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March 31, 2006

prognosis negative

greetings and happy friday to one and all - i'm writing to recap a ground breaking event in the life of not so young christopher carl weathers. for you see - i have just come from the doctor's office. that's right - the doctor's office breaking a streak that has lasted well over a decade. so what was it exactly that caused the streak to end? well wednesday afternoon i started feeling a bit off - like i might have a slight fever or something and then on the drive home from knoxville the fever rose to a fever(?) pitch accompanied by the aches. needless to say, it was quite the uncomfortable drive back and by the time i arrived home i felt like i might be developing a bit of a sore throat as well. the sore throat was ultimately the thing that sent me running to see the doctor. because seriously, it was/is excruciatingly painful so naturally i assumed that i had strep throat. when i was a child i thought the proper terminology was striped throat and i envisioned stripes of tender skin on the back of one's throat. which, really, isn't that alot what it feels like?

so i walked in to the green hills medical center this morning, signed in gave up the appropriate health insurance information and played the waiting game. the young nurse (whom we will call billy) fetched me after about an hour or so, took me in to a small room strapped on the blood pressure apparati, and took my temperature (even though i told him the fever ended yesterday) he then swabbed my throat for a strep test which i really think was a clever ruse to obtain my dna because they're still trying to pin that murder on me from way back in 1985 (thank goodness i've had a full dna transfusion since then). i should add here that at no point was i asked to remove any clothing which was a bit discouraging because i'd done 1500 extra butt crunches and 1000 additional push-ups because i just knew there was going to be some nudity.

in any event i sat and watched the strep test flash the negative sign as i sat and waited for the doctor. it was doctor yarborough - i was hoping for doctor holliday because with all the tombstone paraphanalia on the walls i had my i'm you're huckleberry at the ready. in any event during the interview we discussed my symptons - he asked if i was in relatively good health (this is where the nudity would have come in handy because i most certainly am) and he said, well - the strep test was negative and you don't have enough symptoms to warrant a mono test - besides you're a little old for that. and i think i must have laughed out loud because he took his glasses off (thoughtfully) and said well chris, most men, by the time they reach your age have had mono whether they realize it or not. so we left it at that. he wrote me a prescription - billy returned and asked me to drop my pants (finally!) and administered a shot of coritizone for my swollen throat. and with any luck, it will be another decade before i darken the door of another doctor's office.

Posted by young_christopher at 3:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 20, 2006

unashaved

this past weekend i found myself in the local neighborhood super store shopping for various and sundry toiletries. deoderant, shampoo, hair relaxer - just your general every day whatnot. and after filling my basket with these sundries i remembered that i was down to my last razor. actually i've been down to my last razor for awhile now but i've been putting off buying replacement cartridges because they are so ridiculously priced. i'd even tried buying the target brand disposable razors in an effort to be more thrifty. poor choice on my part. i would have been better served rubbing my face with a cheese grater or industrial strength steel wool.

so as i stood there in the aisle contemplating my purchase i wondered when and why razors became so complicated. when i first began shaving gilette had just introduced the trac II onto the global market place and it was great. slap on the .69 cent colgate shaving cream and go nuts. no mess. no fuss. the replacement cartridges for the tract II were expensive but not budget busting - in fact, they still sell them. you'll be hard pressed to find the razor itself but the cartridges are there tucked away into the darkened corners. and as i compared the price of 10 trac II cartriges to 8 gillette mach 3 turbo cartridges i wondered which would give me the best shave for my money.

are three razor blades really better than two? does the flexible head that promises to conform to the contours of my face really provide the ease and comfort that my shaving routine has lacked lo these many years? and what about the new vibrating razor that is supposed to cause your hair to leap out of your face allowing for an even closer shave on a sub-dermal level. well i'm not buying it. when i made the switch from two blades to three i felt like i was entering into uncharted waters - but i still had to shave every day. that absurd little aloe strip that is meant to prevent irritation still disintegrated after two shaves and when i nicked myself there were now three incisions instead of just the two.

