up, with a name elementary school kids could make fun of for rhyming with a low end shoe store, and that junior high kids could make fun of for rhyming with "Gayless," which, no matter how many times I explained it, actually means the opposite of what it was intended to mean.

Payless, Gayless, or Mr. Toots? I will take the first two, thank you very much.

Mr. Toots, well, he's just happy his name isn't Kosuke Fukudome (koh-skay foo-koo-doh-may).

Until we were properly introduced, I was referring to Mr. Toots as the "It's goin' be cold tomorruh" guy. We all know this guy. He's the one we always sit next to on the five-hour flight, or get stuck in line behind at the DMV. It's-goin-be-cold-tomorruh guy doesn't have anything meaningful to say, so he remarks on the weather. And guys who remark on the weather because they don't have anything else of substance to say love when the temperature is due to change. Because that, that is something to remark on. It's goin' be cold tomorruh!

"Hey Bob," It's-Goin-Be-Cold-Tomorruh Guy said, in a truly authentic Southern drawl, "how do ya pronounce that boy's name?" Shockingly, this guy knew my dad. (That's actually not shocking; The Bob knows everyone in Houston.)

"That boy" was a reference to Fukudome. Garland and I had been talking about that very topic earlier. We made quick eye contact, and she broke into a huge smile.

I turned and told him the answer: "It's actually pronounced 'Fuck you, dome.' He really didn't like playing at the Astrodome."

"Oh he didn't, did he?" Mr. Toots -- I now knew his name -- asked rhetorically. Men with Southern drawls as genuine as that are not going to be offended if I drop the F bomb. "HAW!" A laugh as authentically Dixie as his accent. "Haw haw haw!"

"Actually, it was his parents. They had beef with the Dome."

This parlayed into a discussion between him and my father, about me. A few minutes later, I heard this:

"Swa-HEE-LEE? He speaks SwaHEELEE?"

The Bob told him that yes, he had heard him correctly.

"Bayless," he said, "you speak Swahili?"

I turned. "Yes sir."

"Aw, MAN!"

"Yeah, it really helps me in today's job market."

"SwaHEElee! Well I'll be. Ya know, your dad told me a lot about you, but I never figured you'd look the way you do." Not sure, even now, what he meant by that.

"How did you think I'd look?" I asked, our relationship up to this point based entirely upon two things: 1) that I had told him the Japanese boy's name was actually "Fuck you, dome," and 2) that I speak Swa-hee-lee. "Black?"

"Yeah!" he exclaimed. "Like a negra!"

I can now check yet another item off my list: hearing a man say the word "nee-gruh" in a sentence, loudly, in public, iiiiin the 21st century.

My little sister Garland, whose face was hidden from Mr. Toots, was glad that her face was hidden from the man. She was also crossing an item off of her list.

"You are who you vote for, I guess," I said.

"And I did NOT!" he informed the entire section, beaming, as he raised his $8 beer to his lips and defiantly swigged a $1.35 gulp.

"And that's not surprising," I whispered to Garland.

Must be the shoes.

"God, it's impossible to run in these things."

Both of the girls were late, and as I rapidly approached them, I heard one hit the nail right on the head. It is hard to run in those things, high heeled shoes, which is why girls shouldn't wear them, ever. They cannot be comfortable, and they make you walk extremely awkwardly. But even worse, they make you late to Jerry Seinfeld. Both of these girls were struggling in vain to pick up the pace, which was extremely inconvenient, as Jerry was scheduled to come on at 9:30. My phone said it was 9:29. They'd come to hear some jokes, not realizing that the joke was on them: they'd gotten their parking spot earlier, but I was about to blow by them, all because they wanted to make sure their calves looked more appealing that night.

"You're gonna run?" I'd heard Jamison ask about 30 seconds earlier, when it was 9:28, right as I started to turn on the jets. He works outside in the hot sun all day on an organic farm, picking vegetables and getting tired. Plus, Jamison is much more "chill" than me. It was clear he didn't want to run. But I had the tickets, and I wasn't waiting for him. So he started to run, too.

