Pretty girls bring out the awkward in me.

I have some question for pretty girls:

1. Is it your intention to make men squirm and feel like there clothes are suddenly too tight?

2.When you laugh are you laughing with us or at us?

and finally

3. When you tell me I'm creepy are you being serious or just poking fun?

-Raw

pre emptive X

At some point in the future Dave will inevitably tell a story about me that took place this weekend. I will not confirm or deny this tale. I have only this to say... Shit Happens!

Meals on Wheels

A funny thing happened on my way home tonight.

It was "pizza night" for the canvass team- for those unfamiliar with canvassing or pizza night, it will suffice to say that we are rewarded with a free piece of pizza (net value: $2.50) for knocking on people's doors and begging for money all day (net value: -1 soul).

We were all sitting around the table attempting to hold a normal conversation (interactions between canvassers are usually limited to "rap practice", where you go back and forth repeating the same 10 lines until your cheeks go numb. "Hi, My name is David and I'm with Environment Massachusetts..."). More often than not, "normal conversation" is just a discussion of the day's canvassing, but with a few curse words and indie music references thrown in. These interactions are painfully awkward and are generally akin to drinking a glass of OJ immediately after brushing your teeth- it still tastes like toothpaste.

For some reason tonight, there was an uncharacteristic miscalculation that left one extra piece of pizza. Rather than force down the extra slice, we decided to "make a contribution" to whichever homeless person we saw first.

About 3 blocks up the road, we spotted a gentleman sleeping under the awning of a store. Since the police would probably wake him up in a matter of hours, we decided not to disturb him, but rather to leave the pizza box with the leftover slice at his side. As we walked towards the train station, we looked back to check and see if our footsteps had woken him up.

Just as we turned around, a woman on a wheelchair flew by and stopped at the sleeping man's side. She grabbed the pizza box and rolled away before any of us even knew what to say.

It is difficult to judge who needed the pizza more, but it was a series of events that developed rapidly and still have me scratching my head. In retrospect, I don't know whether I should have chased her down (maybe thrown a stick in one of her spokes) and gotten the pizza back, or if I should be glad that atleast someone was enjoying our excess.

Atleast we have something normal to talk about for next pizza night.

-Dave

note to self...

... don't make jokes about Mormons showering after sex on crowded subways trains with friends who might find your remarks off color.

-Raw

Strike One

Watched 2 people wearing baseball caps try to kiss each other today. Awkwaaaaaard!

-Dave

Hollow Heads

The awkwardness in "Two blonde bitches and a denim vest" is palpable. No doubt about that. Its worth digging a little deeper and expanding our awkward horizons to address something that often gets neglected here at the Awkword- substance.

We jump at the opportunity to share the feeling from those gut-dropping, michael-jackson-in-a-boys-choir-esque moments that happen in our day to day experiences, but we sometimes forget to take a step back and ask "What the hell were they talking about?!"

Cause stupidity is pretty awkward.

So, we revisit Raw's trainride- this time, viewed through slightly different lenses...

"Oh thanks!" she smiled at him. She then quickly straightened up and turned into him, "What color are they [my eyes] today?"

What the hell? What are you, a chamelion? Sure, its possible that eyes change color slightly in certain conditions (pink eye, doused in chlorine from a pool, that crazy shit from "28 Days Later", etc...). But they are pretty much a constant. And for someone who clearly spent 3 hours lathering on makeup in front of a mirror this morning, its pretty unlikely that you didnt catch a glimpse of those things. You're an idiot.

"Gray! Do they change? That's neat."

Grey?! Really? Of all the eye colors you could respond with, you chose grey. You tried to woo her with the most boring color known to man. You might as well have told her that she looks "devoid of life" and that "some surgery could probably cure that". Very slick.

"Why are you wearing flip flops?" he asked the 2nd chick, "it's cold!"
"Oh I'm fine, I don't get cold I'm pretty warm blooded. Why aren't you wearing sleeves?"

Hmm. Pretty warm blooded, eh? Well that really sets you apart from the other people on the train. Thank goodness you aren't cold blooded, or else you might have to join the other reptiles as they find a rock to sun themselves on.