and so dear friends, there in target on saturday i made the decision. i took my stand and went back to the trac II blades. i still have the razor itself because i never throw anything away ever - and i have to say in addition to getting a remarkably close shave i feel liberated. it's like shaving again for the first time and it's glorious and i'm saving money at the same time. money that can be spent on glorious nivea shaving gel - and thank you for turning me on to that one micah. that stuff is fandamtastic. so for those of you out there on the front lines teetering on the brink of four and even five blade insanity - come back home where you belong. i'll save you a spot in front of the mirror. i promise. you will not be disappointed.

Posted by young_christopher at 6:05 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

...And that's a pretty nice hair cut

Yesterday I cut my hair. After two years of the painstaking growing out process, I broke down at last, having spent an entire day obsessing over Natalie Portman's Golden Globes hair. Before that, my eyes had begun drifting to the short dos I'd spot on the train or in magazines. Before shampooing, after my stylist was convinced I did actually want to cut that much off, she bunched my hair at the nape of my neck and it hit the ground after 3 quick snips.

At that moment, I started grinning. For some reason, short hair makes me feel like myself. Whenever I walk out of a salon after a drastic cut, I feel more confident and put together. Maybe because the standard pony tails made me perpetually casual? I don't know.

In high school my hair fell to my hips. It was ridiculously long, but didn't look gross like it can when girls don't trim their hair and it gets horrible split ends and scraggly like an old wash rag. You know what I mean. Not me. No blow drying, shampooing only every other day, combing through only when wet (although I didn't brush it much), and consistent trimming. Even when I donned my thrift store flannels and cords and big boots, I took care of my hair. My mother had so ingrained these principles of hair care into me, no fashion craze could or has driven them away. And I was well known at my church and my tiny Christian school for my flowing locks. I cut 6 inches off before college, which took it to the middle of my back. So still pretty long, but there was much shock.

In college I went short and didn't look back until senior year as I went through the growing out process, only to chop it once again after graduation. Having short, slightly funky hair had become a part of who I was. It's how I am most comfortably myself. Why is that? I've been told I can do short hair very well, and my best friend thinks it suits me far better than long hair. But when I go back to my old church, there are teachers and parents that still shake their heads and say "I remember when your hair was so long," and still haven't quite recovered from that first day I came home from college with my legendary tresses gone.
But I love it. Hair is important to me, and though I don't have much left, my hair is fabulous. And that makes me feel pretty fabulous. Is that vanity?

Posted by heidi at 5:31 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

afternoons and coffee spoons

so there i was at 1:30 a.m. on a friday night/saturday morning in a crowded bar in marrietta for an alleged birthday celebration with shirt lifted - chest bared for all the world to see. and i did so in one fluid motion - and un-self consciously and stone cold sober. not a single drop of jagermeister (pronounced with a hard j) had touched my lips. in fact i was glad to do it. it was a nice visual aid to my fellow bar patrons - a recreation of an incident that may or may not have happened atop a balcony in new orleans. but in the days that followed i began to wonder how much longer i would be able to get away with a stunt like that and still have a shred of dignity left.

it has always been my philosophy that one should be prepared - if the situation requires - to be naked at a moments notice. without any shame or paunchiness. and there was a time during the salad days of my youth where i never would have given such a disrobing a second thought - and i did so often chiseled and gleaming and oily as though i'd just been hewn from alabaster or muenster cheese with that orange stuff around the edges (that sunless tanning cream does it every time) for you see friends, i had a metabolism that simply would not quit. and then it sort of did.

