Hey, Blog Tracker, What the Fuck is Wrong With You?

Dear Blog Tracker (or http://tracker.icerocket.com),

You sick or something?

You're just not yourself lately, and I'm worried. Call this a Welfare Check. Call this a knock on your door. Call this a Hallmark get-well-soon card.

Something's wrong with you, I can tell. Normally, underneath the My Masonic Apron "Members" Section (there's 196 of you-- YEAH, RIGHT!) the little Blog Tracker icon appears showing my traffic rank. Or whatever it shows. I don't really understand it. But it's a four-digit number that ranks this site's popularity/traffic against the statistics of other blogs. (Not recently, though. For the past two weeks, there's just been an ugly little red "x" there.)

Normally, it shows me who's peekin' under the apron, and when they're doing it. And what OS they're using. And what their screen resolution is.

That part cracks me up. Do I really give a fuck that someone is using 1024x728 megafuckheads to look at this blog? Jesus Christ, I know I don't have many other things to do with my time other than worrying about such things, but come on now.

Anyway, Blog Tracker. If you're taking some kind of vacation or something, you really should have called or sent me an email to let me know. If you'd done me that solid, I might have even popped over to collect your mail or water your pets, but you just didn't seem to give two fucks about letting me know. You just high-tailed it out of here to Vegas or some shit. And I feel some kind of way about that.

Now, if you're sick, that's one thing. I understand that everybody gets under the weather, even online traffic tracking software. There are bugs in our systems and viruses and malware and all that shit. And there's syphillis, too, which ain't no joke. If you fucked some nasty-ass hooker and your balls done fell off, I understand that. I feel you. I'm with you.

Just let a brother know. N'yah mean?

Now, if you just peaced out because of something I said, you didn't feel like you wanted to be associated with this blog anymore-- maybe you were offended by the Diabetes post from long ago, or you didn't like what I had to say about Russell Brand or 8th Continent Soymilk or some other crazy shit like that, well, hey-- okay. That's okay. We can work it out, though. If you don't let me know when you're offended, if you don't let me know what you need in a non-judgemental way, how can I know it's time for me to apologize? How do I know how to resolve a conflict until I know there is a conflict to resolve?

Running away from your problems, Blog Tracker, is the coward's way out. Sure, you may choose that course of action because it's non-confrontational, and maybe confrontation makes you uncomfortable and, believe me, it's not my favorite thing in the world either, but it's that conflict that helps us to forge stronger relationships.

And that, Blog Tracker, is what I want to do with you. I want to build connections, inroads, bridges, handshakes, bearhugs, powerlunches, roto-virus, inertia-reel, dovetailed, carbonated relationships.

With you.

With you, Blog Tracker.

But I can't do that when you run from me. You're no prey, and I'm no predator. You're no fox, and I'm no overdressed, intoxicated member of the British aristocracy.

Come back.

Come back to me.

Let's.... let's mend fences.

Let's.... touch each other... quietly. In the basement. On top of the washing machine, maybe.

With the lights off.

We could, I don't know, shave each other.

You like to be shaved, don't you, Blog Tracker?

Shhhhhhhhh......

Don't speak.

It's better if we don't speak.

Just.... shhhhh..............................

The Cake Up My Ass

It all started when my shoelace broke off in my hand.

I mean-- shoelaces are supposed to be like cockroaches, right? Indefuckingstructable. Especially on a pair of Doc Martens that I haven't even owned for four months. Obviously the shoelaces on Doc Martens are not impervious to fat, acid rain, gluten, locusts, etc, etc.

Then, my car wouldn't start. To be more accurate, the key wouldn't turn in the ignition. At all. I was fulfilling one of my sworn duties as a non-profit lackey, going to Staples and purchasing a huge box of Avery 5160 mailing labels-- easily one of my least favorite errands, and, when I got back inside my car, the key wouldn't turn. I took the key out. I put the key in. I jiggled the steering wheel gently at first, then I shook it like it was a paint can and I was the MAB mixer. I fucked the ignition lock with the key like I was an epileptic on PCP, but it would not turn. I called my boss to tell her what was going on and to let her know that I might very well be late returning to the office.

