Dear Diary, Love Danny

Dear Diary,

Earlier this week, I took a day off work because of a cold (though WebMD implied I might have vagina cancer). Anyway, when I came back to work, everyone asked me what my name was and what department I was starting in. Trying to play it cool, I answered them and didn't explain that I've been here for months. It just seemed rude.

Well, guess what? It paid off! They took me out for a drink after work to get to know me! I told them all these wild stories about that weekend I spent in San Bernardino and the spider I saw there. Long story short: it bit me and I had to go the hospital for a few days. And then I ordered mozzarella sticks and told them all about my secret recipe of hot sauce in marinara sauce to make it spicier. They didn't seemed too impressed, and we were only at TGIF's for 20 minutes, but, man, oh man, this is Dan with a plan now!

I'm taking another day off next week to see if it could work again, and maybe we can go mini-golfing this time, and I can tell them about the summer I spent in Wisconsin. I saw so many boats! One of them ran over me actually. I spent a few days in the hospital that time too. The boat driver said, "Thought you were one of them goddamn liberal otters." I told him I don't vote. He told me I can't really swim either. I told him my feelings would probably be hurt if I wasn't on so much morphine. Then he called me a pussy and said I was the exact type of "hippie scum" that will drain this country dry because of Obamacare. Needless to say, my grandpa isn't the nicest of guys. But at least he brought me a book (called "Nixonomics")!

Ah well. It's like that French thing people quote, "Sail a V."

I think it has something to do with a vagina.

God, I hope I don't have vagina cancer. That would be embarrassing.

But something to talk about whenever my new friends/old co-workers do laser tag!

Dear Diary,

I'm still adjusting to life back in the States, and, I have to wonder, is it normal to cry at online banner ads?

Now, to be fair, it was a sad banner ad, which I'll just call a "banner sad" to do my best to cope with the cruel but thrilling villain that is everyday existence (half Darth Vader, half the big mouse from The Great Mouse Detective).

The banner sad showed a happy couple with the text, "Are you ready to go organic?"

It looked more like an advertisement for an adoption agency or a doctor who specializes in experimental STD testing.

The truth is I didn't know if I was ready for organic, and I doubted who I was right then and there, sitting alone with Newhart reruns on with Rush playing somewhere on the boombox my parents accidentally gave to me on Christmas ten years ago. And that's when I realized how horrifyingly alone I was, because of this empty-eyed woman (who looked like she returned a lot of her purchases to Nordstrom) and this aggressively smiling man (who looked like he overpaid for that white button-up). These two people were so engaged in each other that it struck me like a lightning bolt of grief, even though I've been seeing a girl. That I don't know. Who is in porn.

In other words, you could say that I've been doing a "poor" job at "feeling happy" because I "miss" the "absolute shit" out of "Fantua'na."

I don't know why I put her in quotes. Maybe because quotes can live on through centuries, and I don't want her to ever die. Or maybe she lives in my heart. And is drowning in the blood...oh, that made me sad.

Anyway, the porn I've been watching is organic. For the most part. I think. They don't seem to use plastics or rubbers, and I think I saw a cotton tag on the guy's (assumedly) fake airport security shirt when he tore it off to search the very complacent girl more thoroughly.

He didn't find a bomb, by the way, just in case you were wondering like I was. Am I the only person who expects twists in these stories that aren't pretzel position?

The last video I watched featured an empowered female entrepreneur who gets bought out by an awful businessman who turns out to have a heart of gold and a foot and a half tremor that was practically snapping at the poor CEO, who I honestly think just wanted medical benefits for her employees. I don't know. It got pretty convoluted when she used his tie in a way I've never seen before. When her employees showed up, they seemed just as interested in the businessman and not the medical benefits they were promised, so I was kind of lost.

I guess the point here is that going organic is important.

AND NEVER TRUST A BUSINESSMAN WITHOUT CLOTHES ON. HE'LL JUST LEAVE ON A LINE LIKE, "YEAH, BABY, I OBAMACARE ABOUT YOU," EVEN THOUGH HE TOTALLY IGNORES THE HEALTH PLAN ISSUE.

Goddamnit, Misty Coxxx, I wish you had been better at running that business.

Maybe she ran an organic grocer line?

I would buy a new (organic) heart from her.

