I Can't Think Of A Witty Title For This...

Wanted: A roommate who understands the concept of regular bathing, does not go on 72-hour Guitar Hero binges, believes there is more to life than “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”, and can afford to shell out $350 a month. 

Any takers out there?

For full effect, download “Movin’ Out” by Billy Joel and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post. 

                                                                                                           

So I’ve got this house thingy. And yes, I just called it a ‘house thingy’. Even though I am now on a regularly scheduled big-kid diet of paying a mortgage, I can still add the letter y after any word I want and sound like I’m still in third grade, so deal with it. I like the place, nay, I L-word the place. But my L-word only goes so far to pay the bills, and so to avoid having to file bankruptcy and pay for my marathon registration with food stamps I’ve decided to find a couple chaps who want to join me here.  

Now keep in mind, I have lived with some greasers over the years, guys who some Texans would classify as ten pounds of crap in a five-pound bag. These are roommates who unnervingly trigger my personal gag reflex. There was the pinhead who never left his World of Warcraft empire and ate nothing but fried chicken. Then there was the hippie who converted his girlfriend to becoming a lesbian. There was the meathead who couldn’t spell the word Gold. And of course the mother of them all, the white boy from Vegas who was a closet drug dealer. 

Yes kids, for five months of my life I slept in the same room with someone who sold marijuana to pay for his college tuition.

But I’m past all of those wastes of space and ready to try on someone new. Someone “normal”. Someone who doesn’t think peeing into a swimming pool from the second floor kitchen window is a fun thing to do on a Saturday night. But the real question is where do I find someone who won’t push me to madness?

Part of me thinks I need to be overly picky with this decision. Naturally I am very judgmental and skeptical about an individual’s personal character, which according to my family is the main reason why I’m not married at this point in my life, which in all reality I think is just the cover story in their minds wondering whether or not I’m gay, but that’s neither here nor there. Aside from that, I think you need to be finicky about who rooms with you, because come on, you wouldn’t want to settle for someone who illegally downloads child pornography at 3:17 in the morning now would you?

For the record, I would like to make a formal statement to the Utah State Legislature, to the Federal Government reading this blog, to Baja Broadband, and to my future posterity that I did NOT have a say in the selection of that particular roommate whatsoever. I was unconsciously tied to a leather couch intoxicated with Nyquil when he started moving in his things.

But after all of these years living with hobos and hellions, morons and masochists, I think it’s really time to settle down and find a roommate who doesn’t want to inflict physical pain on small children. Someone who has been taught the art of turning on a vacuum, and doesn’t sleep with dirty plates in their bed. I need someone who can have a conversation with me for longer than eight seconds, doesn’t stink up the house after eating Alberto’s, and laughs when watching “Arrested Development”. I need someone in their twenties who knows how to cook, how to clean, and has an inkling of personal responsibility. Is that too much to ask?

You know, after reading over that last paragraph and seeing the standard I’ve set for whoever moves in next, I think it’s decided.   

I need to find a wife.

That's My Boys

I think my future sons posted a picture of themselves on the Internet.    

Kicking and Screaming

Seeing as how it’s the middle of July, and this month the majority of our nation is out shooting off fireworks to recreate our country’s infamous battles against the redcoats, meanwhile a bunch of weirdos in Utah are eating potato salad and taking the 24^th of July off for some weird crossing the plains reason, I would just like to make a small statement regarding one thing I am so grateful about this sweet-smelling land of the U.S.A.

I am so glad we suck at soccer. 

For full effect, download “Mmm, mmm, mmm” by Crash Test Dummies and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post. 

Before you go all Patriotic and start throwing out cruel accusations that I’m from Canada or something Barney Stinson like that, hear me out on this. I L-word the land of the free and the home of the brave.  I embrace backyard BBQ’s and weekend carnivals.  I tear up when reading about the monumental moments our forefathers made when signing the Declaration of Independence.  Heck, I even proudly sang the Star-Spangled Banner at a couple basketball games.  But should I daresay the one thing that irritates me just slightly is how arrogant we all are for living in this great nation?

