Four Tables at Every Brunch

1. Couple (only in the literal sense of the word meaning two people. They aren't an item) that clearly just met one another and are only here after a night of sex. They figured they'd stop here and kill time while they wait for the pharmacy next door to open. Can you take the morning after pill with alcohol? It'll be truly adorable when they finally learn each others' last names.

2. Table full of twenty-something women/girls. Depending on your definition. That bitch Amanda wasn't invited this time because she didn't make Kelsey one of her bridesmaids. The mimosa was invented for this table. It's just one more stop on the weekend drinking train and delay the inevitable transition into real adulthood. Orange juice is made of fruit. That's kind of adult. Kind of. One of their names is Emma, otherwise it doesn't count.

3. Couple that clearly hates each other and has been together so long that they're in too deep to call it quits because both are terrified of the prospect of being alone. Brunch to them is just another cog in the wheel of something to do and fantasize . They're going through the motions and these motions are that they can drink and stare at each other while eating something new. Maybe one of them will work up enough courage to suggest and open relationship. Otherwise it's just drunken naps in separate rooms of the apartment later.

4. Happy family. Mom, dad, two kids. One toddler making a mess. This is the first breakfast in six months that doesn't involve premade chocolate milk and Pop-Tarts for the kids. Kids are playing a game on their separate iPads and still finding a way to argue with each other. This is quality family time. Dad is currently trying to ogle the waitress while in between pretending to listen to his wife talk about how the new girl at work is clearly trying to turn Linda from accounting against her.

9 Ways to make your Kentucky Derby Awesome

Because horses, that's why.

1. For the ladies, the more elaborate your hat the better. For a small fee Gary Busey will remove his teeth and mail them to you to glue to your hat for a decorative spin that will make you the belle of the ball. You better hurry though. Supplies are limited since it takes 24 hours for Gary Busey to grow a new row of teeth and he only has 100 teeth per row.

2. Check out the Kentucky Derby Museum. For a limited time the price of admission includes a photo op with one of Secretariat's knee caps on display.

3. Play a fun guessing game to figure out which adults shorter than 5 ft tall are jockeys and which are illegal immigrants working in the horse stalls. The answers may surprise you!! Loser has to sit on the toilet seat of an infield Port-a-Pot for 30 seconds.

4. When entering the gates, joke with security that you're sneaking in alcohol by inserting it in your rectum. When they do the cavity search, they'll have a good laugh when there is no alcohol, but just a note that says "Gotcha!".

5. Add a fun twist to the Mint Julep by taking out the bourbon, sugar, and mint and replacing it with a drink that tastes good.

6. While in town, check out some of Louisville's lesser known attractions. Among them are a Rally's with indoor seating, a TGI Friday's with a painting of a horse race at the bar, some guy that still uses a pager, a Chipotle with this guy working that sometimes will hook you up with guac without making you pay extra if you seem cool, a restaurant that serves A&W AND Long John Silver's (I'm like WHAAAT?!?), and a shopping mall with a place to charge your phone while you sit in a circle with a bunch of strangers.

7. For an authentic Louisville experience, get drunk on bourbon, carry a Louisville slugger into a KFC and threaten to "go all Muhammad Ali on someone's ass unless you get a mouth stuffed with chicken". Afterwards apply for a job at Humana and ask everyone you see where they went to high school.

8. The track is a great place for celebrity watching. Among celebs rumored to be at this year's races are: the guy that played DJ on Roseanne, Linda Tripp, the former bass player from Lifehouse, Taylor Swift, "Touched by an Angel" star Della Reese, and sixth season American Idol contest Sanjaya Malakar. Since we don't want to perpetuate rumors we decided to verify and yes, these people are all still alive.

9. It's a little known fact, but you can bet on ANYTHING at the windows, not just horse races. Think of it like a secret menu. Bets placed in the past have included "Which member of Rockapella will quit first?", "Is that thing on Adam Levine's face infected?", and "Did Hitler fake his suicide and is still alive and working as a fry cook in Myrtle Beach under the assumed name Dolph Bitler?"

Have fun and just remember. No matter what happens, some horse will embarrass itself by coming in dead last.