Also whatever that service was when she was upside-down. Holy shit.

Dear Diary,

Things have been slow since I was forced to return home from an international kidnapping.

Lately, I've just been eating nothing but pie. It's not something I especially missed about the United States (you still hold the number one spot in my heart, Olive Garden - forever and ever, or at least until Beth stops working at the one by the mall - girl has it going on and such with the looks and the smiles and the boobs and the breadsticks and the polite conversations that I'm sure she equally enjoys).

Back to the pie. I grew accustomed to heavy pie-eating in the foreign lands, though the cult/tribe/misunderstood group of party people really only liked one kind of pie. Have you ever had drug pie? It's tastes like pie, but it feels like drugs!

Anyway, I've been trying to recreate it here at home, but I just keep getting high and then, all of a sudden, I've watched half an episode of a Ken Burns documentary about, I don't know, silverware or Black Friday, and I'm texting the old number of a girl I talked to at a party once with the opening line of, "Hey, is this your house?"

It wasn't. Just in case you were curious. It was my friend's house, but I thought she didn't know that. She did.

I think I touched her shoulder.

Don't quote me on that though.

Ah well. Happy Pi Day!

Dear Diary,

You're probably wondering where I've been. Well, according to the classified report, the following words have been tossed around regarding my disappearance: cult, coma, condos, catastrophic injustice.

In what I'm assuming has to be considered the single greatest breakdown in communication between American law enforcement agents and an Anglo-Brazilian tribe that worships Hollywood celebrities, I was kidnapped (while on my way to finally ask out the grocery store lady's daughter through her). Believing me to be the son of a famous actor (weird that I never figured out who), the wildly attractive natives drugged me and flew me back to their headquarters, a beautifully landscaped condo community set somewhere deep in the South American rainforest.

Two things were certain:

They were in the middle of one hell of an identity crisis.

They were pissed when they found out I was just a guy plagued with crippling loneliness and not a drug addiction as an act of rebellion against his famous father (again, never figured out who it was).

From there, I was left alone. Left to wander the gorgeous complex by myself, I began spying on the locals out of boredom (and because, honestly, there were some serious babes in the cult). Their rituals included everything from potions to tabloids. There was also a great deal of fornicating and skinny-dipping. However, the farthest I got was second base with one of the taller gals when she, in the middle of a drug hallucination, stumbled into the condo I had been given calling me "Me Mufasa." I obeyed accordingly, and it wasn't until I commented on her butt as "fucking awesome" that she realized that I was not her god-like mate. I was just some twenty-something white male with a Encyclopedia-esque knowledge of Doctor Who and a laugh that some/many would describe as "effeminate."

Still, I grew concerned that I might not see my loved ones again. But this was quickly countered with the realization that these people may actually be nicer to me.

And then Fantua'na happened.

Fantua'na, for those who of you who didn't subscribe to my newsletter (which was essentially what I wrote down on a piece of paper and then read aloud from my balcony overlooking the community pool), was the super hot village virgin. The daughter of a priest and a nun that were supposedly blessed with immaculate conception/too much cherry rum, Fantua'na grew up untouchable (her father was also a sharpshooter and her mother was a knifethrower - I guess shit got boring in church) as well as stupefyingly smokin' hot and gorgeously naive.

With skin like as smooth as a water slide and a laugh that I'd describe as a "happy ending" massage on a winter's night, she was perfect. She didn't speak my language (nor did anyone else in the condo village, by the way), but we shared a bond that I believe only came about because of her thinking I too was a virgin. Seeing as how everyone else in the village was sex-crazed, she came to believe that I was the only person capable of being her equal. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a kidnapped guy about to bang the hottest virgin since Jesus.

Well, that's when things went haywire.

Finally in love and appreciated in return at the same time, I grew extremely close with Fantua'na. She came to my condo to watch and rewatch one of only two DVDs in the cabinet, The Godfather (the other one was Kangaroo Jack, which, to this day, I still have not seen). Somewhere around the hundredth viewing, she came to think of me as a mafia tough guy, but still alongside the virgin banner. This drove her wild. Seriously crazy. This girl was down to get wild in the wilderness, and who was I to say no?

Right? Well, her father and mother felt differently. And so did everyone else in the village apparently.