And you have to admit, we really are one of the most egotistical empires in the history of recorded Earth. We’re worse than the pyramid-building alien-worshippers in Egypt, or the blood-thirsty, idol-following freaks in Rome. I would even put us as a more arrogant group of people than the army who followed Genghis Khan. Yep that’s right, a nation led by a man who killed over 40 million people and had an addiction to Twinkies because he loved the sugar rush was not as stuck up as all of us over here in the U.S. of A.

If we’re going to talk metaphorically, and I think all of us like to talk metaphorically simply because we get to picture some funny looking scenario in our heads that drives the point home even further, I would say we are the big brother sitting at the dinner table who always has to one-up the competition of our little brothers' accomplishments when the grandmaster Tyrannosaurus Rex playing Dad asks us how our day went.  And yes, I just used a T-Rex to play the role of Dad at the worldwide dinner table.  Who else would it be?

T-Rex: “So kids, why don’t you tell me about your day?”

Russia: “Today I win 82 medals at London Olympics. I think it pretty good day.”

US: “Oh yeah, well I won 104 medals! Even beating Great Britain and China too! So there! See Dad? See how awesome I am?”

Yep, that’s us. The low self-esteem nation that has to make fun of a country who rehydrates with vodka instead of Gatorade.    

But back to the main point about why I’m glad we are awful at soccer. It’s because it shows we have a little chink in our armor. And please don’t misinterpret that last sentence as racist.  I know I’m mocking other nations here, but I won’t go that far.  Being bad at soccer means that at least every other country knows they’re better than us at something.  They may not have developed indoor plumbing, visited the moon, created Title 9, or watched a movie on their cell phone, but at least they can kick around a ball better than we can.  And seeing how this is the most widespread sport in the entire world, that’s a skill they can always hang over our heads. 

And I won’t mind being awful at this game for the next 100 years or until Will Smith becomes a robot and starts playing in the English Premiere League.  The thing about being bad at soccer is that at least it will give us a tiny taste of humility.  Almost like we’re the unpopular Jamaicans in “Cool Runnings”; minus the fact we’re not sucking at a waste of a sport like Bobsledding, and instead being terrible at the most popular game to ever be created.

Somewhere out there, our T-Rex father figure is shaking his head.  

What If?

An old-time friend gave me a call last week and asked if I wanted to be set up with one of her friends. She did the usual, “You two would be perfect for each other”, and I did the usual, “I’m kind of seeing someone, maybe another time”, and we left it at that. We texted our separate ways and stalled a potential match made in heaven brewing for a later date.

But then I read the morning obituaries this week and saw she had been killed in a car accident Monday night.  Turns out there won’t be a blind date with this girl after all. 

For full effect, download “What If” by Coldplay and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post. 

I never met this girl. I know nothing about her besides what her Facebook profile picture looks like. I never met her in person, never took her to dinner, never laughed with her about what the waiter was wearing, never had a romantic doorstep scene with her, never took her on a second date, or a third date, or a fourth, or got to meet her parents, or saved up for a ring. None of those cycled steps in a relationship ever happened between the two of us, and because of some freak accident on Monday night, none of that ever will. 

But then the mind starts playing tricks in our heads when we’re staring at the ceiling late at night, and begins asking the age-old hindsight-anchored question of “what if?”

What if I had taken her out?  What if I did laugh with her about the waiter’s apron? What if we did kiss on her doorstep, and go out for drinks the next night, and meet her parents a month down the road? What if I did take up my friend’s offer for a potentially awesome blind date with this girl?

Then maybe I would quit my search for roommates to fill the two empty rooms in my house, and begin planning on a permanent one getting ready to sign her eternal contract. 

