Self Loathing.

I should preface the following story with the knowledge that me and my cat, Tails (I named him after a videogame character), have had a longstanding hatred of one another. Now, we didn’t always hate each other, I remember quite distinctly loving that furball when I first got him. That didn’t last very long. Through the next year our relationship deteriorated at a blazing rate. First, he threw up on my favorite blanket (my ‘The Lion King’ comforter that I’ve been sleeping with since age 7). I responded by taking his favorite toy and tearing it apart, right in front of him. Things just went downhill from there. For the past month, I’d describe our relationship as all out war, with the noticeable exception of when both sides mutually take a time out to snuggle together (he’s fucking cute). This whole war came to a spearhead last Monday night.

I was sitting in my room watching an episode of ‘24’ (the most intense, pulse-pounding hour on television), when the cat walks in the room. Apparently I had forgotten to close the door, which is normally always closed for the express purpose of keeping him out. Generally I would have chased him down and threw him out, but ‘24’ is just too exciting to interrupt. There were 10 minutes left in the episode, Jack Bauer pulls out his gun and starts chasing a terrorist, you could cut the tension with a knife. And then I hear this weird farting noise.

I look to my right and see the cat standing on top of my bed. We make eye contact, and I swear to god (I know that’s meaningless since I’m an atheist, but trust me anyways), I’m not even sure how this is possible, but he smiles, and not like a smirk, but a huge full tooth-ed fucking cat smile. I’m confused at first and continue to stare at the cat until I’m able to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together.

“HOLY FUCKING BALLS! THE CAT SHIT ON MY BED!”

I spend the next half an hour throwing away my cat-shit-stained sheets and not watching the end of the ‘24’ episode. Had it occurred at any other time I might have been able to convince myself that the cat just forgot where the litter box was and mistook it for my bed, but not during the season premiere of ‘24’. The cat must have realized it was the absolute worst time for him to shit all over the very place I sleep, and judging by the creepy kitty smile and the inordinate amount of shit, he had been holding it for a while, waiting for his moment. The sadistic bastard.

That was the most interesting thing to happen to me all week.

Which leads to the train of thought: “If the most interesting thing to happen to me all week is a 10 pound housecat shitting all over my bed, maybe my life sucks”

While I can never honestly say that I hate myself (how could I hate a man with thighs as great as mine), sometimes I feel dissatisfied with certain aspects of my personality:

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Laziness:

The walls in my room tell a lot about what kind of person I am: too lazy to put up posters. But my laziness goes way beyond just mere procrastination; it’s reached a certain pathological level. Here’s an example:

Last Saturday I slept on my couch because I didn’t feel like moving into my bed. When I woke up, the TV was still on, and for some weird reason, it was on PBS. I search around my immediate arm span for the remote control, until I get tired and give up. I watch Barney for the next two hours until I feel like killing myself. Since I’ve never been a fan of suicide, I decide to change the channel in the easiest way possible. I start throwing everything I can reach at my TV; desperately hoping something will hit a button. Finally, I hit a button with my shoe; it’s the mute button. I watch muted Barney for a half an hour before I roll off my couch and try to press the button with my foot. Then my dad walks in the room and tells me I’m an idiot.

Here’s more proof:
• My diet consists of solely Hot Pockets: They take 2 minutes to cook and there’s little risk of me burning the house down.
• I used to be in every accelerated math program I could sign up for, now I’m a High School Senior taking Sophomore Geometry because I like to sleep and play Tetris on my graphing calculator.
• Whenever I make plans to go out, there’s always a little voice in the back of my head that goes, “Aw fuck, this means I have to put on pants now.”
• I sign my signature as “Alex Tray…”
• When I was younger, I used to play soccer. I was always goalie, because when the rest of the team was on the other side of the field running around, I got to lie down and pretend I wasn’t playing soccer.

