Someone on reddit posted that their 28-year-old brother just died and they didn’t know how to deal with the grief.  The top comment was from an older man who writes about how to cope with death.  I’ve never experienced a close friend or relative passing and it’s one of my greatest fears that will inevitably happen.  What this man writes about it is beautiful and perfect so I thought I would share.

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“Alright, here goes. I’m old. What that means is that I’ve survived (so far) and a lot of people I’ve known and loved did not. I’ve lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can’t imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here’s my two cents.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don’t want it to “not matter”. I don’t want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gorged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can’t see.

As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.”

This weekend will mark my fourth month as a first-time dog owner.  I got Governor at two months and four pounds, and now he’s about to be six months and eighteen pounds. I’m super happy to have him in my life and entering the world of a dog owner has been amusing and challenging.  I’ve surprised myself with how much patience I’ve had, though I have to say after you drunkenly bring guys home and they pee your bed, you can’t get too upset when a 10-pound nugget does it.

Governor has the greatest personality and is a text-book french bulldog.  He mimics whatever energy level I’m at, so when I take uppers he is ready to play. When I’m hungover he totally gets it and chills at the end of the bed.  He sits like a human being and watches TV with me. He is social with every type of dog and rarely barks.  He’s pretty awesome but not without some issues. Like most bulldogs he’s insanely stubborn.  Walking him is exhausting. When we go for a walk he needs to smell every single blade of grass, or when we cross the road he will decide he wants to shit in right in the middle of it.  Really, here?  Why are you shitting now?

He’s the stubborn type that only reacts to positive reinforcement.  If he feels any tugging on his collar (when I’m trying to get him to stop shitting in the middle of Addison, for example) he immediately looks at me with a huge “Go fuck yourself.”  He plants himself firmly to the ground and tightens his body, immobilizing him.  In his mind this serves two purposes – 1) it tells me he writes the rules in our relationship and 2) is a faux emotional appeal to everyone around him that his owner abuses him.  The second bit actually works, because when he does this it looks like I’m dragging him against his will to his inevitable death.  I’ve even had passive-aggressive comments from strangers like “Oh, looks like I’ll have to call PETA!”  Joke’s on your because he’s faking it you dumb bitch.  Also, you’re fat and no one loves you.

This brings me to the worst part about being a dog owner… other people.  Getting a dog increases your interaction with crazy strangers by at least 60%.  The thing I hate most in this world is small talk with strangers, it exhausts me.  When Governor approaches another dog, the owner immediately starts asking me about him and giving him compliments.  This makes sense because Gov is incredibly cute and a prince among dogs.  But then I feel obligated to be interested in their shitty dog.  I don’t fucking care about your 12-year-old white Bijou with matted fur and yellow crust around its eyes.  I’m a terrible liar so I am pretty bad at coming up with things to say.  ”Oh my god, I love it’s… tail.  I love how its tail moves like that!” or “What a cool leash!”

The dog park is another mecca of awful people. There’s the gay older men who pretend like they are trying to be good parents to their dogs since they won’t have kids, but instead they are just annoying.  I once saw a 50-year-old gay man bring his dog to the park with some faggy name like Jayden or Nostalgia, and he yelled her name the whole time.  ”JAYDEN, NO!” JAYDEN STOP!”  The dog wasn’t even doing anything. The poor thing couldn’t get a drink from the water bowl without being yelled at.  If I was that dog I would hang myself.  Theres also that type of lonely woman at the park who talks about her dog like it’s her significant other.  First she tells you about her old dogs that passed away, like she’s widowed.  Then she talks about her current dog and how he’s cranky in the morning or doesn’t play with her like he used to, almost as if he doesn’t find her sexy anymore.

Even with these people my experience having a dog has been 99% positive.  If I had to do it all over again there is one piece of advice I would give. When you are having issues with training your puppy, don’t tell your friends.  All of my friends, dog owners or not, think they know everything about them.  They think they know everything about house breaking, behavior-correcting, feeding, etc.  ”My friend/sister/neighbor has two dogs and you really need to do this or that.”  Dude, cut it out.  The only thing you’re really an expert on is how to bottom doggie style, so if I need tips with that, I’ll hit you up.