That’s the thing about life that sometimes makes you stand in a stupor scratching your head for longer than ten minutes. It is unpredictable. Unreliable. It’s a giant canvas of chaotic madness that has twists and turns so unexpected they knock the wind out of you before you can even blink. As Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” And as I found out this week, sometimes you making a standstill decision about a blind date over a text message will make you ask yourself the rhetorical question late at night while laying in bed of “what if” over and over again, which in all reality is the natural human response to help us all cope with a situation that we just don’t understand.     

But let’s just take it a step further, from a little deeper perspective.  What if you, and me, and everyone else in their late twenties paddling out the first few steps of our careers decided to go somewhere else for school; like to the U instead of the Y, or to UCLA instead of UNLV? Or in my case, what if I had gone north instead of south? What if I chose Utah State over my Alma Mater Dixie State?

Then maybe you wouldn’t have met the person who crawls into bed with you every night and helps raise those little stinkers snoozing a few bedroom doors over. Maybe you would have put your career as an entrepreneur as your main focus instead of seeing how many kids you can pop out before you turn 30. Maybe you would be bringing home a six-figure income instead of a monthly caseload of diapers. And maybe I wouldn’t be blogging about what it’s like to be a sane single man in Mormon culture.  

Or what if you had been placed in much different financial or religious or racial circumstances, thus altering your customary standards due to the money your parents bring home, the God you sit down to worship, or the color your skin looks in the mirror?

Then maybe you wouldn’t be as cocky as you are now, and you would be much more grateful about the clothes on your back and the food in your cupboard. Or maybe you wouldn’t have gone on that one trip to Brazil, or Sweden, or Virginia, or wherever you went and you wouldn’t have had to stand for what you believe in for two whole years. And maybe you wouldn’t feel that guilty about telling a black joke to your buddies. 

Or what if that one person who you loved and cared about and had a strong relationship with had not gotten on that airplane, or developed that tumor, or fallen asleep behind that wheel, or loaded that shotgun, thus ending their lives a little bit shorter than you wanted them to?

Then maybe that relationship with them wouldn’t really mean as much to you as it should. Then you wouldn’t have grown as an individual. Then you wouldn’t have realized what it is like to lose something you care about. Then you would still remain as shallow, and undeveloped, and as immature as you were in third grade, and would never have achieved that monumental character development that is only granted by the tragic act of losing someone.       

Here’s a good one for you, what if we didn’t think in the past and ask ourselves these unanswered questions every single time a misfortune happened in our lives, thus veering us off the path we thought we were supposed to walk down, the path we felt we were destined for?

Then you, and me, and everybody else out there wouldn't be so controlled by our past, and would all be much greater people.

Like A Michael Jackson-Loving Gator

So I own a house.  Wait, let me rephrase that, the bank owns the house. Which they are leasing out to me for a monthly payment including HOA fees, that in all reality is only deducting the interest attached to it for the first twenty years, all so I can lay claim to owning a chunk of God’s beautiful unspoiled green earth. Well, technically 1460 square feet of insulated plastic sitting on top of God’s beautiful unspoiled green earth. But hey, it’s mine right? YEAH! ‘MURICA!

For full effect, download “Pretty Young Thing” by Michael Jackson, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.  On a side note, I would also like to add I was informed yesterday that’s the kind of music that will help you in your road to adopting an alligator. You know, if that’s your kind of thing.   

Owning a house is like ingesting a colony of E.coli in your intestines after eating a plate full of room temperature corned beef.  That’s a piss-poor analogy, I know.  But I’m just trying to give you some kind of perspective on what it’s like to own something like this at such a young age. In fact, I never really thought I would get to this point in my life, at least not until my mid-50’s. But that’s when floating skateboards would be the craze and we’d all have house androids named Rosie cooking us dinner.  Give us another 25 years for that. 

I would almost compare buying a house to the act of having a baby, without all of the Kegel exercises to help dilation and midnight 7-11 runs for dill pickles and ice cream.  Buying a house is where you put on your big boy pants and sign a short novel of signatures.  Seriously, I had to sign the initials B.T.B. 78 different times.  And for the record, no my middle name is not Taneisha.  Who the curse word would name their kid Brock Taneisha Bybee?