It Smells Like an Old Person's House in Here

As a small child, church was the ultimate truth. Without the ability to percieve what we're told in life is right or wrong, church was the ultimate right. Who am I to question the authority of "God"? Am omnipotent being capable of making everything in my life wrong or making everything in my life right. I heard from multiple sources how messed up the world can really be, but this is the place to make it all right. A safe place. In a chaotic world, we seek solace and order in anything we can.

There was something strange and comforting about it. It was the end all be all. You had to be on your best behavior. It was a place that was supposed to fee like home, but felt so unfamiliar. It even had an offputting, clean, musty smell. The kind of smell you smell in funeral homes or at your grandparents house that you hardly ever visit. The smell of age and authority that you're not supposed to question.

With age came wisdom. The kind of wisdom that you can't be taught from a public school curriculum designed by a man who hasn't been to class in 50 years. The kind of wisdom that you can't get from spending one hour in Sunday school, with a "lesson" coming from whatever member of church volunteered to read passages nearly in verbatim from the bible. To call them teachers is a joke. They're volunteers trying to do what they think is best for future generations souls' or maybe they're just protectingtheir souls by trying to score brownie points into heaven.

Each church lesson pretty much made it back to the same point. Don't do bad things, even though bad things will happen to you. When they do, trust in Jesus. AFter all, he died for you. I never asked him to. Now I'm suppoed to be forever grateful for something that someone told me happend two thousand years before I was born. Now come and give your life to him for the rest of eternity.

Then came the prayer. We can call it a sermon if we want, but it fits every definition of a lecture. You don't get to say anything. You are not allowed to have an opinion. They talk. You listen. They are the experts. The experts on a book. It all comes down to a book and they've read it more times than you. They've interpreted it the right way. Those others have interpreted it the wrong way. It's a book written in code and there's only one way to interpret it--the right way. In theory you should feel enlightened by the sermon. I always felt bored. For something that is the absolute divine truth, I definitely walked away with more questions than answers. This is the price I pay for being old enough to understand the world for more than was was spoon fed to me. I felt guilt.

Here comes the prayer. I can't. It's not that I refuse. I don't understand how it works. I don't understand why it works. The world is full of pain and misfortune. What makes anything I ask so much more important. God loves me and I was created in his image. Wasn't everyone else? There's 7 billion kids on this planet. That's about all of the attention. We're all just sperm floating around in god's ejaculate.

I close my eyes, make a wish, and good things happen. But we do this in a group. Everyone is told to bow their heads. I'm not refusing. I'm just not. I look around the room. Each time in this situation, there are about 10 of us all looking back at each other. We know each other's dark secret. We're the non-believers. For ten seconds, we're amongst people that understand but we can say aboslutely nothing. Maybe it's out of guilt. Maybe it's fear of how our job, spouse, spouse's family, will judge us. We're judged for essentially being ourselves in a doctrine that preaches non-judgement. During the prayer, a serene calm falls over hte room. It's perfectly quiet other than the voice of a single man who has been chosen to be the prophet for the hour. It's quiet meditation. Everyone is mending thier soul. Mending their bad mistakes. Every bad mistake from what they did when they were 25 years old to what happened this week. God so loves the world to give us whatever we ask for if we come and visit him for an hour a week. We're mending our souls too. Knowing we're not alone. There's an isolation in not understanding and not seeing things the way the others do. We don't belong. We don't know where we belong. We're trying to belong, but ironically half eye contact is the best we're going to do. This is the true fellowship. You know each others secrets and know that there is solidarity in your shame. It's not cathartic. It's tense. It's a private moment. Th emost intimate moment imaginable. You and your so called creator. We all have our most private moments in a crowded room just trying to out pray each other. What I need is more important than what you need. We're all created in his image, but only so many of us can gt what we need. To get you must take away from someone else. Somewhere else. Something else.