So that’s been my life so far with the Governor and I’m looking forward to some more good times to come.

Unless he dies.

I don’t think there are enough satires on websites. We can write sketches on people, shows, movies, pop culture – but the media that reports it all hardly gets satirized. There have been a few websites like Regretsy.com which shed light on these sites, but there’s always room for a lot more.

I’ve started doing some web videos with some friends which take these websites and personify them. What would Google be like as a person? Wikipedia? 4Chan? We just released our first one on Jezebel.com and there are more to come. Check it out!

I am unable to do anything in moderation. When I love something, I fucking love it.  The first day I ever jerked off  I did it twelve times in a row.  The base of my dick was bruised and I was practically ejaculating plasma by cycle 12.  When I am given a bottle of water I will drink the entire thing at once.  When I find a new game or hobby I will tap every bit of enjoyment from it in a very short amount of time. I have the gluttony of William Howard Taft and the greed of Daniel Plainview.  I think it comes from this part of me that finds enjoyment in something more than the average person.  I firmly believe that if everyone loved things in life as much as I do they would be a poly-masterbating greedy prospector as well.

When I first found alcohol, I loved it.  It’s this feeling of being someone else for a night that drove me to keep doing it.  Waking up in college with a bunch of your friends in a beach house laughing about the events of last evening is one of the greatest feelings on earth.  The giddiness of the morning after drinking, laughing about how some chick named Courtney shit her pants, eating hash browns, then passing out for the rest of the day.  It was fantastic.

Same goes with weed.  I started smoking in high school and came up with some of the funniest shit with my friends.  I would laugh so hard I thought my organs were ripping.  We would get high on the weekends in the bird sanctuary or at one of our houses. We would do gravity bong hits in the bathtub using a janky 2-liter as our vessel, complete with a wrench piece melted to the cap with a lighter, and later would mistake the shaving cream as air freshener and get blue shit everywhere.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve had different experiences.  Alcohol seriously damages my productivity, development, health, and personal relationships.  I get worse hangovers and unpredictable behavior.  Now I’m that chick Courtney who shit her pants, except I’m 24 and have multiple responsibilities.  Alcohol enhances my already addictive, impulsive nature and I think about my poor decisions the next morning with regret and guilt.  It’s the same routine- I broke my phone, pissed the bed and am now about to vomit half-digested a Taco Burrito Palace combo meal and Miller Lite laced with stomach acid.

Weed is even worse.  I was progressively getting bad anxiety when smoking, but October 2010 might have been the worst.  I made a batch of pot cupcakes for an improvised podcast group I was in and ate the batter.  Thus began the worst high of my life that included me crying in the fetal position on my bed for 4 hours.  I remember repeating “I have to get out of this well.”  Why was I in a fucking well? Just awful.

I think the turning point was when my drinking and smoking changed from being something I enjoyed to becoming something that was a requirement to be at a bar or social event.  How else am I going to survive going out with large groups of people who I have nothing in common with?  I’ve decided to find some moderation in alcohol by making a 2012 New Years resolution to not consume alcohol from New Years Day  to St. Patricks Day.  If all goes well I might do this every year.

When I tell people I’m not drinking for 2 ½ months I get a pretty negative reaction.  The first is that they immediately find me a less fun individual.  I see it in their eyes. To them everyone else is dancing with a drink in their hand while I’m holding a Wii Remote in my studio apartment and now regarded as ‘Sober Game Night Rob’. The second is the surprise at the elimination of alcohol all together.  “Why not just have a beer with friends or wine with dinner?”  Because alcohol does not taste good.  It’s natures way of saying this is (fun) poison. We drink for the effects of alcohol and the taste is something we just have to deal with and desensitize ourselves to.  When someone says a mixed drink tastes good, they mean it tastes good considering that its making them drunk.  I don’t think it’s the burning in their throat that’s tasty.  Ever seen someone slowly enjoy a shot of liquor? Swish it around in their mouths just to get the alcohol flavor ingrained in their palate?  If you do, they probably have no hair or teeth because you’re looking at an alcoholic.