... So Raw certainly wasnt the only one feeling awkward on that train ride. Anyone with an IQ over 7 should have been tripping over each other to pull the emergency brake.

- Dave

Two blonde bitches and a denim vest.

Feeling awkward for someone else is bullshit.

On the Red Line yesterday there was to attractive young ladies sitting across from me. They were superficially attractive mind you -blond, thin, and adorned in expensive clothes. After a minute a young man, pierced enough to make a colander jealous and wearing denim that must have been unearthed from the grave of Levi Strauss himself came limping along. Unbalanced and brandishing a sneer like a putty knife the man turned and revealed an eye patch. The eye patch itself was no bother but the half hazard way it was sitting on the mans forehead was. It reminded me of a broken window shutter on an old house.

He sat in the last seat between the superficially hot women and the end of the train car. He looked at one, not 10 inches from her face, and asked "What color are your eyes? I wish I had a pair of eyes like that." I was floored! What a line! How would she react to the painfully stringent irony being forced upon her!?

"Oh thanks!" she smiled at him. She then quickly straightened up and turned into him, "What color are they today?"

"Gray! Do they change? That's neat."

"Yeah they change. They're usually blue but they're gray today eh?" she smiled at him.

At first I couldn't figure it out. Then it hit me, she was teasing him! They both were! How fuckin' mean is this shit?! Sure this kid was a little creepy and gross but these bitches were luring him in with false hopes. I couldn't watch. This was going to end badly.

"Why are you wearing flip flops?" he asked the 2nd chick, "it's cold!"

"Oh I'm fine, I don't get cold I'm pretty warm blooded. Why aren't you wearing sleeves?"

"Cuz it's a vest," he said looking down at his chest.

Then they did it. Was I watching a fucking TV show!? They looked at each other with evil smiles and chicky number two looked back at the sieve and sgroweld, "vests are hawt!"

What.

The.

Fuck.

I couldn't stomach it. I was keeled over in my seat grasping my stomach and rubbing my forehead. I couldn't handle this. I felt embarrassed for all involved. I wanted to throw up a little in my mouth and I started seeing spots from rubbing my head to excessively.

WHY!?

Why did I give a fuck? Someone tell me. Someone figure this shit out for me!

At Harvard square the girls got off... he fallowed. I'm sure somewhere there's two hot bitches or one dumb creepster dead in a ditch somewhere.

Damn.

-Raw

In brief

In august of '08 I moved from Grand Rapids MI to Ann Arbor MI. With me came my assistant whom I had just promoted at our Grand Rapids location. We lived together with an older lady who was letting us each have a room in her home until the deadline for voter registration. To call this young lady my assistant is kind of a misnomer because she did everything, she ran that office and I just stamped my name on it. It was awkward living with a beautiful young lady whom made me look good professionally and spent every waking hour with me for over 5 weeks.

One day I walked into the bathroom after she had showered so that I could shower myself. I disrobed and turned to wash my face when there in the sink was a lacy pair of panties. I'm sure they were not our hosts, she surely did not have need for such extravagant underthings. My assistant was a Mormon though.... neither did she? right?

In any case I took my shower and left for my room and shortly there after heard some commotion from down the hall, I'm sure she had just realized what she'd left behind and what I must have seen.

later that night after a drink or two or three the panty topic was brought up by a friend of hers. I pretended not to have seen them to save her the embarrassment. But a few drinks later I admitted to having seen them.

The about face on my previous statement was obviously odd and well maybe even creepy. I have a knack for making the awkward more awkward... awkwardly. It comes in handy for this blog.

-Raw

*Disclaimer*

Some of these posts may very well be offensive. We may very well poke fun at you but we promise to make fun of everyone else (including ourselves) too.

-Dave & Raw

The Gong Impression

It happened again.

I was riding the subway into the city on a busy Saturday afternoon. The train car was packed with people standing shoulder to shoulder, eager to get out and enjoy the early spring weather. I was squeezed in close to the exit door between a group of gum-chomping middle schoolers and a pack of college-age asian women.

