Red is the color of many things. Roses. A number of my shirts. Blood. Watermelon. Fruit Punch. And, the whites of my eyes after spending an hour in the pool. Or, more specifically, an hour swimming laps in the pool in the backyard, sans goggles, chasing the dog through the water.

I’ve long believed that a healthy amount of chlorine does the body good. After all, nothing dries your pores better. And since we’re going for a theme here, nothing irritates your eyes better, either.

While outside studying by the pool in the evening (in other words, after the 103-degree heat had subsided a bit), Dylan wandered outside and joined me. He watched me reading my charts and notes, and immediately got bored after all of three seconds. He grabbed his tennis ball and plopped himself five feet away. While he waited, he started dropping the ball and watching it roll away before tearing after it. Then he got bored with that and dropped the ball in the pool. And, after pacing around trying to snatch from the side, he realized (after five minutes of this) that he would have to jump in to get it. Jump he did. I noticed it not only thanks to the loud “kersplash” I heard, but also the spraying of water droplets in the general direction of me and my papers.

It was after the third jump or so that I finally looked over, and the water beckoned. Pleaded with me to jump in. So I relented, and in a few minutes’ time, I climbed onto the diving board and dove into the pool. What followed was an hour-long game of fetch, which consisted of me throwing the ball into the pool, watching Dylan leap in and grab it, and then both of us would swim to the shallow end. I ended up trying to race Dylan back to the other side of the pool by sprinting the length of the pool back to the other side.

It’s amazing how motivating a dog can be. Dylan’s ceaseless energy is contagious, and I was happy to sprint back and forth for the better part of that hour. If I had to peg it, I’d say it was the best workout I’ve had in ages. At this rate, I figure if I keep this up for a few weeks non-stop, I’ll be ready to take on Michael Phelps.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would have to become so butch in order to live in this new place. I suppose that’s just part of the package deal that comes with moving into a place that was built over 50 years ago. Basically, if this was 2003 instead of 2008, they would have added me as the sixth guy on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I would have been the guy telling the straight guys how little they actually knew about all their favorite macho hobbies.

For instance, I could help them out with simple maintenance things around the house. Like, say, any problems they have with a refrigerator. A refrigerator that’s leaking, in fact. And I’d be like, “Uh, Girlfriend, it’s simple, honey. There’s this tray, see, and it sits underneath the refrigerator and catches all the water. And normally, it catches the water, and eventually the water evaporates, so it’s really no big deal, nothing to worry about. Unless it leaks, honey, and then you’ve got some problems.” And when the guy would be totally flabbergasted by my wealth of straight knowledge (not to mention enthralled by how savvy and hip I am), I would brush it off. “Eh, it’s something I learned from a couple of my girlfriends.”

And I’d be able to identify different scents in the air that are natural to a home. “Oooh, you have an older gas stove. Well, that means that there will always be a flow of gas to it, especially since there’s no electric spark to light the burner. Your stove doesn’t use any electricity.” And then I’d go to town telling him about how much that saves electricity, especially considering the place is so old that there’s only four circuits throughout, two of which are in the kitchen. And you don’t want to share an outlet with that refrigerator of yours, unless of course you’d rather constantly blow out your circuits.

And, scene.

Last week, I noticed that the tile in my kitchen was wet. This is nothing unusual, as I’m frequently prone to spilling water from time to time, especially as I’m doing dishes or some kind of cooking. (This doesn’t have anything to do with this post, but I want to point out here just how nice it is to be able to splash the counter whilst in the throes of cooking or cleaning and not have to worry about some psycho bitch from hell confronting me and telling me “There’s water droplets in the kitchen sink, you need to wipe it clean every time you run the water in it.”)

It was the location of this wetness that confused me, though. It was concentrated around the front of the refrigerator, which initially lead me to believe that maybe I unknowingly purchased a container of juice that leaked, or maybe some ice slipped out and melted. Except there was no sign of leakage inside the refrigerator, and thus by a method of deductive reasoning that would impress Sherlock Holmes, I was able to determine that that was not, in fact, the source of the wetness.

I wiped down the floor and didn’t give it much thought afterward. That is, until I noticed another puddle of similar size the next day. Which I then cleaned up, only to find it replaced by still more liquid the following day. I wondered if perhaps I do have a leak, but it was of another variety. I noticed it had a light yellowish tinge to it, but thought that might have been due to the dirt or dust covering the floor.

This week, I’ve been keeping an eye on one of my favorite house-warming gifts I got from a new friend here the day I officially moved in. It’s a lucky bamboo plant. You know, one of those plants that’s pretty much lives through anything, no matter even if you forget to water it for a month, or something. I love it, and I like to put it in the kitchen windowsill so it can get sunlight and fresh air during the day.

