I’m back!

Due to popular demand, Eva Longoria was named Maxim Magazine’s hottest woman in the world for the second straight year. The lack of popular demand has spawned my Jose Canseco-like return to the plate.

(Yes, it has been that long.)

There is much to report from my absence from the blogosphere.

I had a craving for an iced coffee this weekend, so I walked to a Starbucks on 60th and 1st. It was a solid walk, about 10 minutes, so I was pretty upset when I got there and realized that I’d left my wallet at home. Broken and defeated, I stared at my feet for a few seconds, when I spotted a newspaper that someone had left at a table. I sat down and read it and thought about how great it would be if I could afford an iced coffee.

Have you ever wondered how different your life would be if you had wings? I have. I’ve concluded that my life wouldn’t be that much different. I have legs, and I hate walking. If I had wings, I’d probably hate flying.

A few nights ago I had a dream that I was walking along the streets of Manhattan with Elvin and his girlfriend, Jane. We noticed an overweight girl walking not far ahead of us, and she was wearing a shirt that was tight enough and jeans that were low enough to reveal a round mound of side fat oozing over her jeans.

“Whoa, she has a muffin top,” Elvin said.

“What’s a muffin top?” Jane asked.

“It’s when a girl who’s wearing a tight shirt and jeans has the fat from her sides ooze over her jeans, so it looks like the top of a muffin,” he said.

“Oh,” she said.

Then I woke up.

My dreams have followed this uneventful pattern for the past year or so. I no longer have the fantastic dreams I used to have when I was young, like flying a jet or sparring with Mike Tyson or doing the cha-cha-cha with Madeline from the Wonder Years. I now have dreams that are mundane and realistic enough to make me wonder whether they really happened. Some have happened, or in some cases, some actually end up happening days later. Like the other week, I had a dream that one of my co-workers asked me if I wanted an Altoid. I said no. A few days later, that co-worker actually did ask me if I wanted an Altoid. I hesitated before saying yes and taking one, not because I wanted it, but because I remembered what Agatha the Precog said in Minority Report: "You can change your future if you want to." So true.

I sometimes like to watch the Food Network when I get hungry late at night. $40 a Day is a good one to watch. So is Iron Chef America. It’s such a letdown, though, when you flip to the Food Channel, and Good Eats is on. It’s like, “Ah man, they don’t even cook on this show.”

I hate that it’s suddenly endearing to be self-deprecating. Self-deprecation is a horrible thing. It should be discouraged.

I think it’s interesting that “kindergartener” is the hardest grade level to spell.

I'm really bad at chit-chatting with people. I think it's because I never perfected the art of ending a conversation tactfully when it starts to fizzle out -- that moment when I have nothing more to say and no longer want to listen to what the other person has to say -- so I try to avoid chit-chat sessions altogether so I won't have to confront that situation. . . . . you know what I'm saying? I mean. It's kind of like. I don't know. Anyways.