As we passed through central square, I leaned back to let a few folks off of the train.

The middle schoolers were chatting about which shoes they wanted to buy. I swallowed hard to try and purge the imagery of their bony chicken legs crammed into some useless piece of gaudy leather. They were clearly going all the way into the city. Great.

The train creeped onward- almost as if weighed down by the crowd inside. We have sent men to the moon, invented computers that can fit inside of the palm of our hands, and replicated the human genome, but for some reason we cannot get a train to move any quicker than a grocery store scooter cart. The asians were laughing loudly about something and speaking in a language I did not understand. The train was started to slow as it approached the next stop.

As the car slowed to a halt, I looked through the window to see the words "Kendall/MIT". Whew. I would have to deal with the pre-teens for a few more stops, but the incoherent laughing from the Asian crew was over. I stepped to the side to allow them to step out and return to the MIT campus.

But they didn't move.

I froze. The doors were about to close and they hadn't taken a step to the exit. I did a double take just to make sure that we were at the MIT stop. We were. I shot a glance at the group as if to ask "Uhh. Hello? Asians? We're at your stop". They met me with a blank stare.

I stepped back into my spot in the train car. Our eyes remained locked. They weren't getting off at Kendall/MIT.

Whoops.

-Dave

Happy Endings with a Happy Ending.

When I was 16 I started having sex. I had been with my girlfriend for a couple of months and we decided to go ahead and throw caution into the wind and make love after a half session of school one spring day (but before my mother got home from work at 2:30). Needless to say the experience was rushed, awkward and not at all what either of us expected. A month or so later, however, we were finding our stride and we were doing it like bunnies on ecstasy. Life was good, we were living a carefree relationship abound in orgasm for both (or so I thought as the time). Life would soon come to a heart-arresting moment when she called me one Friday, “I’m late and I need a pregnancy test.” Thump-THUMP Thump-THUMP!!!

My cousin and I were fairly close and she was a couple of years older than me. The fact that she could be trusted and that she lived down the street from a “Planned Parenthood” location was taken into consideration when we decided to ask for her help. A half hour later she was picking me up and driving me to my girlfriend’s house who was waiting alone –her family having just left for a picnic in the bay area. My cousin dropped me off and headed to work and I rang the doorbell with a pitted stomach. We embraced and I kissed her on the cheek and we proceed to the restroom where she peed on the stick as we tried to avoid awkward eye contact. As she pulled up her pants I took a deep breath in preparation for the lifetime long two to three minutes I was about to endure. At that moment I had no idea just how painful the next few moments would be and had no further time to contemplate it because we then heard a sound that made my gut jump into my throat and try to wiggle its way out through my clenched teeth –the front door was opening.

Her sister, her brother and mother were stampeding into the house, blaming each other over who had forgot what and I froze! Thank god for my girlfriends quick thinking (or not) for she then shoved the test in my hand and shoved me in to the tub and closed the shower curtain with a snap of her wrist. I sat in the tub as if I could duck beneath its height and thanked god the curtain was opaque. Heart racing, mind flying my eyes darted back and forth from the curtain to the test as the commotion continued out in the hallways of the tiny house.

Then disaster struck.

The door to the bathroom opened and I thought for an instant it must be my girl friend telling me the coast was clear but it was not to be. The sound of jeans unzipping and a jostled toilet confirmed my worst suspicions… her sister was peeing (hopefully just peeing) inches away from me and the soon to illuminate pregnancy test. I can say with absolute certainty that at that moment I learned and understood all the principles of bio-feedback and slowed my heart beat to a near frozen pace and moved not even a single hair a measurable fraction.

I understood then how Einstein could have wrapped his mind around such a concept as the theory of relativity. When caught in a moment such as this time does indeed slow to a crawl and you realize that the notion of anything being constant is utterly ridiculous.

Alas my story climaxes right there. There was no sneeze, I didn’t drop the test, she didn’t notice the empty box in the trash. She simply did her business, stood and left (without washing her hands). I was never so happy to know someone unconcerned with hygiene. Her brother found the things they were looking for and they were soon off again, albeit a little bit behind schedule. The test was just coming into focus as my girl friend re-entered the room and it was negative. We sighed deeply and embraced –the embrace led to more sex of course and all in all it turned out to be a beautiful summer day. Awkward doesn’t always end in disaster.

