spread the sunshine

Fun Facts about the Sun
Courtesy of me and NASA

The Sun is a ball of hot gases. By weight, it is 70% hydrogen, 28% helium, 1.5% carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, and 0.5% all other elements. The Sun's temperature is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface and 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the center.

The temperature on the interior of a strip club is a comfortable 60 degrees Fahrenheit. It keeps drunk patrons from sweating excessively and lackadaisical strippers' nipples "interesting."

The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is 93,000,000 miles. It takes a beam of light eight and a half minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth.

The time it takes a jealous ex-boyfriend to tie his ex-girlfriend's hot pink thong to the chainlink fence behind her apartment is approximately one minute. It takes him about six months to forgive his roommate for having sex with his ex-girlfriend while he was in the other room ordering a pizza for the three of them. It will take him three to six years to get over the fact that she slept around and then had the nerve to dump him. It will take him a lifetime to admit that his mother was right when she said "that girl ain't no good, Maurice. She ain't no good."

The diameter of the Sun is 870,000 miles, 109 times larger than the Earth's. Its volume is big enough to hold over 1 million Earths.

One size D silicone implant weighs approximately 16 oz. That's the same as a large bag of plain m&ms.

The Sun gives us heat, light, our food, and the air that we breathe. It powers the atmosphere to give us the winds and rain. Even the coal and oil that generate electricity for light and power come from plants and animals that lived hundreds of millions of years ago and depended on the Sun for life.

When the lights are out, we are all the same color. But not the same hairy-ness and that's how we would tell each other apart.

The Sun heats the land, oceans, and air. It evaporates water from lakes and oceans. When the water vapor cools, it drops as rain or snow. Green plants use the Sun's rays to turn carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates. At the same time, they release oxygen that we use to breathe. This process of production of carbohydrates by green plants is called photosynthesis. The carbohydrates formed by the plants are used by them to grow, and we use plants for our nourishment.

Bitch, please. Punk ass plants need sun. Marijuana don't need no motherfucking sun. Marijuana can be growed all up in a standard bedroom closet with the light from a 40 watt fluorescent or 400 watt halide bulb for 18 hours a day. In fact, marijuana plants bloom when the amount of light is reduced, bitches! At 12 hours a day, a 60 day-old seedling can yield enough THC or "sticky icky" to keep the homeys happy because it ain't no fun...if the homeys can't have none, nahmean, and I'm not talkin' 'bout oxygen or plants for our nourishment, meng. I'm talkin' weed. Kurupt doesn't need the motherfucking sun neither, son. LIGHTS OUT!

blanket statements about men

Ratpackslim once said to me that men make better screenwriters or playwrights because they like to control things. Men are more adept at playing "god" when writing characters, assigning their preferences, speaking their words, driving their lives and their fates on the page. In most companies, men rule the top tier of executive positions. They make informed decisions which direct the path of an organization. They fancy themselves all knowing. Makes them feel special.

Although you could argue that nothing is for sure, not the success of new product line or the number of tears at a family reunion, I'm fairly certain that men love the responsibility and power of control. They love this so much that in the rare occurrence when they are stripped of any hand in the outcome of events, they do what will appease their omniscient leanings, they bet money.

I'm in the middle of work when my boss asks me to book a conference room. Soon after this, I'm asked for the dialing instructions required for a conference call. Not out of the ordinary in my line of work however, when I inquire about the topic of said conference call, the answer is: "NCAA picks." I try to come up with a response sufficiently demonstrative of my incredulity. But, my speech has been impaired on account of my choking on male bravado. For men, second to the satisfaction of strategically spearheading a successful perhaps even lucrative venture of any sort is the testosterone-laden thrill of knowing that they predicted the most number of winning college basketball games out of sixty-three match-ups.