I also think it’s time to confess that I have now gained an addiction for seven-hour binges of HGTV. Go ahead, try and buy a house and not watch 14 episodes of “House Hunters” back to back.  It’s impossible.  Like trying to throw away a bag of almond Symphony bars at a convention for depressed mothers.  There, that was a better analogy, wasn’t it?  Part of me feels that after buying a house I need to join the local chapter of HGTV Anonymous and confess my hoarding dependence for this station to the crowd.               

Me: “Hi. My name is Brock Taneisha Bybee, and I have a problem.”

HGTV Anonymous: “Hi Brock!”

See, a house is like a canvas.  And there is an endless list of upgrades I’m looking to make so the picture inside just keeps looking better and better.  Things like tobacco shag carpet matched with crimson chimp-painted walls going up the stairway.  Add on the dark leather sectional in the living room with the stained chocolate cabinets as a beautiful accent.  OMG, there are just SO many things I want to change around here.  And please go ahead and say that last sentence in your head using an overly effeminate voice of a man who would own all the Glee soundtracks. I think it adds more character to this paragraph. 

Owning a home is one of the last steps you need to complete in order to archive your existence as a child, and solidify your standard of being an adult. Out with the old faded Kobe Bryant pictures and decorative snowboard coffee tables, in with the new canvas black and white photograph of a desert sky by Ansel Adams and the $15 hand towel set from Ikea. When you own your home you stop TiVo-ing episodes of “Duck Dynasty”, and instead load up on “Love It Or List It”.

Was this the worst decision I’ve ever made? Nah, not quite.  I’d say being chased by the cops buck-naked in Virginia still owns claim to that title. But was this the best decision I’ve ever made? A decision that has now crowned me a Wells Fargo-owned indentured servant for the next 30 years of my natural life? Was signing over my entire existence to a bank something I can say was the right thing to do?

Well, due to the fact that I can eat bowls of Captain Crunch while peeing with the door open, or paint my face like William Wallace and walk around the place completely naked whenever I want and not a single soul will ever know about this, you can bet your Michael Jackson-loving alligator it was. 

That's A Helluva Shot!

I’m taking a break today.  A break from all of the hustle, all of the chaos, all of the different directions I have been pulled this entire week/month/life, a break from everything.  Today I’m taking a break for myself, lacing up a pair of fancy shoes, and I’m going to drive around a golf course for three and-a-half hours.  In fact that’s actually where I’m at this very moment, staring down a hole in the ground and debating in my head how much the ball is going to break on this next putt.  

Everyone has their own form of therapeutic stress relief.  For some guys it means taking a protein shake and maxing out their bench press.  For most women it’s binge-eating bags of Kit-Kats meanwhile shopping for 27 different pairs of shoes.  For me, and I never thought I would say this in my entire adult life, it has now become putting on a polo and seeing how far I can smack a golf ball down the middle of a giant fairway. 

Now I’m really not the best golfer.  In fact, my hand-me-down clubs were gifted to me from my Great-Grandpa Ralph who in his own words was “one helluva golfer”.  I’m talking about a wrinkled, blind, toothless 96-year old man who L-worded golf more than he L-worded his own life. This is a man who when he was 90, accidentally got his hand stuck underneath a lawn mower and chopped off the middle and ring finger from his right hand, and the first question he asked the Doctor in the E.R. while holding his bloody stump was “How is this going to effect my golf swing?”

Dr: “Um, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but we’re going to have to just remove your two damaged fingers, basically making it so you’ll be permanently flashing ‘I Love You’ in sign language to the general public.  Golf is pretty much out of the question.”

If I remember the story correctly, I think at that point Ralph spit his dentures off the doctor’s forehead and went out and won a long-distance drive contest the next day.   

