Big Sue and bagels

*Spoiler alert*

Without letting the suddenly shoeless sad man jump from the five-story building at its close, the directors of the video for Collective Soul's "The World I Know" take some liberties with other jumps throughout the video. Some of these lengthier leaps are jumps in logic, plot and comfort food psychology.

Dishwalla always will have an available month-to-month lease in my heart as band members who look exactly how a mid-1990s alt-rock band should look. I give them the top billing in this post because Collective Soul does not allow embedding of their videos. This is a great move for Col Soul because they are probably only about a year or two months away from playing in high school football stadiums ... during daylight hours ... near the Fourth of July. Playing at Thomas Worthington High School at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday evening is right where you want your band to be a little more than 10 years after you dominated Top 40 radio.

The video for "The World I Know" makes one want to commit the Big Sue. It's an interesting route to travel when portraying an anti-suicide song.

[Combs hair and turns to buddy.]

"We have an anti-suicide song that I think would make a good single."

[Turns off Singles. Pushes hair behind his right ear with his right hand.]

"Nice. I'm going to direct the video it's going to make you want to kill yourself.

SCENE

From the video, we gather that a pale thin albeit normal man buys a bagel, reads the newspaper, sees a bum and decides to toss away his briefcase, take off his shoes and leap to his death.

The Pale Thin Albeit Normal (T.A.N) Man wells up with tears while reading The New York Times. Hey buddy, we've all been there. The partisan-progressive NYT is enough to make even the most optimistic cry. So Pale TAN Man, you're all right with me.

Other observations prior to the video's climax:

- You thought it too. How best to kick the lead singer in the face? Across the side of his face with the top of your foot or a full-on stomp to the midsection of his melon with the underside of your shoe?

- Are they trying to say the white-haired crazy Guy introduced at the 1:14 mark is some type of sage? He's not. He's a crazy person. He's not even playing a crazy person in the video. That's a legit crazy person. Kudos to CSoul for snagging him to be in this video.

- The frame at 1:49 when everything blurs? Aside from everything else not belonging in the video, this definitely does not belong in the video. It's so straight-forward and lame it's not even so uncool that it's ironic.

One is to assume that Pale TAN Man woke up and felt fine. He is walking to work at 7 a.m. He probably has to be there at 8 a.m. Depressed people don't make it into work on time. They're sleeping in a little and probably in a hurry. Pale TAN Man is just lounging. Making big strides like Richard Cordray made in those advertisements for Ohio Attorney General. Sorry about your bucket.

Again, his reasons for attempted suicide are:

1. Seeing a bum
2. Reading the newspaper

He eventually decides against jumping because a bird lands on his right forearm. He did not, however, decide not too jump because he was jumping from a pre-school. That's right. He climbs to the top of a building with a pre-school. That would have been a good sight for those kids.

The bird picked the right sap to bond with as bird gets paid with some bagel crumbs. So Pale TAN Man, he's feeling shitty, he's verging on the Big Sue and he's not going to eat that bagel?!?!? You're calling bullshit right along with me. It's the ultimate comfort food! Hello, um, carbohydrates called and they want your endorphins back!

Better yet, the bagel is in his pocket!

Has anyone not been proud to display a bagel?? I think 94 percent of the reason people eat bagels in public is to look more intelligent. Public bagel eaters strike me as America's most pretentious and self-righteous subset of food eaters. They love showing off their bagel bag. "Yeah, that's right, I just bought a bagel from some indie-type food establishment where everyone who works there is super cool and friendly and says "man" and "all right" and "have a great day" a ton and usually has a tattoo on the inner side of their arm near the elbow. I want you to know about it.

If the bagel came from somewhere lame like McDonald's or something, that's not getting advertised and they're eating that shit in their car or while still in the restaurant (store?) but I really don't know if McDonald's sells bagels because I'm rarely up before 10:30 a.m. and less rarely go to McDonald's but if I do get something from Brown Bag Deli, you bet your ass I'm walking back to my place proudly showing off that bag from Brown Bag Deli and hoping some trendy-ish 26-year-old chick with a cool hat notices the bag and thinks more highly of me than she would have if she had seen me with a small blue plastic bag from Giant Eagle containing a 20-ounce Sprite, a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter which normally is the case.