How Dating Apps are Like 1990s Toys

When I was a kid in the early 1990s, there was a novelty item on the market called "Monster in my Pocket". Being too young to laugh at the glaring innuendo and a child always a fan of the obscure, I embraced the trend with full on enthusiasm. The monsters were strange. Most of them were not anything I hadn't seen in movies or books, but a few were. The monsters really didn't do much, other than set and look strange. On the bottoms were carved a number so you could "do battle" with other monsters like some primitive Pokemon. They came prearranged, signed, sealed and delivered to end up in, not your pocket, but on display amongst the sea of other toys in your bedroom that you've decided you've grown bored with. I suppose lacking any kind of movements for functions was a trick to inspire imagination into the children, but likely was a tactic to avoid putting too much effort into something to market, sell, and cash a check. After all, each monster was completely monochrome in person but the packages, designed to catch a 6 year old's eye, were very elaborate, enticing, and graphic. Like all toys, they became a relic of a time when I wasn't too cool to play with toys and eventually took a place on the shelf in the back of my mind reserved for nostalgia--a place that I revisit when I'm stressed with the adult world, drinking (just enough), or browsing Buzzfeed.

Instead of concerning myself with the imagination and the micro chasm of characters I create for my friends and I, I've graduated to carrying the wealth of human knowledge in my pocket instead. Of course, we never call it this. Most people just call it a phone. With the same distance I reach for my car keys, I can reach to access to find out a list of Babylonian kings, how to fold a pocket square, or the winner of the 1939 World Series. With it, I also have access to people in this world that I would never have had the chance to encounter otherwise. Facebook is the obvious choice that comes to mind in this mindset, but it's typically reserved for keeping in contact with people I care enough about to browse mindlessly, but not enough to actually call or visit in person. Clearly the businesses and bands that advertise feel the same way about me.

The veritable treasure of human contact comes in the form of dating website apps--OK Cupid, Plenty of Fish, Tinder--pick your poison. They all function in the same way--bringing people together that would normally be too shy to speak in situations or have not deviated from their routines enough to actually meet a group outside of their bubble. Most of it relies purely on statistical probability--the hero and slayer of human relationships since the beginning of time. Without physical interaction, there remains enough mystique in another person that they can still maintain your ideals while you put off the disappointment until you find another thumbnail. We've been reduced to thumbnails. I have a few paragraphs and my best picture, which is probably misleading but only has to grab your attention, to impress a girl into maybe getting coffee with me. Options--options everywhere. There's plenty of fish in the sea, but it's really hard to catch just one. Statistical probability. The names start blending together after a while. I read the paragraphs on the profile, the blurb designed to get you to buy the book and catch your interest just enough to buy it but not give away too much. I ask the questions--school, family, work. Weeding out like a job interview, pretending to give my consideration while I know they're doing the same to me. There's nothing like two people dancing who are looking at everyone else over the respective partner's shoulder. After all, with all of the options, it'd be a shame to miss.

The distance is remarkable. With so many humans, lives, stories, biological cases of emotion all at a finger tip away I still feel a sense of isolation. Living alone I realize the only true conversation I've had all day is with a woman I've never met and know almost nothing about. Is this how things are done these days? I make awkward small talk through a few clicks on a fake keyboard. Maybe things will work out from here--we can only hope but I'll never get my hopes up. Getting my hopes up is hopeless. It's hard to care much for someone when they're reduced to a few pixels and photons at the tip of your finger--some quantum physics we'll never care to understand but can't survive without for a weekend--or an hour. At least when the barista asks me how I am, she has to at least smile and pretend to care, because I'm standing right there. It's amazing how a bit of biological interaction with our species can create a concept of rude. I'd never flat out ignore another human that asks me how I am. A Tinder match--absolutely. You're not a real person. Yet. You could be my soul mate or just another picture in an electronic frame. It's really a matter of how awkward we're willing toymaker this or how many chances we are willing to take.

Fun Facts About Thanksgiving

1. The ritualistic slaughter of a turkey in front of one's maternal grandparents is a tradition that dates back to 1245 as a ritualistic sacrifice to French Stewart.

2. Cranberry sauce was originally brought to the table because of it's resemblance of gelled blood, Puritan currency.

3. Puritans fled England originally because England wasn't ready for those sick bass lines they were about to drop.

4. There is nothing to be thankful for in this work because when we die our bodies rejoin the universe and become part of an endless, godless, cosmic void.

5. 1 in 3 deaths in the month of November are caused by food poisoning after sharing needles with raw turkeys.

6. Turkey is also the name of a country in Asia/Europe. That's pretty fun I guess.

7. Look at you sitting at the kid's table. You pathetic loser. I mean, why aren't you married yet. You blow every chance you've ever had at a relationship. Even the kids make fun of you. If you haven't pulled your life together by now, just give up.