-Raw

Choons

(Side note: here's some music we at the AwkWord tend to listen to)

Blatant vs. Subtle

I've been trying to categorize awkward lately. So far I've got awkward moments divided up into two groups: subtly awkward and blatantly awkward. Subtly awkward situations tend to be awkward to just one person, or to less people then are involved in a situation in total. For instance, a guy trying to restrain an erection while talking to a pretty lady is pretty awkward but unless she notices his discomfort and/or package the situation is only awkward to him. You might say that there is nothing subtle about an erection but it's not the cause of the awkward moment we're examining so much as it is the nature of the awkward moment itself. Blatantly awkward moments are a bit easier to finger, for instance I was once caught fingering my girlfriend by her mom. That was blatantly awkward. As you can see, blatant moments need much less explanation then subtle ones –and that is blatantly obvious.

Let’s start with the subtle shall we? How about when you’re really gassy and you are amongst attractive friends and you want to get up and relieve yourself but your sure your stomach will betray you upon standing. So now all you can focus on is the bubble in your stomach, your friends are telling jokes, everyone is laughing but you, you start to sweat and you give an awkward sneer to try and appear as if you’re still up on the conversation –grumble grumble. Again, you may be thinking, what is so subtle about this situation? This is intense! Of this group of friends, however, only one is experiencing the awkward moment even though there is a number of other folks right there in the very same room as our subject. Only if our gassy companion stands and does indeed pass gas will the subtly awkward moment become the blatantly awkward moment. For now, as Bubble Butt sits sweating in discomfort the entropy of the awkward moment is collapsing in on him and him alone.

Now for an example of an overtly awkward moment -Generally identified by the universal awkwardness across all involved in the moment and often a transference of the awkward feeling to those simply hearing about the situation second hand:

I was in the 6th grade. My brother was spending the night away with a friend and my father worked until 2am generally. I tip toed out to the television and, using my patented rapid finger movement, turned on the TV without letting any volume escape. Once couched I changed the channel to PBS (Nova was on) and then hit the digits “6” and “8” on the remote. Having changed it to the scrambled analog cable channel “spice” I was now free to do what little boys do late at night with my alibi (Nova) on standby via the [Prev.] button on the remote. After spotting a tittie or two I was sufficiently uh… lucid? And proceeded to carry out the rather pedestrian exercise/exorcize. A short while later I felt a subtle shadow in the dim light fall across my waist and I froze. Holding my breath, I wondered what the hell it could be then my eyes widened suddenly -I’d heard an exhale of breathe and it was my mother. My eyeballs darted around but I couldn’t move. So, dick in hand, I laid there still as dirt. The tension was killing me, I could move and she wasn’t saying anything! "What was going on?" I thought and then… in an annoyed voice “Ahem! Just make sure the couch is clean when you’re done!” and with that the shadow disappeared and the chest caving pressure of that infamous awkward moment in my life began to exert itself on me.

For days, shit even weeks, I felt the painful strain of the ultimate in awkwardness. It did not get any more blatant than this. I'd rather have to fart in front of a pretty girl any day.

-Raw

Keywords

If the title "Boiled and Soiled" does not attract you (Friday, March 20th), please note that the keywords for this post are "anger", "baby", and "poop".

-Dave

Boiled and Soiled

Decency is the most awkward of all character traits. Its not because being decent makes one stutter, sweat, and slip up (though it very often does). Its because no one is naturally decent- its a learned behavior. And learning anything is remarkably awkward...

As an example, lets look at babies. They spit, drool, dump, spew, and leak like a broken septic system. We cope with this by wrapping them in disposable underwear and following them around with towels and moist wipes (granted, some parents take the easy way out and put them up for adoption). Yet no one would ever call a baby "indecent". Their inability to control bodily function is based on the fact that they haven't been around long enough to pick up on the proper way to dispose of pee pee and poo poo.

