This is the one with my new nickname.

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in on a drawing lesson that was happening at my Club.  During the lesson a six-year old named Armando decided to draw a portrait of me.

It was a decent drawing, but my ears were a bit big and slightly pointy.

I gave the normal encouraging comments.  “Wow that looks good” kind of shit, and all of my praise made the other kids in the lesson curious about the picture.  That’s when another six-year-old named Edward made a pretty good observation, “That looks like Mr. Mike if he was an elf.”

All the kids laughed.  I’m kind of a jokester…so I get teased a lot.  That’s when another little said, “Mr. Mike is an elf.”  More kids laughed.  Remember we’re talking six-year-olds here.  Their humor is a little less refined.

After the entire room is worked up about the Mr-Mike-Is-An-Elf comment, Edward put together a gem that I hope won’t stick.  “We should call him Milf,” he said.  MILF.  As in…well, I’ll let Wikipedia explain why that’s funny (if you don’t know):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MILF

Now I’ve got 30 little kindergarten/1st graders running around calling me “Milf” and laughing.  I really hope it stops…the first step to stopping this nickname probably is to suppress my laughter when I hear it.

This is the one with an ill-timed joke.

At The Club we have this stupendous Intern (capital “I”) that has spent a lot of time with me…like 40 hours per week.  Thankfully she’s not weird or annoying, because if that were the case this post might be about something else.

In the past month or so that she’s been working with us, I have tried to give her any information she could use (like about our operating budget, staffing and Club programs) and some information she hasn’t asked for (like how to effectively eavesdrop on people, how to use twitter [she was there for this twit pic], or lyrics to Lady Gaga songs).

She has fit in at my place of work better than a Magic The Card Game Emperor at a homeschooling convention.

Random fact that will help you with the upcoming punchline: the Intern (capital “I”) is Mormon.

So I was talking with our teen director (and the Intern was in the room) about an upcoming event where one of our youth members will be taken to a salon to get her hair did before she gives a big speech.  We were arranging the details of the hair appointment, and I remembered that last year the stylist gave one teen a huge bouffant that made her look 40 years older.

“…and you have to make sure she doesn’t get Mormon hair,” I said.

And then I immediately stuck my foot in my mouth.

“What I meant was…” could I really save myself from this one?!?  “What I meant was sister-wife hair.  You know…those bouffant-looking dos that polygamist wives wear?  Oh geez.”

I got super read in the face.  I apologized a hundred times.

Ultimately she knew I wasn’t joking on her or her religion.

After the hundredth time I apologized she said, “Don’t worry, Mike.  I know you’re a sweetheart.”

“Thanks Intern,” I said.  “And I know you’re not a polygamist.”

This is the one with a missed connection.

Do you know what Craigslist Missed Connections is?  If not, here’s a snarky explanation that makes you feel stupid for not knowing what it is:

Oh my god! You really don’t know what Missed Connections is?  Did you just get the Internet or something?  Don’t answer that. Anyway, Missed Connections is this page on Craigslist where people post stories about when they came across someone who they wanted to talk to but didn’t.  Just about everyone (well, except you) reads this page and looks for people who are looking for them.  Like, “Hey, I saw you in the grocery store buying melon and I totally thought you were hot.”  And then the hot melon buyer could respond and connect with someone they were too afraid of connecting with in real life.  Get it now??

So I received a message from a friend telling me that there was a Craigslist Missed Connection posting that was probably about me [link].  It says this:

Barista at Starbucks – m4m

This is the one about an embarassing presentation.

A few years ago I went to a conference for people that work in the same field that I do.  It was a bunch of insipid topics, that would bore you if I even listed the titles.  They did have a really good boxed lunch from Paradise Bakery though…with delicious chocolate chip cookies.

Anyway, I was sitting in a presentation on targeted outreach within our community (Zzzzz) and the presenter was a very energetic and young college professor that was doing a great song and dance about a somewhat dry topic.  He had a Power Point presentation projecting onto a big screen at the front of the room that was coming from an iMac he had set up.

I guessed early on that the iMac was his personal computer because there was a sticker on the front of it, and the desktop image was of him and four other people sitting on a beach somewhere.

About ten minutes into the presentation the presenter stepped away from the computer and was giving us an anecdotal story about a child that was getting involved in crime at the age of twelve, and a community-based organization had a program that accepted court referrals for children in his situation.  As the presenter told us this moving story about an org that basically saved this kid’s life, his screen-saver turned on.  And his screen-saver was set to be a photo slide show.  The first image we saw was a pretty view from a window high up.

“Oh god,” the presenter said.  “That’s the view from my hotel room in Hong Kong.”

We kind of chuckled.  No big deal.

And then another ten minutes later, the same thing happened.  But this time it wasn’t the view from his hotel room.  It was his actual hotel room.  The co-worker I was sitting next to leaned over and whispered, “I don’t like the direction this is headed.”

During our ten minute break I went up to the presenter and asked if he wanted me to to turn the screen saver off for him.  He refused, and said that he could handle it.

After the break we got into numbers.  Money: how much would a targeted outreach program cost.  Stats: how effective would a targeted outreach program be.  Total snooze fest. Until……………………he stepped away from the computer again.  I guess he didn’t turn the screen-saver off correctly because another photograph came up.  This time it was a photo of the presenter, wearing a light-green leotard, strapped to a trapeze!

He got really red in the face and jumped at the computer.  And quickly moved his fingers across the track pad.