I did a little math the other day. I was curious about how difficult it would be to simply guess the winning combination of all sixty-three games if each was purely a 50/50 toss-up (no pun intended.) Sixty-three games played in four rounds. After scouring the internet for a little help, I figured out that the odds were 1:2^63 or for those of us who did not pay attention in algebra and forgot how exponents work, approximately 1:9,223,372,036,854,780,000. How do you even *say* that number? The winning odds are increased significantly given "seeds" and all that jazz, but still. Oh, sweet palomine, when a man wins the company pool, is it a rush! Knowing that a whole season of their carefully paid attention to team statistics and individual statistics and injuries and player strengths and specific player shoe choice and left-handed vs. right-handed and height and weight and hometown and nickname and all names of family members who have ever touched a basketball and idiosyncrasies during practice has finally paid off is a reward greater than any Christmas bonus or gushing theater review. The prize is a pithy monetary sum presented with a 10' tall trophy of full frontal, rock out with your cock out BRAGGING. Which brings me to my next conclusion about men which is that as much as they like control and accurate predictions, they also like to brag.

I sit in my cube or in my car or in my living room and for the best four days of any sport in a calendar year I am subjected to wagering, competition, conversation, strategy, prognostication, commentary, channel flipping and advertising; all spinning around in an orbit centered on the male gender's denial of control. To quote Nicole Kidman as Dr. Claire Lewicki in the classic movie Days of Thunder, as she says to injured stock car driver Cole Trickle played by a short and uncrazy Tom Cruise: "Control is an illusion, you infantile egomaniac. Nobody knows what's going to happen next: not on a freeway, not in an airplane, not inside our own bodies and certainly not on a racetrack with 40 other infantile egomaniacs." Now there's a sure bet.

even angela lansbury couldn't solve this one

Good news! Val has officially thrown in the towel. After much prayer and offerings of dried mango (the best!) at the alter of pagan gods from me, she gave her notice last week. She came over to my cube yesterday to ask if I recalled the name of a temp who had worked for her once. This temp had thick acrylic nails and heavy hands which when combined, made typing sound like a two machine guns talking to each other. You could hear it down the hall. Some of my coworkers called her "The Punisher"; I called her "Gregory Hines." Val didn't want to inflict her upon us while she was gone. Gone where, I asked. Gone away, she replied. She informed me that she is going to go home to be with her family and that she's "had it with this place!" Duuuuude, now THEY can deal with Val and her black sunshine. My enthusiasm for her departure has been sky high. I naturally assumed that the time between now and her turning in her security clearance would be a cakewalk. But no, such calm waters do not go unstirred in Val's ocean. She's going out with a bang!

By the grace of the TV gods, a copy of the "Murder She Wrote" Season 3 DVD was sent to my boss this morning. He came out of his office with a wry smile and said "I'm going to leave this on the up-for-grabs table." There is a table in our hallway upon which the pack rats in our office discard unwanted office crap every now and again. Sometimes it's a letter rack, sometimes it's a minimally amusing coffee mug that pokes fun of office drudgery; "World's Greatest Secretary," "I'm only happy during Happy Hour," you get the picture. To reach this cornucopia of tables, my boss had to walk past Val's cube.

"Hey, maybe Val would want it," I suggested. Val's older, has grandkids and seems like someone who might enjoy the wacky adventures of one Angela Lansbury on a balmy evening at home.

"Going...going...Val, do you want a copy of the Murder She Wrote DVD," my boss teased as he strolled by Val's cube.

And then came the sarcastic tidal wave.

"Uh, no thanks," she started graciously, "Maybe that's something my MOTHER would have wanted. It's not something I want to be associated with, thank you very much."

What the fuck? Her tone dripped with aggravation. Maybe she didn't realize that between graduating from high school and working here, she somehow got married, had two children who also had two children which makes her of that Murder she watches ilk.

"I'm sorry Val, I didn't mean to offend you," I called out over my cube.

And then Val must have thought that I walked away because she then said "Well, seems par for the course around here."

Que? My boss shot me a "holy shit" look as he went back into his office. I was seriously confused. I've never insulted Val, I've never said a mean word to her. I thought Murder She Wrote came out in the 80s and appealed to older ladies. Val is an older lady, she has eyes with which to watch television, why would she be so averse to it? Val needs an amusing coffee cup. Maybe a pretty one that reads "9 to 5 Victim".

"I'm really sorry, Val," I finished. And I left it at that.