One of the best things about golf is it gives you plenty of time to yourself.  Time where you can tune out the rest of the world and just think about the bigger pictures you probably should be focusing on anyway.  You’re isolated. Alone. Detached from anyone else, and oftentimes the only person out there swinging a club.  In fact, that’s how it is right now.  I haven’t seen another face on this course in over two hours.  I could play these last three holes naked if I wanted and not a soul would know about it.    

The only problem with being alone though is that you are many times your worst enemy, and you beat yourself up over every tiny mistake you make. Ralph tried to teach me to get over my blunders and just play more focused.  “If you think about your screw up on the last hole, how the hell are ya gonna do anything good on the next one?” he once told me.  I wasn’t sure if we were talking literally about the sport of golf, or metaphorically about our grand perspective on life.  Either way, Ralph sounded like an intellectual genius.  

This last hole isn’t my favorite.  There’s a water hazard on the right, a pretty narrow fairway, and the green isn’t very big. But somehow I’m able to get the ball close to the pin and will be putting for par to end the night.  I’m no championship golfer by any means.  Not like Ralph anyway.  That guy had his living room stocked with amateur trophies he won all throughout the depression, and would tell me the story over and over again about when he won a tournament that had all the Pros coming in second.  For me to land a long pitch on the green of one his favorite courses, that’s about as close to a Championship I’m ever going to get.     

I raise my club into the air as my 15-foot putt drops into the 18^th hole meanwhile the sun dips below the mountain behind me.  I don’t think you can paint a more poetic ending.  With a shot like that I’ll go ahead and tip my hat to the man who signed his last scorecard earlier this week.  A man who found God only two months before he took his last breath.  A man whose funeral I couldn’t make it to this morning, and so instead I thought I would dedicate a round of golf in his memory.  I’m sure he was smiling as he saw that last putt fall in the hole.  

Nights like this make me understand why he would call this “one helluva game”.  

Now That's A Load Of Crap

I know I appear to be a day late on my posting, which then makes me look like a lazy piece of meat that couldn’t stop watching HIMYM reruns long enough to send out a 750-word rant on social media foul-ups.  Don’t judge me just yet though.  I know I actually can be classified as that piece of meat who L-words HIMYM, but I’m going to be altering my schedule just slightly to accommodate for some recent changes that have happened in my life. 

Not like any of you care or anything. 

For full effect…Eh, screw background music, I need to get to the point. 

This past week someone got in touch with me and said they would pay me to write.  Yes, you read that correctly, I am going to be making green stuff just for recording my thoughts on life three or four times a week.  And because of my new responsibilities, I think I’ll be switching my blogposting schedule up to Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings.  Because hey, there is only so much of my creative vocabulary to go around.  Man, I sound like an egotistical bastard this far in. 

Well, I know I got the bastard part right. 

Whew! Now that I’ve got that out, on to the main event.

So I’m homeless.  At least for a week or so.  If you saw the status I posted this afternoon, the one status I’ve posted in the last two and a half years, you know that I now am a proud homeowner.  Go ahead, pat my social media image on the back for that.  Despite the fact that I own a piece of God’s green earth, well, 1400 square feet of God’s green earth to be specific, I can’t enter it until Friday.  And because of that, I’m sleeping on park benches and on the sidelines of Hansen Stadium meanwhile my car acts as a mobile storage unit.  Which, after 331 words brings me to the point of this entire blog.

Why the curse word do we have so much crap in our lives?

And that is not a metaphorical deep thought statement I am making about subconscious fears or mental stumbling blocks or anything stupid like that.  I’m talking about real-life, hard-core physical crap that we don’t need.  Things that are just there, taking up space until Armageddon hits us, sweet motherloads of flat out crap.

Because of my move I had to pack up my old apartment and load everything that I own on to a trailer.  And there were landslides of garbage that I’m never going to use, but I still hold on to all of it because of some emotional tie I have sparking sentimental memories.  You know what I’m talking about.  Just go to your closet and take a gander at the things you’re holding on to that you haven’t picked up since 2008.      