I couldn't truly understand anyone, but I'm almost sure there was talk for a while of letting her burn at the stake instead of letting me go beyond kissing (which we only did a few times, but it was fucking awesome). 

This is when they called the United States and demanded a ransom. Guess what? The U.S. still doesn't negotiate with terrorists, which they weren't. Then the tribe called cult referred to me as "America's favorite son," which I'm not. At best, I'm the character they bring in as a hail mary during the last season of a television show that slams the final nail into the coffin.

I was downgraded to a "peace offering" by the condescending villagers.

My parents finally put in a missing person report and, apparently, it lined up with the U.S. government's list, and I'd rather not reveal the keyword that linked the too, because my pride has already taken enough of a beating in the new year, thanks to a goddess among babes wanting to be a charitable florist by giving me her flower on the house.

Though I would've taken it in a field. 

Or under a waterfall.

Seriously, anything above a gas station restroom would've been fine.

Or anywhere else.

Seriously. Anywhere.

I imagine I left a part of me back there in that rainforest condo community. I don't want to say it was just my heart, so I'll go with "my entire happiness forever."

Anyway, the U.S. sent a group of novice soldiers to "rescue" me just as I was about to slay the dragon that had not even gleamed a sword.

There, on my bed, ready to become a great deal more than I had ever been, I was removing the necklace that adorned the perfect neck of the very flawless Fantua'na when the recruits kicked in the door of my condo. I couldn't hear what they were yelling at me, due to the cheers and joyous cries of the village, but they got me the hell out of there and out onto the sidewalk. At some point, her father-father kicked me down the stairs.

Oh, how Fantua'na wailed with sadness. I'm not sure if she killed herself or what, but she was holding a knife pretty crazily as I was being dragged to the helicopter. Not wanting to reveal how heartbroken I was, I went with revealing how extraordinarily confused I was, so I bellowed, "This is just like Lost!"

Once in the helicopter, I asked for pretzels to cope with it all. Instead, they stuck me with a needle and filled me with drugs that I could not even begin to explain as anything further than morphine mixed with a heroin.

It turns out that was a real reckless move on their part, and my body shut down. I was in a Spanish-speaking hospital for several weeks, though it was only supposed to be a few days. The military dudes went on a bender and forgot I was there. When I awoke, I started asking as many questions as I could, though I was only met with annoyed eyes and then hands that again filled me with bad drugs. After my second drug-induced coma, I woke up in an embassy on a couch with my parents talking things over with a leader I'd never seen before and assumed I hadn't vote for.

Finally, they gave me a lollipop, sent me home, and threatened to kill me if I ever spoke of my time with the Anglo-Brazilian condo cult to the media. I asked if I could talk about it on my blog, and they said it was ok, since nobody really reads my blog and it was "mostly filled with the whiney ramblings of a guy who desperately needs to get laid" anyway.

That was a few days ago.

Also, I bought an iPhone.

Dear Diary,

Have you ever made out in dark hallways? - 311

No. No, I haven't. Thanks for bring that up a decade later, 90s flashback radio programming. Play some more Cure so I can just go ahead and thoroughly soak my grilled cheese in tears. NO, I'VE NEVER MET A GIRL JUST LIKE HEAVEN. THANKS FOR BRAGGING, ROBERT SMITH. I BET IT WAS REAL GREAT FOR YOU. WELL, GUESS WHAT? I ONLY LISTENED TO YOU BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU WERE IN NEW ORDER FOR THREE YEARS. MY MISTAKE. HAVE A GOOD DAY, YOU ARROGANT BASTARD.

Dear Diary, Sorry for yesterday's entry. I've just been dating a girl, and we broke up a few days ago. She was really into instrumental country pop and owned six iguanas. I think she inherited them from her uncle. He died in boating accident. It was a mess, both the relationship and her uncle's boating accident. In fact, our relationship was a lot like her uncle's boating accident. The fat body of trust fell right into the blades of mental and emotional instability before finally the boat of commitment caught fire and exploded, sending shards of wandering feelings right into the skull of hope. Needless to say, her dead uncle and I sunk to the bottom of Lake Depression.  Or I suppose her uncle was at the bottom of a lake on a map, but I forget what it was called. He's just lucky sharks aren't in lakes. They would've eaten the hell out of him with all that blood.  Well, actually, I guess we're all lucky there aren't sharks in lakes.