8. You know what I'm thankful for? Not having to put up with you nagging mother anymore since we broke up. That lady really knows how to ruin cranberry sauce.

9. I didn't mean that.

10. I only say these things because I'm so passionate about you. You have that power over me. That's how much I love you.

11. Suicide rates usually spike during Christmas season because everyone is so disappointed at how your green bean casserole at Thanksgiving turned out.

10 Reasons White Girls Love Fall

1. The "I Love Pumpkin Spice!!" tattoo on your forehead will finally be seasonal and festive.

2. Oct 11 is National Coming Out Day. Hello new gay BFF!

3. Halloween! A chance to get wasted just like you do every other weekend but to do it dressed in some kind of half-ass cat costume you threw together at the last minute so you weren't the only person at the party without a costume.

4. When you tell someone you're going for an autumn walk they'll think you're helping people by going on an autism walk. I mean, if it's kind of loud or if there's a lot of traffic going by they could make that mistake.

5. The changing of leaves is a reminder of the slow decay down to the season of darkness that will cast it's cold, bitter shadow until March.

6. On All Hallows' Eve the souls of the dearly departed are thought to rise from the grave and wander the Earth to seek vengeance of those who have wronged them before moving on to the next world. They picked a good night too because there are a lot of pretty bitchin' parties that night.

7. Fall weather is very pleasant.

8. If you're a procrastinator and never took down your Christmas tree last year, you can stop worrying because, if you hang in a few more weeks, you can just say you put it up early.

9. Starbucks will be running a promotion that, if you let their scientists inject your uterus with pumpkin DNA and gestate a human/pumpkin mutant for 9 months, you'll get 10% off Pumpkin Spice Lattes in the months of September-November.

10. When you accidentally give your baby hard apple cider instead of its usual apple juice, it'll probably do some pretty funny and adorable things when it's wicked hammered. I smell a hilarious viral video/child abuse lawsuit.

Eight Negatives Nobody Tells You About Losing Weight

I spent most of my time from childhood through early college overweight to the point that I just resigned it as my fate.  Eventually, I decided one day to get rid of the weight.  It was actually a very simple decision, not one that I thought about long and hard or had to work up courage for.  I was sitting on the couch one day and had the exact internal dialogue “Hey, I think I’ll start losing weight today”.  I immediately started making the effort with my next meal.  Now I’m 130 lbs. lighter.  There is no shortage of diet advice flooding the world, but I never heard a lot from people that had lost weight on some of the most unexpected results of weight loss.  Everyone talks about the self-esteem, energy, and overall health they gain and but hardly anyone talks about the negative side-effects of weight loss.

1.  If You're a Man Trying to Eat Healthy, Men Will Take Shots at Your Masculinity

What’s the first thing you think of when you think of a manly man? Chances are it isn’t that guy going up to the salad bar for his third plate of lettuce with fat-free dressing or uttering phrases like “I think I just added too much water to the quinoa”.  One of the most unexpected things I noticed when eating healthier during and after losing weight was the way guys would chuckle at my food choices at restaurants.  While they’re ordering burgers and fries, I’m ordering grilled chicken with cottage cheese.

The cultural definition of what is manly seems to be based on tired old stereotypes; the same stereotypes that insist that all men want tools for Father’s Day and refuse to ever ask for directions.  Basically, a lot of people think all men should fit the character profile of a 90s sitcom dad.  Regardless, it's still difficult to convince anyone that your food has nothing to do with how much of a man you are.  It should be about taking care of your body, not your gender.  I was once called a wuss for cutting a donut into a fourth, just to get a taste without all of the extra sugar.  If that’s the type of thing that makes you a wuss, I’m really glad that guy doesn’t know how many Lifetime movies I watch a week while wearing a Snuggie.  If the amount of fat and grease your body can consume without your colon starting an uprising against you was the measure of manhood, than those guys that win the hot dog eating contests every July 4 make me look like one of those portraits of a baby wearing a strawberry costume.

2.  Buying Clothes Will Get Expensive

It’s pretty obvious that after dropping any sizeable amount of weight that your clothes will no longer fit.  Buying a new wardrobe when you lose weight will get really expensive, since everything from shirts to belts to underwear will need replacements.