at the age of 25 i weighed in at a slight 155lbs and i maintained this with a scant 15 minutes of jazzercise a day but over the course of the next four years somehow i managed to swell to 170 pounds by the time i graduated from college. granted much of that weight gain was due to a strict weight lifting regimen. to say that i was huge would be an understatement. it was this glorious narcissism that led to me being voted 15th best body on campus. and when i say that i had the 15th best body on campus i don't mean to imply that there was ever an actual vote. because there wasn't. rather, i just arbitrarily decided that upon that ranking for myself because no one else really seemed to care one way or the other.

and because no one cared i decided to punish them by refusing to remove my shirt. ever. i even wore a poncho to and from the shower stall. in hindsight this was probably foolish behavior on my part. first and foremost because everyone looks ridiculous in a poncho and secondly i wasted many opportunities to look great naked.

and so here i am well into my thirties and my weight continues to spiral out of control. after spending the better part of 3 years hunched in an office cube, i now hover between 185 and 195lbs depending on how many family sized pot pies i eat for dinner at a sitting. and yes, i carry it well enough i suppose - but i can feel the shift is near. that moment when i will have to avert my own eyes as i pass by the mirror on my way into the shower. and i wonder how did this happen? to me of all people. it really isn't very fair. but instead of focusing on all of that perhaps i should shed my clothes and run free while i still can. because five years from now if i lift my shirt in a bar i hardly think anyone will be snapping photographs - rather they will be escorting me from the premises in handcuffs - my chubby wrists resting comfortably on the rolls of backfat.

if it comes to that i suppose i will survive. unless of course i lose my chin. if that ever happens...well, i don't even want to think about that.

Posted by young_christopher at 5:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 5, 2006

i understand i'm just a fan

back in the middle 90's i played in a blues based rock and roll band in miami, fl. we called ourselves solomon grundy after the swamp dwelling villain that appeared in super man comics. there is also a nursery rhyme about a boy named solomon grundy who is born on a monday and was buried the following sunday but we weren't so interested in associating ourselves with that because a: it is a bit obscure and b: well it's a little bit morbid.

anyway, we acheived a level of moderate (read almost none) success in and around music venues on south beach. and i say our success was moderate because most people in miami could care less about live music - if it doesn't involve body glitter combined with the hard core dance moves of patrick dempsey circa can't buy me love then they aren't interested.

near the end of our four year run we spent more time practicing than we did actually playing out (that's official music lingo for you) - we had a manager named norbert who was scandanavian or something and he just loved us because the first time he saw us play we covered journey's don't stop believin' we had scads of original songs but norbert was only interested in the one. so he was fired. mostly because he was a moron, but also because of his really creepy afro wig that...well i won't get into that.

anyway, we had a great little practice facility in a warehouse in ft lauderdale. it came complete with a kegerator and orange carpeting in addition to several photographic renderings of elvis - velvet and otherwise. we also had several dozen promotional posters that our drummer rick had procured from a record store that was going out of business. the posters were roughly the size of an lp sleeve and we painstakingly affixed them to the walls - it was really pretty cool.

i became rather fond of one particular album cover that hung on the wall beside my keyboard - i would look at it from time to time for inspiration as i generally rocked out. it was a simple little album cover, red with a little seventies era radio on the front. the lettering on the front of the album was white and it read wilco a.m. - for the longest time i wasn't sure if wilco was the name of the band or the album. i'd certainly never heard of them having only recently emerged from the abyss of the heavy metal 90's i wasn't even the ovum of the musical snob i am today. as i recall my favourite bands at the time were counting crows (remember when they were good? yeah, that was a long time ago) and gin blossoms.

and if i can be completely honest here, i bought that wilco album because i thought the cover was cool and the first time i listened to it i really sort of hated it. with the exception of box full of letters and passenger side there weren't any songs that i liked very much at all. it was very country and at that stage in my life i really needed a rockin' guitar solo or a soaring chorus - something to ignite my lighter to. but over the months that followed i found that was the album i was listening to more and more often.

and then my roomate bought their second album being there and it changed my life. forever. and i have brought many converts into the fold over the years. of course it wasn't until i shook jeff tweedy's hand at the uptown mix nearly two years ago that the band's star really began to reach it's zenith - but i'm not here to talk about that. all i really wanted to say was that the bins at your local record store are filled to the brim with crap - but every once in awhile you find a treasure that stays with you for the rest of your life like a tried and true friend. and that quest might just be the best thing about being a fan.