Hey, maybe that's what this break-up has taught me: be thankful for the little things that used to be big things.

Dear Diary,

Do you think there are friends on Mars?

Today was a long day.

Dear Diary,

I bet lots of Americans leave their TV on to feel like they're at a party. I can't be the only one.

I mean, sure, not all of them leave it on a porno movie that you borrowed from a friend that found the VHS in the attack with various other erotica from 1998 (including a printed-out image of Carmen Electra in fishnets and a playing card of some extremely aggressive-looking lady on a card with stars for nipples from Vegas).

Maybe those people also don't make too much food on purpose, as if all your best friends are coming over to say, "Hey, Danny, we think you're a really neat guy."

Nope.

It's like I'm Piggy on the island in Lord Of The Flies, but there aren't any other kids around. I'd kill for a boat though, so I could just sail away. Like in the Styx song. Except it wouldn't suck.

Dear Diary,

Fuck Brenda.

Dear Diary,

You ever have one of those days where you just know you shouldn't have been born? Well, today wasn't one of those days! Finally!

It's Friday at work today, and...probably everywhere else now that I think about it. But, anyway, they let us have beer at our desks to start the weekend early. I haven't taken advantage of "Beer Friday" yet because I initially wanted to appear studious and well-dressed. But then I accidentally got high at my cousin's party last night when a girl coughed weed smoke into my mouth when I asked her, "Are your breasts real?", and I ended up watching Revenge of the Nerds on the couch with a guy in a poncho and someone's pet iguana (who I named Daffodil for drug reasons). Anyhow, I realized those nerds were dorks! And I also learned that cool guys drink at work and don't dress so nice. They dress like they're going to drive fast and say stuff like, "Who cares?"

So, hey, who cares?

Not this guy.

Not anymore.

Not Danny "The Rumble Bronx" Brucker, which is a nickname that I'm almost 100% sure will never catch on. It'll probably just stay Danny "The New Guy" Brucker or Danny "Is he the one who sits over by Kevin?" Brucker. The problem is my last name. If only it was Danny "The New Guy" Razzmatazz! But with that many Zs, they'd probably think I was either asleep or Italian.

Anyway, between getting high and eating a peanut butter quesadilla, here's the plan I came up with for Beer Friday:

Wait for someone to ask if I want a beer.

Get a beer if nobody asks.

Stoop it in the break room.

Stoop it elsewhere if nobody is in said break room.

Have second beer to build confidence like a rickety shack.

Watch Brenda from HR stroll in for lunch.

Pray to God or the Devil that Brenda's not going out for lunch.

If God or Devil really exist, then ask Brenda if she wants a beer.

Drink beer with Brenda.

Tell Brenda that she drinks beer so well they should call her "Beernda."

Pause for laughter.

Jump through window for escape if no laughter happens.

Slyly mention that my stepbrother once saw Jim Carrey at an airport.

Tell her I'm having a party this weekend and that she should come.

Throw best party ever.

We'll see how things go. This is just a rough draft though. I might not call her "Beernda." It might be "Brewnda. I don't know. I'm still thinking it through.

Well, I'm off to work!

Dear Diary,

Sorry I haven't been keeping you in the loop. I've been on a whirlwind of excitement with my co-workers. Can't slow down, as people without brakes say!

So. Get this. Two weeks ago, I'm just hanging out at work, and a girl asks if I'm going to the happy hour.

"What happy hour?" I ask coolly.

"The one for Kim's birthday," she answers. This made sense, since we celebrated her lunch that day. Guess who ate seven quesadillas and didn't fart in his afternoon meeting? This guy. Businessman Danny. All business during the day, doing nothing but business at night.

"Oh, sure, yeah, I'll go," I tell her.

It turns out that I deleted the happy hour invite because I thought it was spam. What's up, new folder for invitations? I hope you like it here in my inbox, politely stashed between the two other folders, Clients and Mom. Fingers crossed the three folders never start talking!