Take for instance my shoe collection.  Don’t call me a woman or anything, but I still own every single pair of basketball shoes I have worn since my freshman year of high school.  We’re talking about shoes since “Mambo No. 5” was the number one hit song.  Every pair from Adidas Crazy 8’s to white trash Starbury’s.  And they are there.  Just sitting in my closet doing nothing but trigger memories  about that one time when I hit that one shot against that one team.  Why do I still have them?  Good freaking question.

The list just got longer as I packed up.  94 different ties? Check.  47 different Ohio State hats? Check.  I have eight different suits.  EIGHT SUITS! I know Barney Stinson wouldn’t be upset, but who needs eight suits?! I have a bottle of sand given to me at my graduation, a blowgun, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles poster I was gifted when I turned four years old, a cricket bat I carved out at scout camp people, I've got hundreds of Upper Deck basketball cards sitting in a leather trunk with a combined value of $3.47.  What is wrong with me?!

Am I a hoarder? Absolutely not.  Am I going to get rid of any of this?  You can bet your left nut I won’t.  I know all this stuff may fit the definition of pure crap, stuff you should flush down the nearest toilet, but so what?  I am still taking it with me.    

To My Future Mrs. Mosby

Dear ______________________ ,  

I don't know why late night runs often stir up some of the most thought-provoking blogs possible. Maybe it's the grandeur of God's desert creation surrounding me, or the rhythmic pounding of my legs triggering some sort of soul-shaking thoughts. Or maybe I'm just in a trance caused by my severe dehydration. Go ahead and thank St. George for having 98-degree weather at one in the morning for that last one.

If you really want to have a dramatic effect for this letter, and I’m talking about something that will surely put a tear in your eye, go to Soundcloud and download the piano solo, “You’re All Alone” by John Swihart, and play at a medium volume throughout the duration of this letter. It's from season 8 of “How I Met Your Mother” and I think it fits the background perfectly.  Besides, I had it on repeat as I wrote this letter. 

I'm bored. I'm bored with the social life my culture is shoving down my throat every Sunday morning. I'm bored with being set up with 19-year old girls who are still stuck on their exes, and blab on for hours like a mindless daytime talk show host. I'm bored with sitting in a room full of single folks my age who are stocked with trepidation and think downloading a spin the bottle app is the best way to get action from a member of the opposite sex.

Dating isn't the same as it once used to be. And I'm sure you already know this by now. There was a time when a successful date between two people would be a homemade meal and an engaging conversation into the late hours of the night about what they were both passionate about.  Now it’s just a quick text message exchange between two blockheads and an uninterrupted screening of “The Avengers”.  Times change.  People turn lethargic.  And the old days of formal courtship have been lost.  These are the times where we let fools look like fools.   

I’m sure you’ve dated quite the number of projects over the years.  The gymrat meatheads, the Halo-obsessed Red Bull-aholics, the 29-year old hippie who hasn’t been employed since the Bush Administration but can play a mean version of “Banana Pancakes” on his guitar.   Maybe even the guy you’re currently with fits this stereotype.  I will say I do envy the man for having the chance to be with you right now.  But I’m banking that his tucked in pink collared shirt and obsession with “Duck Dynasty” will soon fade in your eyes. 

Guys these days aren’t the same. Guys are weak. They are inconsistent.  They think of themselves before they think of you.  They don’t have the confidence in their own persona to tell a woman she looks beautiful, or to have a serious conversation about the meaning of life with someone. They are shallow lugnuts that can’t fend for themselves, nor respect who women are.  The days of being a true Gentleman are lost.  And I’m sorry for that.

The sad part is that I used to be one of those guys.  Not anymore, mind you.  But for a long, long time in my life, I played that role like a champ. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I am perfect by any means. I have flaws.  Plenty of them. I curse every now and then, mostly during Ohio State games.  I’ll judge a person’s behavior too soon when I really don’t know about the circumstances that led them to having such annoying people skills.  I’ll lie just to embellish a great story to a crowd, when in the long run that tall tale doesn’t really matter at all.  But I want you to know that I’m working on my faults.  I'm trying to be better.  Better for you. 

