How Do you Date Anyone?

Seriously, how do you date anyone? I know, it seems like a ridiculous question, and I suppose it would be for almost anyone else but the mysterious process whereby you go from asking a girl to dinner or a movie to dating her on a regular basis and having her introduce you as her boyfriend is completely foreign to me.

The movies always make it look so easy, like guy meets girl, they kiss, they're in bed, and all of sudden being chased for their life by the Terminator or someone else and by the end of the movie an hour later they are in love and it is clear they are going to be married or do by the films closing credits.

I think the main problem for me is there is no clear highlighted roadmap on how to get from point a to point b. I usually end up turning left and falling off the cliff next to the Coyote from Warner Bros. cartoons.

Up till the point when I was in my early 20's I was either doing something entirely different or girls at that age just recognize when a guy asks you to dinner its not because he thinks you would make really great friends.

My main problem is a complete inability to go for the goodnight kiss at the end of the night which proves to the girl that its a date and puts you at least on good footing to a successful relationship versus the wierd quasi nova world that I live in when I take girls out.

I remember there was this one Seinfeld episode where this "friend" discussion took place and they were grilling George on the verbage he used to ask out the girl, "Did you say go out, or hang out?" As if this small slip of the phrase would plant the seed in the girls mind about what kind of night it was intended to be.

Obviously I was convinced that it was because ever since I have tried to avoid like the plague the phrase hang out when I am clearly interested in them.

My second problem after the lack of a kiss is a faded memory is getting it together and explaining to this girl that I actually like her. Once you do this, you are telling her in no uncertain terms that at some point in the future you would like to have sex with her on a regular basis.

You can see why this is especially scary for both parties.

Clearly the real decision making part needs to be happening on the girl's end to prevent this kind of flailing in the wind and again in movies often does with charismatic leads like Zooey Deschanel who often flirts onscreen with no uncertain intentions like in the recent movie Hot Tub Time Machine where she tells John Cusack "Hey you could do something awesome like talk to this girl you just met"

Those are just some of the regular difficulties that I used to experience in a pre emergency room world, now I also have to do deal with a stomach wound and a constantly leaking bag full of shit and a completely uncertain future.

Frankly, I can't imagine when a good time to mention any of those things are to a girl.

Probably, right after the introduction wouldn't be a good idea.

Hi, I'm Joshua and I'm recovering from emergency stomach surgery.

Oh you poor thing. Do you feel bad?

Only all the time.

Yeah. That's how I should do it.

And there's another secret I'm going to let you guys in on. I'm currently having these troubles with a girl right now that I've been out in public places with a few times and its obvious that I should apologize for the complete lack of kissing or saying how much I like her.

Texting it to her seems like a poor solution.

Explaining it to her over a cup of coffee seems better.

Getting her to read this article seems like the best thing possible because there is absolutely no way I could explain all that without fumbling vocally and looking like I swallowed a biscuit.

Also there is no way I'm naming names. I'll probably get her brother to read it.

Historically I'm at my best with women in the writing process, and since the internet has made letter writing seem quaint to the point of being ridiculous and snobbish this is probably it.

Also.

The final episode of Trailor Park Life is right above us! Unfortunately, my normal mechanism of writing out the panels wont work as well today because each panel has 2 sets of dialogue because there is a television playing in the background so I will write "tv" before the tv dialogue so as to be less confusing.

But I will try!

Panel 1: (tv)On tonights episode of Unsolved Mysteries (blah..blah) What happened?

Panel 2: (tv)Missing people....blah. You know what? I can really relate to that show

Panel 3: I mean like what happened to all of my beer? (tv)...still missing

Panel 4: Honey you remember that party last night? (tv) the search continues

Panel 5: ...Oh yeah. (tv)coming up next

Panel 6: (tv) Another mystery solved by our faithful viewers.

Figuring it Out

I have to admit that I felt a little lost recently. My general health seems to be mostly restored to the point where I took 2 different jobs last week.

My first job was to setup a laptop in Richmond to webcast a bar where people were watching the University of Richmond play Kansas in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament. The bar was packed with drunken revelers who by all admissions were there to watch Shaka Smart and VCU shock the world again

I was trapped in the corner with the laptop and aware that I was enjoying the game like a thousand times less then everyone else there because I was paying attention to the safety of the laptop and sending out corporate tweets about the game as part of work.

My next job was background work on set of the film "J Edgar" starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Clint Eastwood. I did background work a thousand times in New York so the actual thing to me wasn't a big deal. However, it was pretty cool watching Clint Eastwood work. I was in a small shed with 4 other extras, Clint Eastwood, DiCaprio and 3 other actors for a pivotal scene in the movie.

3 hours of fiddling with knobs and walking back and forth wore me out and when dinner was announced I was done. I used to work 12 hours doing extra work and not blink, but I think if they threw me out there again I would have just about collapsed. No, I don't have my strength back yet although I did get my weight up to 125 that day and have gained a couple more pounds since then.

Fortunately, I was "wrapped" (set dismissal) right after dinner and slept 2 hours in my car at the nearest gas station parking lot.

I've been doing a few things for my dad here and there during the week, but it isn't enough to keep me occupied and doesn't get my blood racing like living in New York.

I miss waking up and doing Kung Fu in Chinatown on off days with my friend Kap Mandu.

I have my next doctors appointment April 11th and hopefully he will tell me that my wound is healed up enough to get my colon reconnected. This ostomy bag saved my life but it is a messy, smelly reminder of how close I came to death and I won't miss it a bit.

I have this idea in mind that I can do promotions and acting all up and down the east coast without living in New York and I'd like to see if I could make that work, but obviously I'm not quite able to be back in business yet.

It seems that writing is the only activity I can do full time that doesn't exhaust me.

So, I thought I would write a book. I have several unfinished books in my backlog and on my old website joshdudley.tripod.com. I used to write thousands of words and run out of steam. My ideas weren't getting shared with people and I felt like I was writing in a vacuum and I just get anxious and depressed when I spend too much time by myself.

I've absorbed a lot of zombie pop culture over the years and thought that "A Complete Idiots Guide to Zombies" would be a pretty great book but it is already written, so it's back to square one.

What snarky thing should I write about?

I think I would like to re-work one of my old unfinished books. I'm going to throw out the first chapter of "The Complete Idiots Guide to Idiots" to you guys and see what you think.

Oh and also we have the long awaited return of Trailor Park Life.

The captions are as follows

panel 1: Gab, Gab, Gab

panel 2: Yak, Yak, Yak

panel 3: What are you kids doing inside?

panel 4: Sorry dad

panel 5: Go outside and play in the street like you're supposed to

And now...

The Complete Idiots Guide to Idiots

Warning: If you are reading this, it does not necessarily mean that you are not an idiot.

Of course it does not altogether disqualify you from being one either. Of most native readers of the English language, the ability to read and understand complete sentences like this one is actually attained at quite a young age and it can actually be said with some certainty that this ability does not make one any more or any less of an idiot. There are still many idiots with us after the completion of elementary school. Strangely enough, there are far more idiots in the world after receiving a high school diploma than there were before. Stranger still, there exist quite a good many idiots out there in the world with a college degree. Shockingly, even the possession of a masters or doctorate does not exclude one from this very real and grave possibility.

The sad truth is that no amount of education in the world can stifle or prevent idiot tendencies completely. This is because idiot tendencies by their very nature are inborn, making them utterly and horribly inescapable. From the time of conception on up till when death locks us in its icy jaws we are all imprinted with the genetic material to say or do things of incredible stupidity. This is called “higher intelligence”.

Animals do not have higher intelligence, so clearly they must have “lower intelligence”. They also have very few things in their life to juggle, mainly just eating and sleeping and looking out for anyone bigger than them who might want to eat them. Additionally their comprehension skills are severely limited, so not only do they not know what they are looking at most of the time, it never crosses their mind to wonder what it might be anyway.

These are just some of the reasons why animals are seldom seen engaging in random acts of idiocy. Squirrels falling out of trees, and birds running into windowpanes would be among the few examples. Animals have such a limited scope of things to do that they very seldom screw up in an obvious way that makes them look ridiculous to onlookers. People on the other hand with their “higher intelligence” have such a broad scope of tasks to perform in life because of what they should know, and because of the capacity they have for performing tasks, that the chances of them doing something ridiculous at any given moment are incredibly high.

This is basically what defines an idiot; it is someone who screws up in either small or monumentally large ways. Normally there have to be other people around to notice it and think to themselves, “God what an idiot.”

It kind of reminds me of the old adage if an accountant screws up in a small office by himself and no one sees it, is he an idiot?

Can you be an idiot with no one watching?

How much of an idiot can you be with other people watching you?

This is what this book is about. It’s about people doing dumb, ridiculous things when they should know how to do those things.

A lot of you reading this right now might say that this book can’t possibly be about you. After all, you have a good job with a steady source of income, providing you with enough free time to read a book as ridiculous as this one. Also, you are very smart and always know what you’re doing at all times, and you always fill out the right forms, and dot all your t’s and cross all your I’s.

If this is indeed the case, then I might hazard a guess that this book may be very helpful to you indeed, because after all, if you’re reading this, then you just may be an idiot.