Posted by young_christopher at 11:42 PM | TrackBack

March 2, 2006

getting away with murder

so i was in the mall the other day and this thought occurred to me. there are a lot of real losers in life - perhaps you yourself are a loser or have felt like one from time to time. i know that i certainly have. but i'm here to set your mind at ease, because no matter how bad your life may be there is always someone in far worse shape than you, my friend.

take those unfortunate souls that work at mall kiosks - honestly, there must be a special level of hell on the very very bottom - perhaps next to the giant boiler that keeps it so toasty where they will keep those asshats. you've seen them i'm sure with their massage devices and magical boomerang helicopters - perhaps if you are a woman they have reached out and grabbed you because seriously, you just have to try this miracle face cream. it's fantastic. yeah, no thanks and while we're at it i'm not interested in your cell phones, jewelry, or magical candles either.

but there is one kiosk that has always fascinated me - the kiosk that houses the super shammy every time i walk by there is inevitably a small crowd of people watching awestruck as the young man or woman demonstrates the incredible absorbant powers of this mystery fabric. i mean regular shammy's are great for washing the car or polishing your guitar to a brilliant (charlie) sheen - but this shammy is even better. because it's super.

but here is where the cynic in me kicks in. how often do you honestly have a spill that is so large an ordinary paper towel simply will not suffice. if the hot water heater explodes is the super shammy strong enough to soak up all of that water? could f.e.m.a. have utilized these magical powers during the hurricane katrina disasters? hardly. in fact, every time you see a professional swimming/diving competition those folks just use the regular shammy's to wipe down between races - and they know alot about being very wet. if the thorpedo isn't using a super shammy then neither am i.

so here's what you do. next time you are in a mall where the super shammy is being sold walk up to the young salesperson and tell them that you have just killed your entire family and there is a lot of blood that needs to be cleaned up. stat. ask them how many super shammys it would require to clean up the mess you have made in the house and then how many more it would take to line the trunk of your car. then ask if they wouldn't mind heading back to the house with you to show you how to operate the machinery. i'm sure they will be glad to help. after all they are salespeople.

Posted by young_christopher at 10:16 PM | TrackBack

March 1, 2006

down by the old mainstream

dear friends,

it has recently come to my attention courtesy of my dearest friend, that the legendary supergroup golden smog are reuniting. a fact that is sure to strike a blow at the heart of terrorism and lead the dollar back to a place of respectability on the global scene. now i realize that my words may seem ridiculous - even hyperbolic but i assure you that they are not. if you need any further convincing i would implore you to scour the bins at your local record store for a copy of the bands first two full length albums down by the old mainstream and the follow up weird tales .

who are the golden smog you ask? well its various incarnations have included members of big star, soul asylum, son volt, the jayhawks, and wilco just to name a few. of course the principles - the big hitters of the bunch if you will are gary louris of jayhawks fame and jeff tweedy. this is not to suggest that the other guys phone it in - because both albums are just fabulous life changing events.

i discovered the albums by accident after watching the wilcomentary i am trying to break your heart . the bonus disc includes many live performances including tweedy playing the golden smog song please tell my brother and seriously, if that song doesn't get you misty eyed then nothing will (with the possible exception of let's hear it for the boy, chris penn you left this world too soon) needless to say, i ran out to tower records and snatched up both albums - and now that there is a new one on the way, i won't be able to sleep. anyway, pitchfork has the basic details and you can also check out a seldom updated smog site here. now if only color me bad would reuinte - then the world might truly live as one.

Posted by young_christopher at 7:34 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack