A month in review: Ten things I learned in March

1. Karma is a vegetarian bitch.

The moment I decide that I'm finally going to just have a burger or hot dog after a night out (vegetarianism be damned) will also be the moment the nearest burger joint gets raided by the cops and the two hot dog stands outside the bar I'm leaving will sell their very last kielbasas to two dudes who get there right before me, like they knew I was coming.

2. The maximum spraying distance of a can of Pepsi punctured by a tooth is 28 feet.

If you toss a can of soda to your friend's younger brother, some percentage of the time he will drop to his knees and attempt to catch it with his mouth in a moment of grandiose idiocy. When he does this, his tooth will puncture the can while the can punctures his lip before bouncing off it and onto the ground. The boy will bleed and grin while the can spins wildly around on the carpet as if posessed, spraying the entire room (ceiling, walls, couches, windows, and your face -- 28 feet away) with a hydrant-esque column of foamy, hissing Pepsi. It will take nearly 25 minutes to find and wipe down all the surfaces covered in the "brown and bubbly", and it will take all day for your eyes to stop stinging from a combination of the soda and the crying from laughing so hard. (The boy will not require stitches.)

3. I resemble Lisa Loeb.

Thanks to her new reality show, Lisa Loeb is back, and that means people are remembering what she looks like. And thanks to my terrible vision and a bad contact prescription, I am wearing my glasses (totally nerdy black-framed "librarian-esque" glasses) much more often than I used to. These two factors have collided at such a time that my friends are regularly referring to me as "one-hit wonder". This is not as bad as the fact that every time I walked into the room two weekends ago they all started singing "Stay" very dramatically and with total disregard for the stares coming from everyone else in the immediate vicinity. Which served, strangely, to embarrass the shit out of me, even though I wasn't the one singing.

[Please note: I only very vaguely resemble Lisa Loeb. It's the glasses that fucked me on this one. That and the fact that my friends have very little vision or creativity, which sounds like a drag, but has its perks. For example, while I now have a lame nickname and theme song, I also get to watch them do things like attempt to each finish entire gallons of Rossi on a Sunday afternoon while watching every "Godfather" movie ever made without throwing up, and argue about which Air Supply song is better: "Lost in Love" or "All out of Love" while searching the Web for the band's next local concert. By the way, it's in Lewiston, Idaho. Yes, they're road-tripping to it. I know, I know...]

4. My dad has suddenly taken to wearing clogs.

And he doesn't see the humor in this, an old man, wearing clogs. (More on this later.)

5. The amount you volunteer and/or give to charity is directly and positively correlated to the amount of good shit (specifically money) that happens to you.

In my case, I've learned that if I spend two hours volunteering I can expect something ridiculously fortuitous to happen to me within 24 hours. This good thing is usually at least one of the following:

- Money. Random stumbling into money. We're not talking a fiver in last-weeks jeans pockets, either. We're talking "big money, no Whammies" money.
- Freebies. Think theatre tickets, designer clothing, vouchers for massages, etc. Good stuff, comped. Can't beat it.
- Food. Free or significantly discounted, and very gourmet. What? I love great food. A free meal is nearly better than...
- Sex.

6. Sometimes there are so many noteworthy things to write about that I just can't.

March was (clearly) like that. I was totally lame, but totally busy and lots of hilarious, poignant and earth-shattering things happened which I am handicapped to put into words. So there you go. It was good for me, you just don't get any details. Sorry, but then again, get a fucking life of your own. I mean, really. (Just kidding, I love you.)

7. Lychees are delicious.

They're bizarre looking Asian fruits with a strong perfumey smell and come in scary-looking cans, but make great cocktails and a delicious flavor of gelato.

8. I don't know jack.

I discovered this when attempting to play Trivial Pursuit. The game's content, contrary to its title, is not, in fact, trivial. I mean, I have no idea what LA Ram lineman was voted to the Pro Bowl eleven times, and I think that's trivial. But I should damn well be able to answer questions pertaining to the order of American Presidents, the events of the Civil War, and be able to name the six fields of contribution in which Nobel Prizes are given each year.

So, to rectify this embarrassing situation, I have committed myself to reading only non-fiction books for the next eleven years of my life (arbitrary number of years -- ten seemed too few while a dozen seemed very cliche) or until I beat the smartest friend I have at Trivial Pursuit, whichever comes first.

9. Epithet and epitaph are NOT the same word, I have no idea when it's appropriate to use a dash ( -- ) when writing but don't care, the slash ( / ) is called a "virgule", a Titmouse is actually a bird, not a rodent, and Paul Revere made George Washington's false teeth.

Huh. See? I'm learning things already.

10. I like beards.

On men. (Not so much on women. The lady who works at the gas station closest to my house actually has a beard. More on this later, too. But for now, let's just say it's not pretty. Poor thing.)

Apparently, I like beards on men quite a bit, because the moment I see a bearded man, I find myself wondering what it would be like to kiss him. This is particularly disturbing when the bearded man is a bum. This love of beards may well be a phase, I realize, (something like trying to date the underwear model and that week where all I ate was cottage cheese), but I think it's a healthy thing for me. They scream "alpha male", which is the type of man I should be transitioning to kissing, as the betas in my past haven't worked out so well for me.

Also, beards, it turns out, are particularly a weakness of mine when paired with glasses, a suit, or a dog. (Obviously representing brains, success and adventure.) Who knew?