Skin Care for Men

A few weeks ago I was passing through Walgreens in the search for a gallon of milk. Already you should be amazed by this because, as everyone knows, to make it past the lethal barrier of traffic in the parking lot of Walgreens is a rare and mighty feat.

Well, you know as I do that I am a sucker. I will buy anything--any product, gizmo, gadget, toy, widget, or bauble--that is cleverly marketed, labelled, or designed. Or if it's at eye level. This was the case in the checkout line at Walgreens.

For there, sitting on an elevated wire basket in a hygenic plastic case, they sat: a collection of Burt's Bees personal care products, all dressed with the black and white logo of that empathetic hippie, staring out at me with labels like Natural Lemon Cuticle Cream, All Natural Hand Salve, Wild Lettuce Complexion Soap, All Natural Citrus Face Exfoliant, and Rosemary Mint Shampoo Bar.

Instantly several things occurred. Mostly positive word association. My grandmother, I remembered, used salve regularly to clear her head and would apply it liberally to my chest during times of respiratory illness. Randi uses a cuticle cream and swears that her nails are exponentially stronger than before. I love oranges and most all other citrus. And, most importantly, I had just ran out of my favorite shampoo from Bath and Body works: Rosemary Mint. I thought of all these things and smiled in the checkout line.

I took the gift set home and sat down with it. I unpacked the clear plastic case and expelled their contents upon my lap. Hidden behind the abovementioned goodies were a Wild Lettuce Skin Toner, a Rosemary Pre-Shampoo, a Stick of Burt's Bees Lip Balm, and a Coconut Foot Cream.

I remember my mother used a toner all her life. Every night before she went to bed she would use cotton balls to dab at her face with the alcohol-smelling liquid. She would always smile and say to whoever would listen that it tingled. I looked around. I didn't have cotton balls. I had some paper towels.

I took some paper towels and dumped some (read: half the bottle) of the toner onto the paper towel. I scrubbed my face. The rough towel did not feel pleasurable. The toner tingled, but my face smelled like, well... wild lettuce.

Picking up the citrus scrub, I went to the bathroom to remedy the problem. There I made a gross paste of water and citrus scrub (per the directions) and applied it all over my cheeks, neck, and forehead. Unfortunately I did not know prior to that that "exfoliating" means "has little rocks in it" and I instantly found that rubbing small stones on my face was less pleasurable than not rubbing small stones on one's face. I washed off the paste to discover that the lettuce smell came through stronger... except now it was actively battling the smell of oranges and cloves for attention.

By now I was uncomfortable. But I had paid for so much more. I went back to my chair and picked up the cuticle cream. It smelled nice, like a lemon Pez. Unfortunately the cream's natural habitat is deep beneath the nails, where it will turn black and unattractive. It will also evade removal until the nails force it out by growth. The plus side is that my nails smelled like lemon. Unfortunately whenever I would lift my hands to my face, the orange and lettuce would rebound from my cheeks to attack the lemon scent, making for an olfactory menage-a-trois that made my sinuses cramp.

But did I stop? Pfft. Greasy hand salve covered my hands as I opened the Coconut foot cream. I had not intended to use this item (because it, unlike everything else up to this point, would be "gay") but I had stared at my feet and realized they were neglected. They deserve skin care too. Plus, the coconut smell overpowered all other smells with a pleasant verbena odor. This could redeem the whole lot.

Unfortunately, in a previous life, Coconut foot cream had been incarnated as Crisco. The lardish grease that I applied to my toes and feet was reprehensible. It smelled of coconut, yes, but it also picked up dirt--nay, magnetically attracted it--and stuck it to my bare feet.

When Randi came by that night, she commented on the smell.

"Have you been cleaning the bathroom?"

Chuck Norris does not sleep; he waits

The funniest thing on the internet right now is Chuck Norris. Yes, Walker, Texas Ranger -era Norris. Every era Norris. Just recently a list of well-documented and true facts have been uncovered about this American hero.

Did you know that there is no theory of evolution? No, there's just a list of animals that Chuck Norris allows to live.

It's true!

Change Name, Transfer Schools

I've always been scared of college professors when they get mad. They just seem so exponentially smarter than me, it would be cake for them to extract godless retribution upon my worthless self. But fortunately, the worst I've ever done was not turn in a paper on time. Imagine, then, if you were a misguided student thinking him or herself particularly clever by stealing your professor's laptop--thinking to steal upcoming test material--and then finding out that that professor is actually an advisor for the C.I.A.. It means your life is over. Period.

Back to Canada. Eh?

I just heard on vh1, somebody claiming that Green Day is, and I quote, "saving rock music as we know it."

This drives my tiny little brain full of music to an early, painful, quivering death. How could we have let ourselves be taken like this?

Take a deep breath, go listen to Jeff Buckley, and then repent for your support of Green Day.

Holy Mutual Fund, Batman!

I can't figure out investing for my life. I really want to get into a mutual fund, but I can't find something that I can for sure trust... at least not anything that I can trust, and has a minimum buy-in of under a thousand bucks.

Why can't social security just work out for everybody? Oh yeah, that's right, our parents. Nevermind.

Everyday Italian. Yes, please.

With all due respect to my beautiful girlfriend, I have to say:

Giada De Laurentiis, I think I love you. Thank you for your awkward smile and disproportioned head. The way you say "bruschetta" is one of my top ten Things of Irreplacable Beauty.

All right.

Hunt, Love, Mitch

Last night and early this morning I took my very first hunting trip at a site up the Ocoee. I went with two of the funniest people I know and had a blast, basically spending the night hanging out and eating these "hobo meals" (a novelty to me). But this morning was horrible. I, like a fool, went to sleep without warm clothes on, and I got really, really cold. It got better once we woke up and started walking around, but, unfortunately, we didn't shoot a thing.

In almost unrelated news, I've recently been thinking about the complexities and importance of love. Yuppie collegate fool I am, I keep getting talked into thinking that love is a physical dependancy on self-satisfaction, but once in a while I get reminded that love is, in its purest sense, a selfless thing of commitment outside of oneself, and a thing composed of many emotions, some of which feel nothing like love.

One of these reminders came to me today in the form of a weblog set up and maintained by Mitch Hedberg's wife, Lynn Shawcroft. Read it and you'll understand. Or maybe not. Inspiration is almost never an objective occurance.

If you didn't know, Mitch was a comedian who believed in delivery above all other comedy theory.

"Stoplights go like this: green means go, yellow means hold on, and red means stop. With bananas, it's the exact opposite: green means hold on, yellow means go, and red means, "where the f*** did you get that banana?"