Only it’s been struggling this week. A lot. An entire stalk of bamboo has been rapidly turning yellow. At first I thought it might not e getting enough water or sunlight, so I altered its location a bit to make things more optimal. Only it’s getting continually worse, and it suddenly occurred to me tonight that the air in my kitchen is probably what’s hurting it so much.

Which means, if I’m reasoning things correctly, precisely this: if the air is hurting my plant this much, it’s probably not being too friendly towards me, either. The same probably goes for my food, as well. I’m thinking it’ll be wise of me to talk to my landlord first thing in the morning, lest I breathe the gas-filled air too much and suddenly become one of those radioactive-induced superheroes. Though if it came to that, I’d definitely want to be The Tick.

I changed my mind. Whatever I thought was the single most annoying thing in the world is not, in fact, so terrible. I opted to wear a pair of nice shorts today, one that I hadn’t worn since May. And in the three months since I’d worn the fuckers, I’d completely forgotten why I wasn’t wearing them. That would be because the seam around the left leg suddenly and unexpectedly came unraveled. Which in turn caused the seam, a fancy invisible seam on the inside, to no longer hold the centimeter or so of fabric. Which in turn caused the shorts not only to look uneven, but to be rather awkward to wear.

Because I couldn’t sew the thing back together myself, I had simply opted to not wear the shorts until I figured out what to do about them. But oh no, I didn’t remember any of that this morning when, in my morning stupor, I decided brown shorts would be a nice change of pace from the usual lighter fabric I seem to end up wearing all the time.

All was well until, suddenly, I felt something light blow across my leg and flit away. I brushed it away. And it returned. And I brushed. Lather, rinse, repeat, for the rest of the day. I guess I never thought about how annoying it would be to constantly feel that light brushing sensation against my skin, and not for eleven hours, at that. And since you, dear reader, are probably dying to know what it feels like, I’ll tell you: it feels like something between a tickle and a windy sensation blowing across your skin, and instead of getting used to the feeling, it gets steadily more intense, until the point at which you suddenly snap and the next person who says “How’s your day?” to you will suddenly and unexpectedly be knocked backwards by your sucker punch, and you’ll be shouting “How does it feel, now, motherfucker!!!”, only instead of shouting this at said unwitting antagonist, you’ll be yelling at your nerve-shot left leg. And then when you find out that none of your actions actually alleviated the sensation on your leg, you seriously contemplate just ditching the shorts right there in public, feeling that walking around in your underwear beats walking around feeling like you want to saw your own leg off, public decency be damned.

You know that someone knows you well when you suddenly get a message that parrots something you write from time to time. Something that you don’t realize is a habit, even, until it’s brought to your attention thusly. For reasons that escape even me, I’m a big fan of using the equals sign when I write text messages or Twitter posts. They’re always so useful, they come in handy in so many ways, and they just mean so much.

I didn’t realize how often I use them, however, until I got the following in a text message today from Robert:

“Fish, garlic bread, mac & cheese = heaven!”

Just as my conclusion that Finch’s bassist is gay does, Robert even nailed my little equation structure. Now I can’t decide whether this little habit of mine is charming, or else boring and predictable. I’m hoping it’s the former.

*Not to mention nerdy.

As my friend Melissa and I approached a crosswalk on campus yesterday, I watched a car drive right through the stop sign without even bothering to slow down.

I made my displeasure known. “There’s a stop sign there, jerk!”

A girl within earshot looked over at me with what I thought was a grin on her face, only to realize that it was probably something more akin to malice, as the car stopped mere feet past the crosswalk and she opened the door and got in.

Under the glossy veneer that is my big, gay exterior, I’m pure thug. Never mind that I’m so white, either. The mailman didn’t.

Mailman: Hey man, how’s it going?
Phil: Pretty good, thanks.
Mailman: That’s good, bro.
Phil: Um, so… did I miss the outgoing mail?
Mailman: No, man it’s still right here.
Phil: Sweet. Thanks.
Mailman: Have a good day, man.

I suppose now would be a good time to point out our respective attire. The mailman was bedecked in standard mailman drag, replete with the blue pants with the dark blue line down the seam. He was sporting a poorly trimmed beard and the usual mailman cap. Oh, and he was whiter than I am. Cut to me, styling it up in white shorts and a bright red polo shirt, going for the win with the high-tech sunglass covers for my glasses.