Drake offers a clue about Pale TAN Man's night prior to the shooting of this video and even let's us know his real name is CJ at the 38-second spot of the above video.

"CJ got my credit cards and a lot of ones."

How else do we explain CJ/Pale TAN Man poppin' a few dollars ($$$) on the streets of New York City at the end of the production? Where did that money come from?!?!?! He couldn't have spared a few beans to that bum at the onset of the day?

He might have saved himself some anguish. He might have saved me from some anguish.

The first Friday in October

My fifth-grade teacher Mrs. Dean used to get a kick out of me NOT because I played kickball with reckless abandon during recess. She always enjoyed the way I said things. I talked a lot so there were more than a few opportunities to cherry-pick quick quips or keen observations.

Chalk, post-eraser strokes, made the numeral "7" with the assistance of Mrs. Dean's right hand.

"Seven days of school left," every fifth-grader thought on the first morning of June. Seven days until we'd be at the pool or watching VHS tapes of old episodes of "Hey Dude" from 9:30 a.m. until 12:17 p.m. when we'd eat a lunch that included way too many UTZ potato chips and usually a can or two of Coke. Seven days until I became infatiuated with Melody and wondered why Brad got any love at all.


"June 1 is kind of like the beginning of the end," I told Mrs. Dean. "We can see the light at the end of the tunnel."

She laughed. The rest of the dudes looked around to try to figure out which girls were wearing bras.

"What's next for you, Dave? 8th grade?"

No way, I thought. Mr. White teaches sixth grade and he just shows movies all day. I ain't missing that shit.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

June is the horizon for pre-secondary students. Never quite reachable but gorgeous, just gorgeous. The year's calendar ticks down in anticipation. June. He's the best. There's no whiff of fall. There's usually no long family vacations. The days are the longest. Nothing about summer is boring before the 30th. You still haven't gotten to the terrible episodes of "Hey Dude" that revolve around Buddy Ernst, Mr. Ernst's annoying son as if Mr. Ernst isn't annoying enough. Can I get a hell yea?

Summer stops being summer right around the time you finish high school or realize school isn't the most appropriate venue for gaining wordly prowess.

I'm not one on polls. Don't really trust them. Last poll I can take seriously is the one from Nov. 2008 which shows 52.9 percent of Americans are idiots. I can trust a hypothetical poll. If we polled all the twenty- and thirty- (and lower forty-) something Midwesterners, you'd find a vast majority prefer Fall to any other season.


The first Friday in October is my first day of Fall.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

I saw the beginning of the end in my Aunt Colleen's eyes when I exited an elevator on Friday, Oct. 2, 2009 in Riverside Hospital.

"It's not good, Dave," she said, "it's not good."

About two hours earlier my mom had called me to tell me my sister Annie had a baby. They named her Ellie. My mom told me they all couldn't wait to see me.

I ran out the clock on those final few hours of work, bought some flowers and headed to the hospital.

Once in the parking lot, I called my mom to figure out the location of the baby.

"Oh Dave," is what I heard and my heart sank. "Things aren't real good. There's been some problems."

I put on my bravest face which is a tough one because my usual Friday face is my "WHOA! CAN'T WAIT TO GET RIPPED TONIGHT FACE."

Went up the elevator and saw my Aunt Colleen standing there waiting for me.

"It's not good, Dave," she said, "it's not good."

A quick primer on my Aunt Colleen. She's the most positive person I you know. I don't remember her ever delivering bad news other than that they were out of hash browns at McDonald's.


She's the opposite of that annoying guy you know and sometimes call on Friday nights who's convinced Indiana will beat Ohio State in football or that after 37 billion years of sunrises, tomorrow's probably won't come.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did miss an entire's day worth of sun on a Thursday back in November 2004. Went to bed around 5 a.m. and got out of bed around 6 p.m. I had wooden boards over my windows after Hurricane Charlie struck the island in August. Even though I didn't eat Fritos for that entire year, my mouth just tasted like Fritos that entire day. In the interest of fuller disclosure, I'm just lazy and didn't feel like removing the board from the window and in the interest of Fuller, don't drink so much Pepsi before bed.


Buzz's girlfriend? Woof.

To hear Aunt Colleen tell me things weren't good hit hard. There are certain people in your life you look to for strength. She is one of them. My mom's another.

In kindergarten, I heard my mom cry for the first time when the call came that her father had died. It's among my first memories. I remember being scared. Moms don't cry. How is this possible?

Decades later, I found myself in the same shoes (seriously, I really liked Converses) only this time aware of the gravity of the situation surrounding me.

Ellie did not make a sound when born. "Why isn't she crying," my sister remembers asking. "What's wrong, [Husband's name]?"

Born without breathing, paramedics rushed Ellie to Nationwide Children's Hospital. A crowd of 20 or 25 people there to celebrate this birth cried, cried sometimes alone, cried sometimes with each other. Cried.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Ellie remained at Nationwide Children's Hospital for six weeks. Five days into her life, doctors told her mother they didn't think she'd make it. She had problems with her kidneys. With her brain. With her breathing. With swelling. They "froze" her body temperature for 72 hours in an attempt to help.

Who'd help my sister? Those days were long. My mom stayed in Columbus and provided strength I didn't know a 5-foot-4, 120-pound woman could possess although she probably still could kick my ass and sometimes still challenges me to arm-strength battles.

Bawling I told her on Oct. 2 that Annie really needed her. Told her that I knew she (my mother) felt more pain than anyone else but her daughter needed her to be strong because Annie's brother is proving incapable.

I'll never see an another example of greater human behavior.

The work my mom did in those six weeks still shocks me. I can't imagine losing a newborn child and this is stunning because I've dreamed of having a newborn child and this is even before my latest odd Ambien-induced dreams. Every moment during the month of October I dreaded my phone ringing. "Ellie's gone," that's coming I thought and with every passing day I figured the odds of that phrase being delivered lessened.

What are we going to do? How are we going to get through this? Didn't have much time to think about the answer to the second question as I always thought of my mom.

Whatever happens, we'll be OK.

Moving into November we soon learned the beginning of this struggle looked to be heading to an ending of joy.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...


Think of the things that bring happiness to your life. Do they all make sense? I don't think so. I'm not sure why I love sitting on my couch unshowered on Saturday afternoons drinking root beer and putting peanut butter on a piece of bread and then folding that piece in half and eating it. I don't know why I like going to the High Beck on Wednesday nights to have four or five icy cold Miller Lite drafts. I don't know why I like going to the Little Bar on Sundays so much well actually I do but that's another 10,000 words that I'll one day get into with the help of pictures because that really will sell it.

We all find happiness in our lives. We all have sadness. We all have confusion. We all have heartbreak. We all have insecurity. We all have worry. We all have relief. We all have fatigue. We all have an HD television now because old school TVs just suck.

I never knew joy until spending time with my niece Ellie. She went home for good on November 12, 2009. I held her for the first time. I felt joy. Being with her brings me joy. It's perhaps the only thing in my life to ever do so.

I'll head back to Youngstown, Ohio after work today to celebrate Ellie's 1st birthday. Her family moved to northeast Ohio after her dad got a lawyering job in Pittsburgh.

I'll give her the first of her many birthday gifts. It's awesome. She might not love it but it will reinforce my desire to be the hippest uncle in tri-state area history.

This first Friday in October looks identical to this past year's except I've picked up a new gift.

The gift of joy.

This beginning will have no end.

Chicks were not hot like 10 years ago

In a bar that no longer exists on a corner that still does, Nate and I walked to Panini's South on 10th Avenue and High Street for cheap brand-unknown draft beers on weeknights shortly after the sun went down. We took advantage of our college summer nights. Our jobs required us to be present at 8:30 a.m. but not awake until noon.

We had no qualms with Panini's despite the beer being the only thing warmer than the temperature as the hole in the wall had no air conditioner and left its non-existent windows open. Panini's sandwiches would require some microwaved love to match the warmth of the yellow non-frothy in those 32-ounce plastic cups.

I sat at the bar and Nate walked to the bathroom located on the northwest corner of the establishment. My kidneys are bigger. "Lady Marmalade" played for the first time that night.

Lil' Kim's rap neared its conclusion as I thought, "Wow, they never play this part on the radio." I picked up on that third-beer buzz and felt my shoulders become a little less tight. I turned to the right and looked over toward the ladies room. People watching is a polite way to say creepy.

Not one to "like" or friend request "Lines" or "Crowds," Nate darted his way to the front of the que. Meeting resistance with a shove, a student in a light blue polo connected with a right hook on Nate's face as the song hit its and Christina Aguilera's high at the 2:38 mark of the video.

"Too many people to go over there," I thought, "anyway, I'm 0-1-1 career in fights."

The situation resolved itself as so many others did with a brief scrum, a few "Yeah, I'm all rights" and a closing acknowledgment that no more fights would occur that evening.

We walked home a few hours later and turned on MTV.

The shit we had to watch in the summer of 2001 makes me ever so grateful for the women's movement. There were not a lot of good looking women 10 years ago.

Music videos prove my point. I present the following three.



Take a look at Dream's collective body types before delving into my breakdown of the video. This look passed for hot in the winter of 2001. I wanted these girls under my Christmas tree on Dec. 25, 2000.

What is with the short-haired blond girl? We may never know although any of us are free to ask her. She's working at the Applebee's next to University Village (or the one right down the street from your house) and if you have a sleeveless T-shirt with a tattoo circa 2002 she'd probably give you two-for-one appetizers even AFTER Happy Hour.

I feel a bond with the lyric "[you] only want him just because he's there." Roughly 92 girls I've hooked up with have experienced this same desire or lack thereof.

Also, Dream girls, for real, what's with only one girl singing the entire song? Are the other vocals that bad? Ah yes, they are in Dream, after all.

Back before girls started dropping me for suburban, Affliction T-shirt wearing bartenders in strip malls, I believed in love and all that fun stuff. Now I see the fallacy in the message of this song.

Girls, he may love you but he does not love her not. Guys do not become monogamists until they give up on finding someone better.

We find someone better in the next video.



I've been to a lot of parties. That line just sounds like something that would be scribbled across a retro T-shirt with some 1950's-looking clip art attached to it. I've been to a lot of parties.

I've never been to a party with "'bout five, six strippers trying to work for a buck." Unless that Buck was an Ohio State football player. Go Buuuuucks said in a hick accent.

We learn in this video that you don't need to have a job now to have lots of magnets on your refrigerator.

EMO ALERT: I love Califone's "Funeral Singers" song. I can play with magnets all night long, motherfuckers. I have done so 13 times already this year. I like the ones with words. Or letters. And why is it, why is it that there are lowercase letters but not lowercase numbers?

"all my friends are half-gone birds/ are magnets all my friends are words/"

The above lyric explains why I text the same three people every night in an attempt to "grab a few beers question mark."

I will invariably end up marrying the girl in this Califone video or one just like her but as for now, she's playing trivia at Bodega and I hate that place as my jeans are not tight enough and I cannot wear a Fedora and a beard and feel good about myself.

SIDE NOTE: When L. James announced his decision to sign with the Miami Heat, I made the exact same face as the guy does at the 1:11 point in the City High video.

Right after James broke our hearts, the following song played on the 30,000 speakers surrounding Cleveland.



If a girl has ever been attracted to a large man-beast with dreadlocks, I have no chance with that female. This is a problem for me as I plan on ending up with some bartending chick who has a dog and probably is into black dudes with dreadlocks. This explains why I'll be single for the next 53 years God willing.

I hate dogs but am attracted to girls who own dogs and play well with dogs. The blond who pleads the first verse fits this mold. Her lips. Wow. Sheeeeeeeeeeit.

The lower lip bite 30 seconds into the video has been watched in this dark bedroom on more than one instance.

Cannot help but notice every member of All Saints looks exactly the same and one of them is even black!

One must take issue when one All Saint exclaimed that "You got my conscience asking questions that I can't find. I'm not crazy."

Yes, yes you are crazy because that line doesn't make any sense.

... ... ... ...

I grew up watching MTV. I still watch videos on YouTube with far too much frequency.

Tomorrow night when I walk home from the bar, I'll likely watch some more.

They won't be from 10 years ago though. Women keep getting hotter.

The beers, though, they've gotten colder.