When you’re halfway to your goal, you’ll still have to buy clothes to fit, which will soon be too big as well.  You will go through awkward phases where everything will be slightly too big on you.  Usually my pants were sagging as I went through my weight loss.  This was never by choice; it was only because they were constantly too big on me.  I was forced to only own two pair of jeans at a time since my weight was changing so quickly.

3.  Your Body Will Be Completely Different—Not Always in a Good Way

You'll have extra skin and stretch marks that won't go away.  My body still pays for the mistakes I made when I was younger. You just have to learn to live with it unless you have thousands to spend on plastic surgery.  I take off my shirt and see the flat abs I would have never dreamed of 10 years ago.  Just below that is a fold of skin that, to the untrained eye, looks like flab.  Even after all of the hard work, I still won’t take of my shirt in public because of it. Sometimes when I am jogging it will bounce a bit and create the illusion of flab.

To date, eating greasy food makes me physically ill.  There was a time when I would go to Burger King, order a combo meal, and eat it--for a snack.  Too much grease--now, and my entire gut wants to kill me from the inside out.

 4.  You'll still “Think Fat” For a While

It seems that going from fat to thin is an instant ticket to confidence.  It’s not.  When you spend so much of your life staring at a certain image in the mirror, it becomes ingrained in your psyche.  “I’m not good enough, “I can't get women", or "that's only something that thin people can do/wear" becomes your default way of thinking.  The negative thought patterns and low self-confidence stick around. 

You find yourself thinking these types of thoughts before you even realize that you're thin. For two years after losing weight, I would see a female looking at me I still automatically assumed I just looked familiar, she was looking at someone behind me, or just thought I was so ugly she was mesmerized.

5.  Keeping it off is a Constant Battle and You Have to Make Permanent Behavior Changes

I lost a sizeable amount of weight once when I was about twelve, and by junior year of high school had gained it all back.  It's similar to a drug addict that quit using.  In this case the addiction was bad food and is available at every corner, is legal, and can be delivered.  Eventually you’ll have to shake “I’m really tired, I’ll just go to….(insert fast food restaurant here)” as a default thought.

I realized how much I ate out of boredom and had to change behaviors.  Losing weight is a matter of changing behaviors permanently and incorporating them into a way of life.  To do this you have to figure out what made you eat unnecessarily in the first place, and address those behaviors.  Making permanent changes isn’t a matter of depriving yourself of all of your vices, it’s simply a matter of learning how to enjoy them in moderation and exert self-control.  Self-control is a simple concept, but one that’s very difficult to master.  Once you’re in control of yourself, you will be surprised at what you can accomplish.

6.  You're going to look like a Snob Sometimes

A lot of social situations revolve around food, especially around the holidays.  This means having to turn down well-intentioned invitations to pizza restaurants or refusing cake from your grandmother. The time you used to spend doing nothing is now spent going to the gym or working out, so it cuts into your social life.  "Sorry, I have to go to the gym" as a response to "Hey, we're all getting drinks after work" can be interpreted as pretentious and elitist to some people that have never been in your situation.  Chances are, they’re jealous and wish they had similar motivation.  The concept of motivation never crosses my mind.  Workouts are just something I do. 

7.  Unsolicited advice

Most diet advice you're going to hear is bogus.  There are tons of diets in existence.  The truth is that most don’t work.  They’re mostly used for selling books and meals in the frozen food section.  They teach you to stick to a plan and rely on it, but don’t teach you how to actually keep the weight off and can lead to weight gain in the future.  Everyone has their own theories, own diet fads, and knows somebody that lost weight doing something strange. 

Some "diets" are outright dangerous and aren't really diets at all.  Of course, everyone has their own opinion and knows somebody that knows somebody that swears by it.

8.  People Will Constantly Ask for Diet Advice--And It Gets Annoying

When somebody asks “How did you do it?” it’s complimentary at first.  It’s a validation that you’ve accomplished something that not everybody has been able to do and you’ve inspired someone.  Rarely does the inspiration turn into anything more.  In reality, they are hoping you’re a wizard with a magical elixir.  There are no shortcuts.  It takes hard work, sacrifice, and doing without.  There is a reason you don’t read these things in diet books.  Nobody will spend money to be told how hard they will have to work.  They want a quick fix and a shortcut. 

The truth is that you can't force anyone to do anything.