Then I went to happy hour! Well, not immediately. I got lost first. Then I went to the wrong bar. Then I showed up at the right one and sat at the end of the table. I didn't say much, because I didn't want to seem too eager. I was playing it cool. In fact, I was playing it so cool that I ordered another quesadilla. Like I didn't give a shit. But I did. I did real bad. In fact, I almost didn't make it home. I honestly almost shit my pants while doing 80 down the freeway blasting the only Tom Petty CD I had in the car. I almost caused an accident while almost having an accident. But I felt cool. Rogue cool.

Aside from almost shitting my pants, I'd say the evening went pretty swell.

Two weeks later, I accidentally went to an orgy down the street. 

It's been quite a month.

Dear Diary,

Do you ever wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy, but you wanted to feel like Tupac? I'd like to be dead and celebrated. I'd even like to be a hologram. Then the words wouldn't hurt. Then they'd just sparkle. I just want it to be fucking Christmas already, so at least I can attend somebody's birthday. I'M LOOKING AT YOU, JESUS.

Talk about being dead and celebrated. JESUS.

Jesus, what a day.

Dear Diary,

Well, it turns out that Robin Williams is a dick. He's apparently made a whole series of movies about inspiring sages with beards and some not-so-tucked-away bitterness. Sorry I forgot you came, like, a decade before Good Will Hunting, you sack of shit Dead Poet's Society. The only difference between the two is that one takes place in Boston and the other has Ethan Hawke. Carpe diem...the irony...it honestly hurts. It feels like an orgy of cavemen are digging their own graves in my heart.

But, on the plus side, I made myself a sandwich today that the dog didn't snatch off the counter. That's something, right?

Anyway, I looked into Dead Poet's Society. It's apparently on the 100 Most Inspiring Films of All-Time, voted by AFI (the respected film institute, not the punk band that started dressing like mannequins and raging as teenage goths at the turn of the century). Guess what movies are considered as more inspiring than goddamn Dead Poet's Society?

The African Queen (where Humphrey Bogart bitches about Katharine Hepburn belittling him, as he pulls a boat through a swamp)

Gone With The Wind (where every single person in the film gets dicked over for what seems like nine hours, until the entire southern  countryside has been torched in a civil war, and the only semi-reasonable person with a mustache acts like brute because he's been heartbroken one too many times by a delusional skank bitch)

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (where two old crusty white people can't get over seeing a black guy in a dope suit until the meal is ultimately ruined)

The Best Years Of Our Lives (where three men come home from World War II and can't adjust to anything about normal life, especially since one guy has hooks for hands)

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (where a lazy, moody alien comes to Earth to eat a kid's candy, get him in trouble, scare everyone and then demand a ride home)

2001: A Space Odyssey (where who the fuck knows what happens)

Seabiscuit (yeah...fucking...Seabiscuit)

Hollywood really did a number on me yesterday. Also, what the shit, Robin Williams? Jakob The Liar? More like Robin Williams The Liar Who Got All Of Danny's Co-Workers To Look At Him Stupid.

Shit.

I'm sorry, Robin Williams. You're just doing your job. I mean, you made Hook. It's my fault, I know. I just...sometimes, you need a win, you know? Even when you're not Robin Williams.

Dear Diary,

I started my new job today, and I did it with class.

I walked through those front doors with confidence in my smile, pride in my chest, and a whole box of Franzia in my gut. There were no tears and no wimpers in the middle of conversation. I don't want to brag. Well, to be perfectly honest, I'd really like to. But half of me thinks I have nothing going for me. The other half, however, knows I have nothing.

*sigh*

I know I make it seem like I lead a glamorous life, diary (discounts at mini-golf, finding dollars in my coat pockets, scoring that gentle kiss from the girl after I bought her 21st drink), but I'm a simple man. But I'm also a complex man. A man who lives in a complex. An apartment complex guy who doesn't burn his Celeste pizzas on a good day.

Maybe at this job I'll finally find someone to share my pizzas with. Friends, girlfriends, BEST FRIENDS, WIVES. WHO KNOWS, DIARY?

I'm sorry, diary. I shouldn't have gotten ahead of myself.

Nobody wants to follow a loser.

But tomorrow's another day! Carpe diem! Haha! Remember how Robin Williams said that in Good Will Hunting? Just wait for me to drop that reference tomorrow at my second day! Everyone's going to be real impressed. Maybe they'll start calling me Danny The Movie Guy. Danny...Film Guru. Danny...Everyone's Best Friend. Danny...American Hero.