Some thoughts on height

When people tell me how tall they are, I’ve started asking what height they’re referring to. I’ve come to the conclusion that guys have two different height statistics and girls have three.

If you ask a guy his height, we have our Listed Height and our Actual Height to choose from. Listed height is what we can get away with saying (this is usually the stretch you have printed on your drivers license) where Actual Height is what your doctor says you actually are. According to my driver’s license, I’m almost 5’7", whereas in reality I’m 5’5".

Girls also have their Listed Height and Actual Height, but what they don’t tell you, but you should always ask about, is their Heels Height. Just as it sounds, Heels Height is how tall a girl is when she’s dressed up for going out, and it usually adds anywhere from one to four inches to her Actual Height. To make life simple, guys usually estimate it out to about two inches when we hear a girl’s Actual Height.

Heels Height can make a difference. I dated a girl for a while who was about an inch shorter than me. On paper, that sounds perfect, but in reality not quite as ideal. See, one-inch shorter means I can still brag about being taller, but as soon as we’re dressed up and ready to go out - bam - she’s two inches taller than me. Makes for some awkward dancing. In casual photos, I was taller. In formal photos, she was. Once she went out in four-inch stilettos. As hot as they were, she towered over me.

My senior year of college I took a girl to a formal dance who was 4’10". Even factoring in her Heels Height, I was head and shoulders above her. To this day, it’s still one of my favorite photographs.

Follow my example, and you too can become a frequent mail recipient of the court system

Back when I was in college, and home for winter break, I received a jury questionnaire form from the New York State court system. For those of you who haven’t been the lucky recipients of this lovely form, it’s the questionnaire you fill out so the state can see if you’re eligible to perform America’s favorite job – jury duty. Unfortunately, finding myself qualified, but rather uninterested, I thought maybe I could persuade the state to think I wouldn’t be a good candidate. In what seemed to be a good idea at the time, I filled out the form in crayon.

New York State didn’t seem to find this quite as funny as I did, and not only was I summonsed immediately, I’ve now served jury duty twice, and receive the call every four years – the moment (or at least month) I become eligible to serve again. Thinking it couldn’t get any worse than that, today it took a new spin – I received a jury questionnaire from the federal court system.

Needless to say, I won’t be filling out this one in crayon.

Some thoughts on bras

Why do they call it a Wonderbra? Is it because when she takes it off you wonder where her chest went?

I’ve also always wondered the point of a training bra. What exactly do these train girls to do? Personally, I think we’re training the wrong audience – it’s actually pubescent boys that need training bras – because that first sexual experience where your looking over her shoulder, trying to figure out how to open the clasp, pulling with both hands, can be rather embarrassing… uhh, or so I’ve heard.

A moment for Johnny

A friend called me this morning to let me know that Johnny Carson passed away.

Inheriting the Tonight Show from Jack Paar, Carson revolutionized late night television and was a brilliant comedian, not to mention a personal hero of mine. I read recently that he never fully retired, and kept writing jokes, often sending them to Dave Letterman for inclusion in his monologue and writing pieces for The New Yorker magazine.

Along with millions of other fans, I’ll miss him.

We’ve (almost) come a long way, baby

A few weeks back, on a Friday night, some friends of mine and I celebrated another friend’s 25th birthday. Unlike many of the “trying to prove I’m still young” bashes, this was a low key affair at our friend’s apartment. Around 2 AM, a few of us were sitting around marveling at how old (and mature I might add) we’ve gotten, many remarking at how nice the event was, and how we no longer felt the need to do many of the “guy” things we used to do, when one friend’s cell phone rang, in what was clearly a booty call.

Being the wiser and more mature guy my friend had just noted he had become, he didn’t hang up and bolt out the door. Instead he told his lady-friend he’d think about it and call her back, as he had had a long week at work and was feeling rather tired. We all noted that a few years back, any one of us would have left immediately, but not now. Instead, he weighed the options, went back and forth on it for awhile, decided he was tired, and then went to call her back and decline the offer. We were all very proud.

Of course, at that exact moment my buddy remembered that he’s a guy, and when calling to decline, instead said, I’ll be right over, and promptly left.

Ah well, we still have far to go.

When mediators collide

In college I was a mediator, and my girlfriend at the time was a mediator as well. When mediating disputes one of our techniques was to have people use “I statements” - meaning that they would present their problem with the person by stating how it made them feel. For example, if you were pissed off at your roommate for being a total slob and always leaving dishes in the sink, you might say, “I feel angry when you leave dishes in the sink, because I don’t like our apartment always being dirty.”

The director of mediation at NYU was fascinated that my girlfriend and I were together (come to think of it, so were most of my friends, but for very different reasons) and one day asked if we used “I statements” when we fought. I told him “of course,” only that we did it a little differently. Our “I statements” went more along the lines of “I feel like you’re being a total asshole when you…” or “Well, I feel like you’re a psycho-bitch…”

For some reason after that we were never assigned to mediate together again.

Mase (the rapper) on bling

"He don't have no problem with you blinging. God's heavenly abode proves that he is the real king of bling. His gates are pearly, his house is about 10 stadiums big, the streets are gold. You do the budget on that kind of place."

I just took another leap from guyhood to manhood

So last night I took what I consider to be another step from guyhood into manhood. When doing my laundry, instead of sending out my dress shirts, I ironed for the first time. Now you ladies may not be impressed, but for us guys, this is a big step. All of my shirts now have beautiful crease marks (and wrinkles) imprinted directly into them. Oh and lets not forget my new favorite shirt – the one with the big life-sized imprint of the bottom of an iron burned into the back.

