Can I talk to you for five minutes about traffic?  Far as I can tell, traffic jams are pretty much the worst thing happening in the world.  I watch the news, I listen to podcasts, I occasionally read one of the free USA Todays at Chick-Fil-A.  I know what’s going on out there.  Nature is warming itself.  There are gunfights raging in some of the dustier parts of the globe.  There’s the whole “Africa” situation.  The world’s got problems, no doubt.  But for the life of me I can’t think of a single place on the planet less enjoyable than the eastbound 210 Freeway at 5:30pm on a Wednesday.

Okay, so maybe that’s a little extreme.  Obviously there are worse places in the world than an American freeway at rush hour.  (The back seat on a Greyhound bus comes to mind.)  Can we at least agree that traffic is the most annoying thing in the world?  And yes, I’m putting it above Wanda Sykes, rainy weekends, and middle schoolers in a movie theater.

To say traffic is one of my pet peeves would be like saying that civil liberties were one of Stalin’s pet peeves or that George W. Bush “annoyed” some political science professors.  I hate traffic.  It makes me crazy.  No matter how much I brace for it or plan my trip to account for it, I always end up losing my freaking mind.  I gesture and curse, I rant and rave, I call down fire from heaven.  I go nuts.

I don’t like feeling this way.  The occasional longwinded rant notwithstanding, I consider myself a fairly even-tempered guy.  I’m not prone to fits of rage and I don’t often ponder the ways my temperament might be improved by an automatic weapon.  Traffic makes me do these things.  But why?  Why have six short months in Los Angeles (aka The Julliard School for traffic jams of promise) transformed me from Jeffrey Lebowski into a ball of rage who is perhaps only days away from (a) some serious stomach ulcers and/or (b) pleading guilty to vehicular homicide?  I have some theories. Read the full story

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Hey there chief,

About the advice you gave me… Look, let me just start by saying that I know you had good intentions. You meant well, and I appreciate your well-meaningness.You’re a good friend/mentor/parent/random acquaintance who asked “how are you” and got way more than you bargained for. I value you as a person and the fact that you cared enough to pull something out of your ass to try to guide me through life. I really do.

But we know what the road to hell is paved with, don’t we? American tax dollars! Just kidding, it’s good intentions like the ones you had. Your advice was not good, and since I’m the kind of ungrateful doucher who criticizes gifts freely given, I am going go critique you so that you can do better next time. Take a seat.

Let’s start with your tone. You see, I’m at a point in my life that some might define as “hopeless,” “disillusioned,” or “on the verge of joining the military.” What I need from you is pure, unadulterated, unfiltered positivity. You’re my cheerleader right now. You don’t have to be stupid or slutty. You just have to be positive. Tell me everything is going to be okay, even if you don’t know that to be true.You’re not an oracle. I know that.  Don’t tell me you don’t know the future. I don’t need to hear that, and we’re focusing on my needs because I’m a selfish bitch. Read the full story

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