My laziness is one of the biggest obstacles in my life. Sometimes I’m too lazy to finish…

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Perpetually Misunderstood:

I hate to sound clichéd and like a teenager, but most people just don’t get me. This is completely understandable though since I act completely different for almost every person I know. Sometimes I’m the quiet kid in the corner reading, and other times I’m loudly describing felatio between a midget and a zebra. This is mostly due to the fact that it takes different material to make different people laugh. Sometimes I’m so sarcastic, people actually think I mean the crap I say, other times I go on a 30 second long tangent in my announcer voice and people think I have split personality disorder. Here are a few misconceptions:

I am stupid:
This one is completely untrue. Whether it’s my 1340/1600 SAT score (I know parentheses take some people out of the game and make my sentences longer than they should be, but I would like to take this time to profess my eternal love for the SAT’s. Some people would like to de-emphasize the importance of standardized testing in the college admissions process, I for one, am in favor of any test that is able to erase four years of mediocrity in just 4 simple hours. Also, I was allowed to eat a bagel while taking the SATs, which was pleasant.), or my sizable array of vocabulary words, I’m a smart motherfucker. I’m quick as a whip and can do a Sudoku with my eyes closed (I never said I’d get it right), which begs the question, why do some people think I’m stupid?

The main answer to that is: only stupid people think I’m stupid. Generally smart people pick up on the wit and intelligence held within. Now, I’m not saying that smart people see me as a ‘normal’ smart person, I’m generally referred to as an “eccentric douchebag”, but there’s a fine line between eccentricity and stupidity.

For the most part, I speak intelligently about stuff that is widely considered ‘stupid’ (mainly feces and sex crimes). Sure, I can do material on the Theory of Relativity and Marxist literature in the late 19th century, but what’s funny about that?

I talk about things I find funny, and just because one out of every ten jokes I tell is not a knowledgeable quip about weak nuclear force and its effect on 14th century Poland, but rather a crude joke about “the weird crease you sometimes get in your pants that makes it look like you have a boner when you really don’t”, does not mean I’m stupid (An idiot, sure, but not stupid). Also, for those of you who cannot read my sarcasm, here’s a simple rule to understanding me: I don’t think farts are funny, I just think that people who laugh at farts are funny, therefore, I laugh at them.

I have no feelings:
Coming from an Irish Catholic background, when I was a child, I was taught to repress all of my feelings (and to drink a lot but that’s a whole ‘nother story) and never communicate them to anyone. Eventually I learned to mask them with fake feelings and sarcasm, but make no doubt, I do have real feelings and they’re located somewhere inside of me (Doctors have yet to locate the exact position, but modern science says it’s located somewhere near the elbow). Now, if only I could repress my experience as an altar boy.

I’m perverted:
This is a common misconception, and one that requires an explanation. When I go home after doing whatever it is I do, I do not go into a dark corner of my room and think about feces and bestiality. Hell, it hardly ever comes up in my mind out of the blue. It’s just that when I’m in conversation and it comes up, I have no problem talking about it. Nothing really grosses me out. I can honestly say that I’ve seen ‘goatse’ (consider the context a warning) well over 100 times. Not because I particularly enjoy seeing a man pry his asshole open, but because I like seeing people’s violent adverse reactions.

And while it’s true that I’m able to converse about wildly absurd sexual situations without inhibition, that doesn’t mean I actually like that stuff. I’m just as sexually timid as the rest of you when it comes to real life, but boy can I write a thesis on ‘Meatspin’ (again, you’ve been warned).

I’m quiet:
Most of the people who know me are willing to describe me as loud, boisterous, and a gigantic jackass, but there are a select few who are under the impression that I hardly ever speak, and when I do, I’m mildly retarded. The explanation for this is: I’m extremely nervous around people I don’t know or I’m uncomfortable with. I’m not witty, I’m not funny, and there’s no intelligence to be seen for miles when I’m caught in ‘shy-mode’. Eventually ‘shy-mode’ me goes away and is replaced by my normal self (to which some people prefer ‘shy-mode’ me), but that could take awhile.

I’m a jackass:
This one stems from people misunderstanding some of my sarcastic jokes/remarks. Generally I make them purposely over-the-top in order to signal that I’m only joking, but some people don’t pick up on that, so, for the record, here is a list of things I do not believe:

- I do not really think that the only solution to the AIDs crisis is to harpoon every person with AIDs, then carefully remove their blood and place it in a landfill in New Jersey.
- I do not think that fat chicks are ugly (I think they’re really really ugly).
- My Grandfather was not killed by Louis Armstrong, and that’s not why I hate jazz.
- I do not have any cousins who have won an Olympic gold medal for synchronized swimming.
- I do not think that the Russians hate me and want me dead (they just want me in a coma)
- I do not think that “Jewcooker 3000” would be a marketable brand name for an oven in Germany.
- I do not think chicks want to fuck Ann Coulter because she looks like a horse (and apparently horses have big dicks)
- I have never won a Grammy, an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy, or a Nobel Peace Prize. Although I did win a World’s Sexiest Man award back in ’92.
- Not all Russians are communists (just all the ones who speak Russian)
- I do not refer to my penis as “Gigantor”
- I am a comic genius, but I am not a world-class scholar, and a soft-core porn star. I also didn’t singlehandedly restructure the social and economic revolution of Northern Uganda.
- My father is not a bear, and my mother is not a ghost. I’m just pale and hairy due to radiation.
- I do not actually refer to myself as “The A-Trayn”.

I’m sure if you actually get to know me you’ll find that I’m a very nice guy, and have nothing in common with what I tell you I am (except for the “Gigantor” comment, sometimes I do that).

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Self-centered:

One day I was thinking to myself, “What if I’m the only real person to ever live and everyone else is a robot designed to manipulate me?” Sure, I don’t actually believe that, but the mere fact that I entertained that possibility is proof enough. Everyone tells me they have thoughts of their own and don’t live just to be a part of my life, but the fact that I’ll never be able to truly know whether or not the world will end when I die has caused a lot of problems for me. One of the most noteworthy ways it’s caused problems for me is in my inability to care for the struggles of others.

War and AIDs are plaguing Africa; I don’t care.
Gay people are harassed and not allowed to marry one another; I don’t care.
Fetuses are getting aborted everyday; I don’t care.
Why don’t I care? Because I’m not gay, I’m not African, and I haven’t been a fetus in 18 years. Maybe if I were a gay African fetus, I’d be capable of giving a damn, but until then, I don’t give a damn.

Another way my egocentric notions have affected my day-to-day life is that I do things for other people only to get something in return. Not, like I give presents to receive presents, I do it for the positive reaction. Generally, I give people gifts for the holidays just so they don’t think I’m selfish, which is in turn, selfish.

And, lastly, it’s crippled my ability to listen to your damn vacation stories. You know the kind; the kind where you go someplace exotic and something you think is funny happens but it turns out it was only “funny at the time”. I can’t stand that shit. When I ask people “How their day went”, I actually don’t really care how their day went (unless they spent it worshipping me), I just ask so they think I give a shit and then ask me how my day went (so I can tell stories that are not just funny in context).

“You came off as really arrogant in this section!” I imagine you saying. Go suck a fuck.

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Delusional:

I think about things way too much. When I’m left alone to my thoughts, things tend to distort and at times change completely. Here’s a representation of my thought process:

I have 357 freckles on my left arm alone.
When I was 7, I made what would I call a “Freckle Constellation map”.
Each ‘constellation’ would have a clever name, like “The Gun of Excelsior” or “The Hammer of Thor”.
I once told this to a girl and she didn’t think it was funny.
She gave me this look like I was a mentally retarded toddler.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been mostly unsuccessful with women.
Seriously, who doesn’t think “Gun of Excelsior” is fucking hilarious?
Everyone I told that joke to loved it…
Except one other person.
He was Russian.
Holy fuck!
She’s a spy!
They hired her!
SHE’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!
…I need to buy a gun.

This tends to happen a lot, and for some reason it keeps going back to the Russians (I gotta stop reading about the cold war). Sure, the next day I still don’t think they’re trying to kill me, but it’s generally nothing relative to what really happened either. Maybe I need therapy. Or just somebody to nuke the Russians. Either way.

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As I finished cleaning up the cat shit, I realized that there are a lot of aspects of my personality that don’t suck. Mainly, the fact that I can tell people that story without throwing up. Just remember, there’s more to me than meets the eye (like Transformers!), or at least, I want to be more than meets the eye.