So I’ve decided that at $2.00 a shirt, my drycleaner can have every last motherfucking dress shirt I own. I’m done with this ironing nonsense. I think it’s time to put domestic skills back onto the list of abilities I need to find in a woman when I get married. Well, that or I need to find someone who also knows when to send the laundry out.

Silverman’s rules on dating #159

If you think there’s maybe, possibly even the slightest of chance that you may have, even to the smallest degree, said/done something that just might be construed or misconstrued as bad/wrong/messed up/really screwed up, then... in her eyes you definitely did. Send flowers or chocolates or flowers AND chocolates (depending on severity) immediately. You can never be faulted for sending flowers or chocolates, but you always will be for not doing so.

Bonus tip:
Keep florists and chocolateters around your city in your rolodex filed under something you’ll remember, such as "F" for "fu#&ed up". This way when (not if) you do, you have them ready for easy access.

And for those of you who know me well and are reading this and just shaking your heads (as I’m sure many of you are) please remember Silverman’s rules on dating #1: do as I say, not as I do.

Everything men know about women

Okay already, here are my friggin’ new year’s resolutions

So, since everyone has been asking me what my new year’s resolutions are starting before New Year’s Eve, here they are for the whole world to see.

Kevin’s Resolutions for 2005

• Use more nicknames (because everyone loves having a nickname)
• Stop shaving drunk
• Get back into stand-up comedy, even if it is for just one more appearance
• Stop biting my finger nails (I know, this is a repeat from last year, but I fell off the wagon around March…)
• Figure out what the hell to do with my life (suggestions welcomed)
• Get back into really good shape, including, but not limited to, getting back the six-pack I used to have just a few short months ago
• Stop worrying about the small stuff
• Obtain a decent work-life balance
• Learn how to cook (more than just using my foreman grill)
• Stop ordering things off of infomercials, no matter how much of a good idea it seemed like at 4:00 AM

I feel like this is a good mix of easy, moderate and fairly difficult things to accomplish over the year. As always, feel free let me know if you have any suggestions as to things I may have overlooked, or any hints/tips/suggestions you can offer to get any of these things actually accomplished. Seeing that I’m actually biting my nails while I’m writing this, I think I have a long year ahead of me…

Ladies, I think I finally understand what you’re up against

In a conversation with a male friend of mine (who will go unnamed so he doesn’t receive bulk hate mail) on relationships, my friend actually made the following comment to me: "Kev, you see, relationships are much like a foreign invasion - if you don’t go in with a clear exit strategy, you could find yourself an occupying force for much longer than you would have liked."

Yeah, he actually said that. There are only so many times I can apologize on behalf of my gender.

The four worst words you can hear in a relationship

I like to enter an agreement when I get into a relationship with someone, that if either of us utters the words “we need to talk,” we agree to just shake hands and go our separate ways, no questions asked. I like to think of it as the S&M safe word of relationships.

It’s not me, it’s you

If dating is like interviewing, then it should come as no surprise that resigning is like breaking up. After receiving an offer from a competing firm, I began to start thinking about how I was going to quit my current job. Much like when I decided to break up with my last girlfriend, I immediately was overcome with only being able to remember the good things from the past couple of years, and not the bad. And much like with the end of my last relationship, my friends stepped up to the plate of reminding me of the things I’ve complained about over the years. I even began to wonder if I’d even find a new job that was as good as the one I was giving up - despite the problems. I began to think I could somehow make it work, but deep in my heart I knew the magic was gone.

I began to plan out how I was going to quit. We (my job and I) had been together for almost three years, so I knew I had to resign in person. E-mail or phone just wouldn’t be appropriate. I even began to think out the best time of day to allow for any conversation that needed to take place afterwards.

Even the lingo is similar. When you break up, you usually start with "listen, we need to talk." When you resign, you go to your boss and say, "can we talk?" He even knew it was coming after the line. He looked at me as I walked in and closed the door and said, "You’re quitting, aren’t you?"

When I sprung the news to my ex that we were breaking up, she promised me she could change all sorts of things, you know, put right what wasn’t working. When I resigned to my boss, he made me a counter-offer. I even used the same line with both, "Look, I just need to find what’s right for me right now, and it isn’t this.

He even said to me, "Is there anything I can change that would make you stay?"

I may have further gotten the two confused when I told my boss that he’d find someone new. "Look," I said, "there are plenty of senior account executives out there. I know you’ll find another one - and you deserve a great one." By the end, I was comforting him, getting him Kleenex and telling him it was all going to be alright.

And to make a long story short, just like in relationships past, we outlined things we need to change, and I said I’d give it another try. The beauty of staying together is that at least I don’t need to worry about getting all my stuff back.

The pharmaceutical wingman

I always hoped that my time spent working in the pharmaceutical industry would one day, somehow benefit my friends. Today was that day.

I was running some errands with a buddy of mine when we stopped into CVS. We ended up waiting in line behind this absolutely beautiful, supermodel-looking woman who was waiting for a prescription to be filled. My friend seized the opportunity and immediately started chatting her up, and she turned out not to only be breathtaking, but witty and charming as well. When her prescription was filled, she turned to my friend to give him her number, putting down the bag just long enough for me to read the drug’s compound names.

When the woman left the store, my friend turned to me for the post-game analysis. I commented that he really didn’t want to call her. When my friend asked why, I finally was able to apply my knowledge: she just filled prescriptions for both herpes AND gonorrhea.

He thought about it for a second, let the information sink in before an ear-to-ear grin crossed his face. “Dude, that means she’s a sure thing!”

And my boss worries about ME sometimes…