Because Mr. Mailman made sure to emphasize every single “man” by drawling it out a good three seconds, I’m left forming one of two conclusions. 1.) He thought I was gangsta. 2.) He wanted me to be gangsta. Either way, he was hoping to prove that he could keep up with the best of us, even if the “best” turned out to be white, gay, and the only gang he could make it in would be the Big Gay Mafia.

If you ever come across one of these delicious buildings, I highly recommend you bite, and go inside. Upon seeing the Toll House store whilst wandering Albuquerque Uptown with my friend Dr. Vina, it was all I could do to not lick the bricks of the building right then and there.

The overpowering smell of cookies was enough to make us decide to spoil our impending lunch a little bit by ordering what looked like harmless little snacks of mini chocolate chip cookies with white stuff and mini M&Ms surrounding them. And at a mere 99 cents each, said truffles seemed easily as harmless as a stick of celery. Maybe I’m exaggerating.

We probably really should have ordered celery, or at least that weird grass drink stuff some of those smoothie places sell. Despite my fairly sweet tooth, I bit into my little cookie sandwich and was met with a whipped cream that was so sugary it nearly killed all my taste buds upon contact. So while a ten-year-old might relish the intense feeling that is whipped cream instantly turning to butter in your mouth, it was way too much for me to handle. I think that spike in my glucose level should be my last such spike, preferably for the rest of my life.

The lesson to learn here: when you do go, don’t do what I did. Stick to a regular cookie or maybe some ice cream. You can thank me later.

I’ve always been something of a night owl. This generally isn’t too much of a problem, though, as I’ve somehow managed to finagle my schedule so that the earliest I ever have to be at work or school is 9am. Of course, I’ve been bitten by the Olympic bug this year, and while it hasn’t had me training like mad, I have been flopped down on the couch in front of the television every single night, unable to move from the screen.

This week, Robert has returned to work. My philosophy for work is that even if I’m tardy, at least I’m there. Read: mornings are my mortal enemy. Conversely, Robert likes to arrive to work nice and early. And, he likes to have plenty of time each morning to get ready. This is what my schedule has been like so far this week:

8pm: Watch Olympics
11:30pm: Finish watching Olympics and think about going to bed.
12-12:30am: Go to bed.

Sleep

5:30am: Feel a hand reach out and shake me around, and voice say “Phil, it’s time to get up.”

And then it takes me half an hour to drag my near-lifeless ass out of bed, staggering around and moving with Lego-man precision as I stumble through my morning routine.

After I dropped Robert off at work just before 7am, I headed home with an urgency that only the sheer desire to crawl back under the covers and sleep can muster. Naturally, it took me an hour to fall asleep again. I had to set my alarm, as I wanted to get up by 8:45 so I could get some things done at home and then meet some old work supervisors for lunch.

This is where cell phones come in handy: they have alarm clocks. I set my cell phone alarm, and opted for a random ringtone to wake me up. One I hadn’t yet listened to. One that started off with an odd little bass riff, followed by a few guitar notes and some drums. A tune that, even to my sleepy ears, struck me as more than a little suitable for a porno film. I didn’t realize this at first; it wasn’t until after I’d hit the snooze, five minutes had lapsed, and then it thumped again, that it hit me. Talk about a weird thought to wake up to. Oy vay.

I have an interesting threshold for things I find terrifying or disgusting. For instance, when I arrived home Saturday night after being out for dinner, I noticed a grotesque-looking arachnid. It had a big black body and four giant, hairy-looking legs. The fact that it was hanging out right where I wanted to put my foot on the stairs made its menace that much more impressive.

While my first reaction upon seeing the beast was to sprint away as fast as possible, the fact that it wasn’t indoors somehow reduced the overall threat. Hence, I stood over it and stared, deer-in-headlights style, fascinated.

Since the camera on my phone proved useless to take a picture thanks to its lack of flash, I headed inside and snagged my digital camera. Bravely, I returned to the infamous stair in the hopes that a good clear picture would reveal the true nature of the creature. I was hoping it was a tarantula, or maybe a vinegaroon.

My incredible 8.1 megapixel camera, with the bonus of me standing directly above the monster, took a great picture. Only when I zoomed in on said picture, the face smiling back at me was not that of a toothy arthropod, but rather of a cricket. Next to a dead and curled up cockroach. What the fuck. All that adrenaline, over a stupid chirping insect? There I was, thinking that my life was hanging in the balance, and instead of it being a venomous and therefore dangerous thing, the worst it would do would to chew some upholstery.

Unfortunately, my pictures did not even begin to capture the initial sense of creepiness I felt. If you happen to be more savvy when it comes to digital photography than I am (and I suspect you are), tips will be much appreciated. I was so disappointed that it was a damn cricket that I didn’t even try to go for a cool shadow picture to try to capture it. Lame.