Then I called Soly, my often irate, unpredictable, sixty-two-year-old Israeli mechanic. His younger, harder-to-understand Chinese employee, Jack, answered the phone. He told me to jiggle the wheel.

"I did that, Jack. Do you have any other ideas, please?"

He passed the phone off to Soly without even saying "hold on" or "goodbye" or "no."

"Do you have a hammer?" Soly asked me. I laughed. Who, besides Bob Villa, wouldn't laugh at that question.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?" Soly screamed at me, "Do you have a goddamn hammer or not?!"

"NO!" I yelled back, "I do NOT have a hammer. I do NOT DRIVE AROUND WITH A HAMMER IN MY CAR!"

"Okay, okay" he says, feigning that he's offended. "Are you wearing shoes?"

I resisted the urge to laugh again.

"Yes, Soly. I am wearing shoes."

"Are they good shoes?" he asked. It was sixty-five degrees out and I was boiling inside this car.

"They're good shoes. They're Doc Martens, in fact, with a broken shoelace," I replied.

"WHAT?"

"Nothing, they're good shoes."

"Okay," he said, "take one shoe off, and beat the key into the ignition. Four or five times. Hard-- not hard to break the key, but hard."

And so I took off my shoe and I beat the hell out of the key. I felt a little ridiculous doing this in the middle of the Staples parking lot, but I did it because Soly told me to do it. If he had told me that dressing up like the Queen Mother and singing the Chinese national anthem while sticking my finger up a fish's asshole would start my car, I would have done that, too.

Do fish have assholes?

And, don't you know-- the motherfucking car started.

"Okay, goodbye," Soly said after hearing the car turn over.

"Wait, wait, wait," I protested, "there's no 'goodbye' yet. Is this going to happen again?"

"Probably," Soly said.

"Well, what the hell do I do when this happens again?"

"Same thing. You obviously have magic shoes."

When I got home from work, I found that our computer had been completely assraped by a Trojan virus. I'm blogging from work. (Shhhhhh!)

Then, on my smartphone, which suddenly seems very smart when your CPU is sitting in the back of your car that often refuses to start, I received an email from a woman named Lisa. The subject line was "20sb featured blogger."

I knew that, on March 8, she wasn't already telling me that I'd won. I knew it was more bad news. But I opened it anyway. Here's what it said, word for word:

"Hello, Mr. Apron!

I'm Lisa, the founder and chief admin of 20SB. I just want to make sure that you realize that the high number of females who have been featured isn't some sexist ploy. Only 14% of our members are male, yet by my last count, 25% of our featured bloggers are. Our list of featured bloggers represents some very diverse demographics, and I'm super proud of that. But also- each featured blogger was voted for by the community at large in a process that's as democratic as democratic gets!

-Lisa

ps. I'm not sure how you decided that insulting everybody who has previously been featured is the best campaign plan, but hey, do what you gotta do."

Well, that was pretty much the icing on the cake of a day meant to be lubed up with poisoned icing and shoved up my ass by a waiter named Babyfucker Jones.

Lisa, I don't know who the hell you are, but my computer and my car and my goddamn fucking shoelace are all broken, you know what I mean? There's earthquakes in Turkey and Chile and Haiti and Karl Rove is an asshole and the polar ice caps are drowning the polar bears or whatever, and I'm really not terribly interested in the statistics of how many members of 20something bloggers have penises and how many have vaginas. I don't know who you think I've insulted or how, but, if I've insulted anyone who was a featured blogger before, I'm very sorry.


It's funny, I know of at least one former featured 20sb bloggers who is a follower of my blog, and that's Lilu, and she's pretty hard to insult. So, Lisa, Chief Administrator of 20sb, the site that you're "super proud" of-- perhaps you ought to ask people if they're insulted before presuming that they are, and then taking time out of your day to insult and offend someone else who takes at least an hour out of every day of his life to share some creativity and humor with a very tiny chunk of the world. And I'll tell you something else, if this is the kind of hypersensitive horseshit that goes on in the 20sb world, then the last thing I would want is to be featured on that site.

You may notice that I've removed the link including Paris Hilton's admittedly hot and overfondled tot that was used as a link to vote for me for this supposed "honor." How silly of me to forget for a moment that the reason I blog isn't for recognition or accolades, it's to make other people happy.

Thanks for your email.