You see, there are people in my life who I envy.  Who I want to somewhat mimic.  I see how they are as a pair and it makes me a bit jealous.  The relationship they have as a married couple is something I want to have with you.  People like C.J. and Robin, Brett and Meisha, Bryce and Sara, Derek and Kendra, you know, those front porch people.  I admire them.  I am envious of them.  And I want to have what they have with you.   

Anyway, I don’t know if letters like these are some type of coping mechanism for me being single in the culture I live in, or some semi-romantic way to tell you to not give up just yet.  All I know is that I'm going to keep looking. If it’s in the next five minutes, in the next year, or when the two of us are both shriveled up and wrinkly, I still can't wait to meet you. And I’m going to try and be a better person every single day of my life.

For you.   

L-word,

Brock

We Are All On Drugs

Is there a doctor in the house? I think I'm starting to hallucinate.

For full effect, download from iTunes any song composed and performed by Bob Marley and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.  After all, 83% of his songs were about the psychedelic experiences he had from an intoxication of marijuana.  Isn't that right, Toni?

I would also like to add that I'm barely wrapping this post together by the skin of my teeth.  My ideas are running on fumes. And based on the fact that I have had more big kid crap hit the fan in the last week of my life, I don't know if I'll even be able to finish this post.  But then again, who even cares anyway?  After all, blogs are only read by people who used to dance the Charleston during Prohibition.  And what's even better is that half of you reading this have no idea what that last sentence even meant.

Drugs are bad kids, don't take them.  Unless of course there was a point in your life when you would unconsciously wet your pants during basketball practice and on blind dates, or black out at the bottom of Baker Reservoir, thus invoking a skilled man with a scalpel named House to slice you open a few times, then by all means take as many drugs as you need to in order to make your life as "normal" as possible.

Now I'm not so nervous about injecting a foreign form of assistance into our bodies with the hopes that our lives will be made that much easier.  It's the side effects that get me. And you know the list goes on and on for days about what "potentially" might happen if you take the most recent FDA-approved form of Viagra.  Go ahead and YouTube some drug commercial and listen to the narrator lose his breath by reading on the unending list of side effects meanwhile some geezer is flyfishing in some river by a sunset.

Tom Selleck V.O.: "Side effects may include memory loss, dehydration, mood swings, manic depression, change in urine temperature, hair loss, reaction to toenail fungus, nausea, heartburn, upset stomach, indigestion, severe diarrhea, itchy scalp, herpes, overly sensitive nipples, headache, joint stiffness, intestinal rash, smallpox, athlete's foot, E.bola, suicidal thoughts, chattering teeth, temporary blindness, severe cases of the Munchies, and an appreciation for the band Creed."

Why am I supposed to take your seizure medication and prepare to have my body possessed by every unsolved medical mystery created since the Black Plague?

The point is...well, I guess there really isn't a point to all of this.  I'm going to be honest, this was not my most entertaining blogpost.  Eh, who am I kidding?  This post was a joke.  I'm so fresh out of ideas and slammed to the wall with all these "adult" decisions to make in life that I write a blogpost on the aftermath of Rogaine?  If you're actually still reading this, I am so very sorry.  I have let you down.  You deserve something much, much better.  Hopefully by Sunday morning I can get my head together and actually write some motivational/moving post about the true meaning of life or something like that.

But a post about the side effects of drugs?  What the heck was I thinking?

Are You In Or Out?

This popped up as a suggested app on my social media feed this afternoon.  For some reason Facebook has joined the rest of Utah's culture assuming that because I'm 28 and not married there must be a hidden secret I need to confess to the world about my current position outside of a closet.

Either that or my eternal companion might be a member of the #1 Gay Social Network.