Presently, Val is on the phone with someone who seems to need her counseling. "You're not equipped to deal with that. You don't know what a psychopath he is." They made a quick segue to Terry Bradshaw and Kathy Bates in "Failure to Launch" but have somehow found their way back to the psychopath. I can't say that I will miss her marathon noontime conversations with any one of a myriad of dysfunctional family members. Her ignorantly disgusted "mm hmmm"s will no longer ring in my ears. I cannot wait to be rid of her foul mouth, the vocabulary and the deathly malevolence with which she uses them. Utterly shameful. Grandmothers are suppose to be loving and wise with brownie baking acumen. They should not sound like infirm street people; bones to pick with everyone including inanimate objects like that sonofabitch stop sign.

Now, she's laughing about a deaf woman who was killed by a train. She says it's sick that she finds it so funny and that may God forgive her. Yes, I think God might be the only one who can appreciate Val.

revelations

Having been under the weather for the past week, my mind has slowed down a touch. I have been reduced to a drippy, pasty, slouchy, raspy dud. I've mustered what little focus I have to concentrate, in six minute intervals, on fulfilling my basic needs. These needs include drinking water, falling asleep, not coughing, finding food and eating it, watching the Oscars and having revelations.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the photo on the right, on the left, ensemble cast member of the Academy Award-winning Film of the Year "Crash," Mr. Matt Dillon.

On the right, his brother, felt and foam handpuppet from Sesame Street, newscaster Mr. Guy Smiley.

I may not be of sound mind, but I believe the photos speak for themselves. Healthy people agree that they sure look the fuck alike.

Note: I think the photos are copyright protected. To whom it may infringe, I'm sorry, I don't mean to use your photos without giving you credit. But please rest assured that the two people who check this blog are not going to distribute your precious photos to anyone of great importance.

the romantic

My friend in Manhattan admits that he is a romantic. His stories are delicious. We analyze and we debate the finer points of email flirting and real phone conversations versus IMs. He doesn't complain about the women he can't seem to meet or the quality people he can't seem to spark with. Romantics do not bitch. They are the pleasantly amused individuals who have inexhaustible hope for incredible conversation over burrata mozzarella appetizers. The kind of conversation that makes people excuse themselves from the table and while in the restroom, stop to note the frigid temperature of the water coming from the faucet over the sink to ensure that they are indeed awake. He searches for this. And the women, how he adores them. He is not the type to speak of proportions but rather the feeling he reads from them, not the feeling he gets because of them. He gauges every reaction. He tallies every sentence. He is a mind man.

While I do not wish to trade what I have with the boyfriend for what he, the romantic, has...I do revel in vicarious living. The dating pool is small on that island, but for him, it is as expansive as the fruited plains. I adore his dance card for it is filled with innumerable women, each of whom despite her predecessor, he has relished with the same fervor. His positivity is inexorable. But make no mistake, he does not kiss and tell. He does however, recant the appropriate details of his vespertine adventures with an effusive, dreamy twang that leaves me wanting cotton candy.

He's going on a date tonight, my friend in Manhattan. Maybe he will meet her at the restaurant or maybe they will walk together to a bar. There will be taxis that pass and pedestrians who glance. Perhaps a hurried passerby will accidentally bump him and given the law of physics and the turning of the earth, he will be forced to nudge her. Brush her arm, pat her shoulder, tease her waist. She might stumble but she'll delight in it. They will laugh next to a pile of garbage bags outside a pizza parlor, next to the steps that lead to the greasy basement and it is there, under a foggy orange streetlight that she will see him clearly through her carefully mascara-ed eyes. He will catch the scent of her shampoo on the tip of his nose. She will become breathless. He will try to inhale but it's too late; she has taken his breath away. Where does it go? It swirls into the snowy night. They will kiss. Moisture escapes their lips and binds to a snowflake that will settle onto the ground. On the next sunny day, it will rise up to the sky, recline on a cloud and watch them on their picnic in Central Park, their 5th, 10th, 50th date. One day, after the wind has chosen its path, this little glimmer of their date will rain down on someone, maybe another couple somewhere on the Eastern seaboard. Perhaps they too will fall in love.