... But decency really is awkward. If you don't believe me, you should try standing in a room full of people you don't like. I do this on a daily basis. Your gut instinct will tell you to throw things, scream, cry, and go bananas. You may even feel dangerously close to reliving your days as an infant and losing control of your bowels. But more often than not, your sense for what is socially acceptable kicks in and you find yourself flexing your sphincter muscle and staying level-headed. You counteract your gut feeling by displaying a smile and laughing politely at stupid jokes that people around you make. And to a certain point, this is tolerable.

But if the room is small enough, and the people you dislike are plenty, you will have to suppress you inner urges even more. You force out a smile, but its just too difficult to engage those around you on any substantive level. You are a pressure cooker waiting to explode. And this is just awkward.

It would be much easier to be natural and indecent. Of course, you don't exactly escape awkwardness by informing the douchebag near you that his antics just caused you to soil yourself. But you would atleast be in your element (and covered with your element).

And, hey, I can deal with that.

-Dave

Tannic Depression

Last night I was sitting indian-style on the floor next to our crusty crimson couch while sipping tea with milk. I was browsing through examples of Phil Spector's work on youtube after having wrapped up a game of Clue with my roommates. The four of us had been indulging in a nice bottle of wine and dark chocolate just prior to my stint on the hardwood. To my right was a half-full glass of Cabernet. For some reason I had placed the tea on my left and while listening to Phil's "wall of sound" I persisted to instinctively grab for the wine with my right hand only to remember I was drinking tea just before touching the lonely wine glass.

This subconscious behavior repeated itself six or seven times and I soon placed my tea to the right as well -between the myself and the wine. This strategy had the desired effect and before long I was sipping the last tepid drop of my night cap. It was about this time where my two pals on the couch retired to bed and bid me adieu. As I continued to wrap my head around the complexities of "Da Do Ron Ron" my third roommate came back out into the living room and resumed the spot on the couch she had occupied while Miss Scarlet was committing murder in the ball room with the revolver. This roommate opened her lap top to finish some business before heading off to bed herself and we struck up conversation about a mutual friend.

As we proceeded to chit chat I realized that this glass of wine had indeed not been finished, the other two must have left it there. Well, those who have known me for more then a New York minute know I never waste California wine and with a proud swill and a cupped tongue I downed the glass that had aggressively taunted me just minutes before. As the last drop of tannic liquid evaporated into my soft pallet I realized, however, that this was indeed the glass of wine that my third roommate had been enjoying earlier and she may have had every intention of finishing it before hitting the proverbial sack. Having let the initial moment for apology slip past due to my overly verbose inner monologue cursing myself with a polymer of expletives I now noticed my friend's eyes awkwardly dart from the glass in my hand back to her computer screen. The acidity of the wine had caused my mouth to salivate heavily, I swallowed hard, and noticed the feeling of sediment rubbing, as salt does to wounds, on my tongue. I placed the glass back down hastily as my mind scrambled to find something distracting to talk about.

What the fuck has happened? Instead of the obvious admission of wrongdoing and apology that would bring on an accepting smile and maybe even a hardy chuckle my neuroses had paralyzed my mind in a feedback loop of "Oh shit oh shit oh shit stupid stupid why why oh shit oh shit oh shit!" Another awkward moment born of nothing but neurotic behavior.
Sorry roommate. I owe you a glass of wine.

-Raw

In the beginning...

...Eve looked up at god and sheepishly spoke "What apple? Oh you mean this apple? Well see... what had happened was..." and, along with sin, the awkward moment was born. Although sin is still often leering creepily near by, like a horny teen aged cousin, the awkward moment -more often than not- now finds a way to independently make us wince. We hold our breath, run away from and block these moments from memory; doggedly shaking off the skin-crawling feeling an awkward moment can induce.

On the coming pages we will explore these moments, their causes and their results in an attempt to stop, about face, and embrace the awkward for it's comedic truthfulness; as well as the opportunity it allows for peering in on the quirks of the human condition. We hope you enjoy yourself or at the very least feel a little awkward.

-Raw and Dave