Only 10 albums but unlimited batteries

Since we last spoke on this oft-frequented blog, I've watched the first 41 episodes of Lost. This has nothing to do with why I haven't updated this blog since May 19.

The fictional series has bumped Six Feet Under from my fictional "Top Five Television Shows in the Past 20 Years" list (The Wire, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, Lost, Friday Night Lights).

Slightly warmer than both six feet under (RIP) and the island on Lost, we sat on one of those new wooden picnic benches on Saturday afternoon at the EGG. Humidity near 100, sun out and temps getting to third base with upwards of 85 degrees, I sat in a jacket sipping my 11th or 12th beer without having eaten all day. The USA had just tied England 1-1.

No Third Base albums made the upcoming list.

Scratching my jeans and turning a brow-wiping into a full-on vertical face rub with a chin-scratching twist, I then redirected my attention toward that 130th ounce of Bud Light.

"If you only could listen to two albums for the rest of your life, what would they be," I asked Paul. The question marked an abrupt change to our conversation with the med student following my proclamation that the only outfit a girl should wear in the summer should involve a gray v-neck T-shirt and aviator sunglasses.

Before Paul answered I said, "isn't it odd that The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby sound so different yet only came out four years apart?"

We then would crawl to three of the least popular bars on the east side of High Street (Buffalo Wings & Rings, The Sloppy Donkey and The Out R Inn). We'd stop to eat at Pizza by the Slice and Raising Canes.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

1. int. bedroom. night.

A MAN lays in bed and looks at the clock. It reads 1:01 a.m.

dissolve to

2. int. bedroom. night

The clock reads 2:58 a.m. The MAN looks at it.

"There's no way I'm falling asleep tonight before four thirty."

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Got to thinking last night about Lost and how I'd survive on an island. I did not have to think about how I'd survive on a deserted island because I wouldn't. A normal island would be tough enough.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Which ten albums would I choose to listen to if I could only listen to 10 albums but also had an unlimited supply of batteries? This always strikes me as odd. How come you only can listen to five albums or watch five movies from here to eternity but SOMEHOW have enough battery power to do so on a deserted island? You'd have to rock a portable CD player to do this. Couldn't really do it with an iPod. Might explain why most of the albums on my list debuted before the advent of the iPod.

I chose not to include greatest hits albums because being able to select those is like judging a person solely on his or her Facebook photos when they don't allow themselves to be tagged in other peoples photos. Fleetwood Mac is the big loser here as The Dance definitely would have made this list and Mirage and Rumors also would have made a Top 15/20 list.

I also really like album cover art and this gave me an excuse to Google all these albums.

Here's the list (in alphabetical order by artist):

The Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique (1989)


The Beatles - Rubber Soul (1965)


Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism (2003)


Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction (1987)


Iron & Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle (2002)


Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak (2005)


Outkast - Aquemini (1998)


Radiohead - OK Computer (1997)


R.E.M. - Automatic for the People (1991)


Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

Soap, people want no part of dirty bathtub

I'm a polished kid guy.

I know the colors of my bathtub have no business resembling the same colors as a Wyoming Cowboys football jersey.

We're all about the exposed brick and hardwood floors in the German Village but one's shower should never look like a mashup of those two hues.

The shower at my place, the one where three bachelors who eat nothing but fast food live and sometimes sleep, needed a cleaning after seven months of about 2-point-5 to four showers per day.

Soaps from around the world sweated at the thought of being called into duty. We feared the spray that comes out of those plastic things like Windex bottles would stop flight midway to surface and attempt to scurry back into the bottle.

"Move, bitch, get out the way," said the dreadlocked cleaning particle on the way back to the comforts of his old home.

Mr. Clean, well that bastard, he tried Rogaine. He wanted no part. Plus I don't even know if you'd use Mr. Clean on a bathtub or even if there's a product called Mr. Clean. I just know he endorses some product but have never seen him in real life. Where does he live? We can assume his bathroom is clean. This we can do safely.


Juggling the duty and dealing with the distraction of how small my hands looked in a pair of yellow rubber gloves, I thought of things like how the weather needs to improve because I've seriously made the comment that "this weather isn't too bad because Thanksgiving is only two weeks away" to varying degrees of laughter like 22 times in the past five days and I'm running out of "bad weather in May" material. I thought about how I've been robbed in never having a friend with the last name Campbell because I'd just call him "Soup" like every single day but that'd only be on the days that I actually saw him in person because then the rest I'd just call him Soup via text messages because I only use like 47 anytime-minutes a month on my cell phone and I haven't had a land-line since 2002 when I lived at 64 E. 12th Ave.

Brighter minds always have pondered better questions. Monday night I went downstairs as we prepared to head out for Elyse's 21st birthday party. My roommate was watching a History Channel special on the history of the United States. They were discussing electricity and the roommate said, "That's got to be the best invention of all-time, right?"

I said, "well, there's soap." I only said this because I remember a similar discussion during the movie Donnie Darko and didn't have a real answer because that would make my head hurt and I didn't have time for that because I always prefer the activities which make my head hurt 12 hours later. I'm a procrastinator in all senses.

My mom, the one who knows me best, probably spends hours awake at night wondering how much better my life would be if I ever put any effort into using this brain for good. She actually probably wishes I made other people's lives better because she's just good that way and goes to church two or three times a week. When I told her Merle and Paul were going to be painting Paul's porch one Saturday afternoon and said "I just wasn't feeling the job" she immediately shot back that I should, "at least grab lunch for them!" The woman who's done more for me than anyone else constantly wonders why I'm not doing more for other people and holy shit this is going to make me depressed and good thing she doesn't know the best I've probably done for someone recently is contribute to a soft-core porn-esque blog on a near daily basis during 2009.

My dad? He's cool.

Our favorite player on the Cleveland Indians like 10 years ago was little-used utility player Enrique Wilson. We just liked saying "En-reeeeeeee-k WILL-sin" in a real Spanish accent and would say Ennnnnnnreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkk WILLsin like a dozen times an inning and there's nine innings in baseball so do the math, you no-good motherhubbard. 108.

I'd be up in my room reading old Sports Illustrateds or whatever (Homework? Ha. That's what Nate was for. In terms of cheating off someone else's homework, no one abused the relationship more than me but Nate did end up marrying my sister.) and my dad would ring the doorbell unbeknownst to me and answer the door.

"Dave, there's someone at the door for you."

I'd walk over to the top of the steps and my dad would bellow out:

"It's Enreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekk HhhhhhhhhhhhhhaWILLsin."


I fell for that at least seven times between 1997 and 2000.

Shown only a photo of what our shower looked like, those two years listed above also would be two of the four choices in a multiple-answer question regarding the last time we cleaned our bathroom.

If an elbow produced actual grease during that thing we call hard work, the component would have been an improvement to the scum I scrubed away. Breathing in the type of toxins you usually have to pay for, I spent 75 minutes cleaning.

Congrats on a job ... done. - J. Peterman

Without any beer in fridge, I had to answer what it is that beer drinkers drink when they're not drinking beer. Sure as shit wasn't going to be O'Doul's. I have two rules when it comes to beer A the beer is not allowed to include two apostrophes in its name and B the beer must include alcohol.

Not feeling tap water, I instead had two ... seven popsicles and wondered about the type of stuff Mr. Clean would do when he'd finish an arduous task.

Doing hard work actually is rewarding. LESSON.

When I clean my bathroom again right around my birthday (Dec. 13), I know what my birthday wish will be. It'd be cool to sit down and have a beer with Mr. Clean.

We'd probably have a lot in common. Given his bald head, he's probably a polished guy too.

This too shall pass you by

Jon O'Leary looked at me funny.

I had just thrown a shoe at a television. The Browns were losing 21-0 to the Bengals in an early season game that had virtually no bearing on the outcome of the season. I would wake up and report to my fifth-grade class 16 hours later. Jon had his own troubles with math as a seventh-grader at Southampton Middle School. He always had Diet Mt. Dew at his house though and we'd spend hours trying to throw away empty cans from outrageous distances into his trash can. We'd always miss and always not clean them up.

Dominating elementary school math competitions myself, I've always been a tad off when it comes to watching sporting events. Friends make up excuses not to watch with me. I go places and sit alone. I probably look utterly ridiculous. I look fucking stupid.

I take the shit seriously and it's often sad and depressing. I repeat the same lines over and over again and not in a Tim McGraw f/ Nelly type of way either.

"I'm done."

"I'm just not going to watch anymore."

"Why do I do this to myself? This isn't fun!"

"My teams never win."

"I really thought this year was different. I'll never believe again."

"[I'm] done with sports forever."

"Look at me? This is not how a [insert age here]-year old should act."

"This is just sad."

"I can't believe it's over."

"This always happens."

"We all knew this would happen."

"I hate that I was born in northeast Ohio."

"God hates Cleveland."

Tonight when Boston closes out the LeBron James-era in Cleveland, I'll utter some of that stuff almost verbatim. I'll have that moment when I know it's over. It'll come. It'll hurt and then you begin to move on. Over the years, it's gotten easier. I remember when the Indians lost the 1997 World Series, I went to bed at 6:30 p.m. (sometimes with the help of over-the-counter drugs) for a week straight because I couldn't bear to be awake. It'll sting tonight. It'll sting into the morning but by lunchtime tomorrow, I'll be over it. Tomorrow night I'll be with friends drinking, laughing and telling funny stories. I'll be with smug Boston fans who tell me it'll eventually one day happen, all the while hoping it never does. I've come to those terms. It's never going to happen. Not tonight. Not ever.

And I still watch. I still will watch the Indians play the Orioles tomorrow night. I'll have a totally unfulfilling and excruciatingly boring Sunday afternoon watching those same two awful teams play again.

This is no "woe is me." While I'm willing to admit not all aspects of my life are thrilling or even marginally un-boring-as-fuck, I love the lifestyle in which I lead. It's not so much that I lead it, it's that I follow it around when I feel excited enough to take a shower.

Jimmy Fallon, one of the least funny "funny" men to ever grace a television screen, said something along the lines of how it's exhilarating "putting all your faith into something you have absolutely no control over."

I'm that way. I consistently reach. I consistently move at a speed different than most. I take things slow. I am patient. I am as easy-going as they come. I'm pleasant to be around 99 percent of the time. People like being around me. I don't cause problems. (Well, usually.) I always am willing to play defense even if my basketball box scores from eighth grade tell you otherwise.

Once I reach the point of knowing my resigned fate, I become remarkably relaxed and almost happy. And while I'll get pissed and throw shoes at televisions and be generally unpleasant to be around when watching playoff games, my mood in elimination games or do-or-die affairs is markedly different.

1999 - Boston closes out Cleveland in Game 5 of the ALDS. I watched quietly in a dorm room and treated myself to a giant sundae from UDF following the epic meltdown. The sundae had no time to melt down as I ate it in about .8 seconds.

2001 - Seattle closes out Cleveland in Game 5 of the ALDS. I watched upstairs in my bedroom (on mute) in an apartment on East 12th Avenue.

2007- Boston comes back from a 3-1 deficit and eliminates Cleveland in Game 7 of the ALCS. I went to a movie and didn't watch a single play of the game.

You get the picture. Sometimes you just know.

I've watched a bunch of Cavs games with my roommate The Godfather. He hates watching games with me but he can remember Game 7 of the 2008 Eastern Conference semifinals when Boston took out Cleveland. We went on to have one of the most fun afternoons of either of our lives.

Last year when Orlando eliminated Cleveland in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, we left the bar at halftime and I half-laughed/half-sighed in telling Kirk, "Look, you can join me, but I'm grabbing a 12-pack of Miller Light and I'm going to sit in my living room and drink them all without watching any TV."

I think I'm just fighting a battle (WOW that pretentious) during a playoff series, hoping, wishing, nearly praying something goes differently than all I've ever known. I just want to stick it to those fans who always root against us. I want to be the champs for once. I want to be on top. I want to see a Cleveland team win a championship.

It's never going to happen. Not tonight. Not ever.

Yet I feel fine. I know the outcome. And when you know the outcome, it's difficult to be upset at its actualization.

Tonight around 10:40 p.m. or perhaps earlier, I'll get really quiet for a second, bite my lower lip, look down at the ground with my eyebrows raised, nod my head a few teams and then let out a heavy sigh.

It won't be the last time I complete the motion. It'll be easier next time.

I don't mind easy.