We all laughed a little.  And he tried to gain his composure and said, “Okay…what was I saying?”

I raised my hand and said, “You were just about to tell us about the time you put on a leotard and got on a trapeze.”

Ice broken, and he told us a bit of the story.  But for the rest of the presentation he kept frantically moving his finger over the track pad while talking…insanely adamant about not showing us any more of his personal life.

Moral of the story: Photo slide show screen savers are always a bad idea.

This is the one that is deceiving.

I’ve got y’all fooled.

A couple of weeks ago someone I work with told me that she believed me to have a “crazy social life.”

Granted, this comment came after I told her about a night where I got crazy drunk…fell asleep at a guy’s house around 2:30am, took a taxi to my car at 5:00am, and made it to work by 6:00am.  But the truth is that I’m not a crazy partier.  Up until recently I’ve never even been in half of the gay bars in Phoenix.

And yesterday a different girl that I work with told me that I seemed like a guy that has “a million friends.”  And I just laughed.  I laughed because I’m not.

In the past five years I’ve put way too many of my friendship eggs in my boyfriend’s baskets.  Meaning when I was in my relationship with Mr. D, I should have developed friendships with coworkers and created my network of friends.  Instead I worked on building friendships with his friends…and I really miss seeing those people regularly now that we’ve split.

Then soon after Mr. D and I broke up I jumped into a relationship with Drew.  And I did the same stupid thing – developed friendships with people who I’d rarely see again after things with Drew didn’t work out.

I could count all of my good, local friends on one hand.

I’m not super-social.  In fact, I’m sitting in my bedroom now eating peanut butter out of the jar watching Dexter on Netflix. How does that image make me look?

I  need to work on creating and maintaining a good group of friends.  Sure, I might date a bit during this time…but my main focus in the next six months is to find some really good friendships.  Who’s in?

If I were a new year resolver, this could very easily be turned into a resolution.  But instead I’m just going to call this a “goal” for the new year.

This is the one where I come out to Joan.

About seven years ago (shit time flies!!) I started a job at a Club in California developing a literacy program for adults and children.  It was one of the last times that I was truly excited to go to work every day.  I spent a lot of time with a woman my age named Joan.  We shared an “office” which was basically a storage closet with a big Rubbermaid folding table in the middle and a power-strip that we used to plug our laptops in.

Joan had the same work-ethic as me, and we would often leave work at the end of a day, drink coffee or eat dinner than go back for one or two more hours of unpaid work.

I was totally over worked and underpaid, but we were really happy.

During our many chit-chats I learned that Joan was a year out of a really long-term relationship.  And even though she was the one that broke it off with her ex-boyfriend, she was having trouble moving on.  Coincidentally I was about a year out of a really long-term relationship and even though I was the one that broke it off with my ex-boyfriend, I was having trouble moving on.

In the first few months of our friendship, we were really just coworkers that spent a lot of time together.  And I was a bit guarded about telling her that I was homosexual.  I could tell that she was very liberal, accepting and would have no problems with the gay thing.  It was just very personal and I didn’t feel comfortable yet.

One night we went out to a Vietnamese restaurant and we were talking about her relationship.  I was, as usual, using ambiguous pronouns to describe my ex, but then she asked me a question that totally confronted the issue and I could no longer skirt the question.

“So, where does she live?” she asked about my ex.

“He lives in Los Angeles,” I said correcting and answering her.

“WHAT?!” she gasped.

“I know.  LA is so far and inconvenient.”

We laughed about my response for years.

I really enjoy funny coming out stories.  Recently my manager at Sbux was talking to me about baking and she said something like, “it’s a really good recipe you could bake for your girlfriend.”  And I was like…”I haven’t had a girlfriend in a few years.”

How quickly should you correct someone when they assume you’re straight?

This is the one with pictures.

I’m immature.  Seriously.

When a kid spilled his Gatorade at The Club yesterday I quickly snapped this photo:

Then a couple of hours later I showed some teens how to make twin photos of themselves.  I call this one, “Sometimes You Need To Give Yourself a Stern Talking-to.”

This is the one with a good day.

I’ve got a new hoodie on…and it’s super comfortable and cute.

I got my haircut yesterday, and it looks pretty sharp.

I just listened to the most recent holiday special of Game Night Guys called Xboxmas! and it was freaking funny and put together really well (you should really listen).

It’s a really good day.

And then when I got to The Club this morning one of the members brought me a present and a card.  This is the same kid that pooped on the floor, has been in a half-dozen fist fights, runs from the building when confronted, has stolen things and has narrated my nightmares for the past six months.

And anyone that works with children can tell you that even though they take up the majority of our time and effort, these kids with behavioral issues are the ones that need us the most, and they are the ones that make our jobs the most rewarding.  Here’s a photo I took from the card that he wrote me:

Give me a fucking tissue.

It’s going to be a good day.

This is the one that deserves a good face-wash.

Yesterday afternoon at The Club (not to be confused with Da Club) I went to the restroom and saw 6-year-old Tony walking out of the bathroom with a really wet t-shirt.

“What happened to your t-shirt?” I asked.  He didn’t stop walking, but he turned and walked backward as he responded.

“Well it got wet when I was washing my face,” he told me.  Still walking away from me.

“Why were you washing your face at 4 in the afternoon?” I inquired.

“Well you know how sometimes when you are going pee and you get it on your face?  I like to wash it off.” Then he turned around and skipped toward the gym.

“Oh,” I thought.

This is the one that it is kind of awkward.