So here’s to starting off the New Year with good health and a productive lifestyle.  It’s not really a personal step forward- I’m just eliminating something drastically from my life so technically I’m still not practicing moderation, which is the real issue here.  So lets just call it a step sideways.

I recently finished my Christmas shopping and I have to say there’s a bunch of bullshit out there. Seriously awful stuff. Gifting is a breeze if you enter a mental state where you disregard what the person needs or wants and purchase something that will pass as a gift. As we enter adulthood we purchase things for ourselves as we need them. There is no need to ask yourself  ”Hmm.. what does my stepmother need?” Well, she doesn’t fucking need anything. If she needed something she would buy it. For example, I’m going halvsies on Christmas with my brother. When I told him I was getting our dad a set of golf-themed grilling utensils he scoffed and replied that our dad has a full master stainless steel 110-piece grill set from Costco. Well you fuckhead I’m not spending my December soul searching and finding what will bring each of our loved ones the most utility. I’m looking for a moderately priced gift that needs to hit just one of their interests.

I’m digressing a bit, but what I’m getting at is when you think too hard about gifts you’re getting yourself into a K-hole. You start thinking about how grandpa loves old films, then you think about the industrial era, and before you know it you bought him a railroad spike repurposed into a screwdriver. Its a bitch to use and it doesn’t fit in his toolbox, because he doesn’t have a toolbox, because he hates tools. And now he hates you. I’ve found a few popular gifts on a couple popular websites that you might want to avoid when getting last minute gifts this season.

Authentic Stadium Seat Earrings

Bad for: Your Girlfriend, Your girlfriend’s earlobes in two months

I know what you’re thinking, “Its the perfect gift for my girlfriend!”  They combined the love of your favorite sports team with her love of wearing dangly shit on her face.  Its just what they want you to think. Your girlfriend will hate these.  She probably pretends to like the Dodgers in the hopes of you maybe going down on her sometime this month.  And it won’t happen.  But even if she decides to wear these god-awful nuggets they will weigh her lobes down in no time.  Also, its made from a seat.  A very, very used seat.

Motorcycle Pens

Bad for: Motorcycle enthusiasts, Anyone that uses a pen

OMG MY UNCLE LOVES HIS HARLEY.  Yep, but he will hate this.  Because it doesn’t look like a motorcycle.  It looks like a dolphin fucked a scooter.  Why is the seat at the very tip? How do you even hold it with that wheel there?  Do bikers even like pens?  Can they even write?  So many questions.

Repurposed Bottle Opener

Bad for: Anyone who wants to open a beer easily

There is this new recycle & repurpose fad hitting the etsy and uncommon goods shoppers.  They love when you take a used tire and make it into a tote bag.  Your chapstick and tampax will smell like a factory but at least you’re savvy.  Thats what these assholes did with this beer opener.  Who knew nails could do something other than be nailed to stuff?  None of us, because we invented a faster and cheaper way to open beer decades ago.

Solid Steel Ray Gun Paperweight

Bad for: Your wallet, Your environment

How many grandpas out there like steam punk?  Oh, no hands?  Thought so.  This entire thing is a sin. First of all, paperweights have no purpose except for the small minority of people who still do their office work at a windy park.  Second, who is that fanatic about ray guns that they would appreciate this?  (Edit: I just found out that there are over 5,000 fans of “Ray Gun” on Facebook).  Third, Wild Wild West was a terrible movie.

Book Rest Lamp

Bad for: Everyone

Your Aunt Jen loves to read but dog-earring a page and placing the book on a nightstand is sloppy.  She needs a huge fucking light up house to rest her book on.  Because books and magazines get tired and need large glowing barns to sleep on.  Look how cute it looks laying over that massive yellow pentagon! It may take up half the nightstand but isn’t it worth it? No.  Fuck no.

Flower Shadow Clock

Bad for: That relative who got raped in the garden that one time

What a cruel, cruel reminder.