I was flying. Gliding is more like it, actually. It felt like recess. I half expected a tire swing to be waiting for me around every bend and corner. Running hasn't been that much fun in years. "Must be the shoes," I thought to myself, giggling almost.

Flash back three hours, to an outdoor patio bar in Austin. It's Friday afternoon, the sun is shining with not a cloud in the sky, and I'm drinking good beer. Life is good. And I am explaining to my boss why it is exactly that I love working at the company I work for.

Extremely casual any-day-that-ends-with-Y

"I mean, anywhere that lets me wear Pumps to work," I said, "is a place I want to work."

If you give me an inch, I will most certainly take a mile. Despite being an office with cubicles, computers and Xerox machines, no one seems to care what anyone wears at my job, as long as you're not naked pretty much. I wear collared shirts to make it look like I'm trying, but the truth is that I am chilling when it comes to my professional wardrobe. One of the more senior employees referred to my style yesterday as "pajama style." Others call it the "Bayless look." I call it keeping it real. I certainly don't wear high heels.

My boss looked down at the works of art on my feet, the ones that scream, "I AM WEARING SHOES! YOU ARE NOT MISTAKEN! I AM MOST DEFINITELY, WEARING, SHOES!" and made an incredulous look. "Those aren't pumps," she said, dismissively, as if I must be a complete retard.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, dismissively, as if she must be a complete retard.

"Those are not pumps. Pumps are ladies' shoes."

"Yes... and these are Pumps, too."

"No," she said, "they're not."

"Yes," I said, holding out the tongue that says the word "pump" on it in bolded red letters, so she could see how wrong she was, "they are."

Her eyes scanned the letters: p-u-m-p, and her eyebrows loosened a bit. "Oh." The sound of victory. "I thought you were talking about ladies' shoes."

"Yeah, I heard you."

How does someone my age, a fellow member of Generation Text Me, not know what Reebok Pumps are? I stored the incident away in my mental file cabinet, the one that is labeled, Things I Will Give People Shit for for the Rest of Their Lives.

Flash forward now, back to the two girls in pumps.

"God, it's impossible to run in these things."

Do you ever feel like you're in a dream? Like you're starring in "The Truman Show?" Like the existence of God is proven by moments in your life that just seem like they've been scripted? Any time someone tees something up for me like that, I feel all of these things simultaneously.

She was in pumps. I was in Pumps. We were both late. But only one of us had any chance of making it in on time.

That would be me.

Coming up right behind them faster than Dale Jr. on a grandma driving home from Tuesday night bingo, I did not even stop as I riddled their pathetic bodies with a drive by of abuse: "Think if you'd been wearing THESE Pumps instead of THOSE pumps!" I yelled in their faces.

"AHH!" one screamed. The other made the loudest inhalation in the history of breathing. Both were terrified and confused. Jamison wasn't terrified, but he was amused, even though he didn't even hear what I'd yelled at these poor, defenseless girls, whose calves were supposed to look mighty appealing.

I bounded down the stairs that lay ahead two, three at a time, as I left them with one parting sentence.

"LOOK AT WHAT YOU'D BE DOING RIGHT NOW!!"

The moral is this: keep it casual, be yourself, don't worry about how your calves look, and good things will happen to you.

(Although, those girls made it with plenty of time to spare. I didn't realize someone as big time as Jerry Seinfeld would have an opening act.)

Update on my problems with being like Borat's brother Bilo and making coffee in the morning.

1) Last night, two days after I guaranteed I would forget to put the pot on again within a month, I forgot to put the pot on. Luckily, though, I remembered within five seconds.

2) This morning, I remembered to put the pot on, pressed the start button and went to get dressed. Then I turned on my computer, poured a bowl of cereal, gallivanted around my living room in the sleep-in-your-eyes daze, and went back to the coffee maker. No coffee in the pot. Wtf. Oh, wait, that's right.

I didn't fill it up with water.

It's either flooding or it's a drought over at Chez Bilo. But I have a very funny reeeeeeetardation!