Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and fat free yogurt.

Memories make me want to punch the wall, yet I create them every day—well, as much as I can. Sometimes it’s hard creating new memories when you work in a cubical for eight hours a day listening to talk radio via podcast. The days start to blend together like the weather in the seasons or fruit at the bottom of a yogurt. Speaking of which, why isn’t the fruit already blended in? Is this “mix it yourself” philosophy a way to create a sense of accomplishment? Why do I have to be the one to mix the fruit? Can’t that be done at a factory? If not, are you telling me you have the technology to separately put the fruit and yogurt in the container, but you don’t have the machine that can mix it together? I mean, I could blame this lack of technology on the economy, but come on; this was clearly an issue before the recession. Plus spoons are pretty plentiful in America—there’s a dollar store on every corner of downtown USA. And even if the yogurt companies can’t afford a proper machine-like mixer, they can at least hire people to mix the fruit. Take some of that stimulus money, go to the dollar store and pick up a shit load of spoons (this stimulates the local economy), get some unemployed people to mix the yogurt (this helps the unemployment problem), and put the yogurt in my belly (which solves my mid-day hunger). In this fast pace world of bluetooth and blackberries, who has time to mix fruit and yogurt?

Sometimes my memories are the fruit and sometimes my memories are the white tasteless substance that you have to get through in order to get to the fruit. And like any “fruit at the bottom” yogurt, the white tasteless substance is 80% of the container. I just had one of those tasteless moments at the gym the other day. Now it may seem as though all of my blogs somehow include the gym or the awkwardness of working out—this is because in my suburban 40 hour work week, the only real activity besides failing to pick up women in the city bar, is to go to the gym (and in my case, write about it in a blog nobody reads). To prelude my next awkward encounter at the gym I must first talk about short shorts. Girls, either out of ignorance or arrogance or a bit a both, tend to wear shorts that reveal the exact shape, bend, and attitude of their (hopefully tight but plentiful) buttocks or ass (if you will). I say the word “attitude” based on the fact that they sometimes have that exact word written smack dab in the middle of the “sweet spot” of their shorts. Girls aren’t dumb. They figure, “well as long as the men are looking there I might as well give them a one word description of how I am feeling.” This is what I call ass poetry. Simon and Garfunkel touched on it in the song, “A Poem on the Underground Wall,” which’s describes a poem comprised of one word. My favorite ass poem is “juicy.” There are others, but I think “Juicy” is like the “Hit me baby one more time” of ass poems. It combines my two favorite things in life; a girl’s ass and lemonade. It’s the only time that I get both horny and thirsty at exactly the same time. I think girls should wear other words on their ass too, like “immigration.” Not “pro-immigration” or “stop immigration,” just have it say “immigration.” I think ass poetry should be bi-partisan. Remember, shorts reach across the isle (well, at least to the other butt cheek).

Ass poetry is not necessarily what goes on with those short shorts, girls also put other things like, “Phillies” or “Cheerleading,” teams they like or activities they do. Others put schools. This is really where the story begins…

There is this girl at my gym that I see almost every time I go. She goes on the treadmills and I go to a distance where she can’t see me look at her creepily. You know how old men will sometimes stare at young women without at all trying to hide the fact that they are very much blatantly eye raping the shit out of them? This is because old people are always tired. So they say, “Ah, fuck it. I’m too tired to hide it. Let me see that young’s ass.” See, after I long work out, when I am really tired, I feel the same way. My back aches, my legs ache, and I’m too tired to be subtle. So I stare blatantly, but from a distance. Anyhoo, I was staring one day and noticed that the girl was wearing shorts that read “Penn State” (cheek to cheek). I went to Penn State! Ah, there’s my in. A way to start a conversation.

I wait for the perfect time in the perfect position and I make the approach. I go in for the kill. “Oh, did you go to Penn State,” I say confidently.

“Yeah, I go there now. Senior year coming up.” The woman says with a distracted smile.

“It’s great, isn’t it?” I say with a scramble and a plea.

“Yeah. I love it.” The pretty lady says this as she walks away with a polite smile and careful eyes.

Not a bad exchange as I thought to myself. It doubled every other conversation I had with a woman in the last 4 months. Maybe I’m back in the game. As I dissected the conversation on my pathway of thoughts before sleep, I started to realize exactly what I did. What I didn’t notice at the time was that the girl started slowly walking away from me directly after I said the words, “Penn State.” From that point on, our entire conversation took place while walking. Mostly, her walking away from me. Then it hit me. She wasn’t wearing a Penn State shirt or a Penn State hat. The only thing that implied Penn State was directly written across her ass. There was no other way I would know she had interest in Penn State unless I looked directly at her ass. Which I did. I was caught red handed. I guess it will be just one of those tasteless memories.