Up on the roof, arising a clatter.

IT WAS ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL CHRISTMAS at the Wizzle home. We woke up early, my brother and sister upstairs in their bedrooms, me on the foldout downstairs now that my bedroom is my father's office. (I am not at all bitter about this). By the time all us kids were ready to go, my father had already been awake hours - I know because he, as usual, turned on the TV and started unloading the dishwasher hours before sunrise. (Again, not at all bitter).

We have a sacred Christmas morning tradition at the Wizzle home, one that must be upheld regardless of where one sleeps. Only half awake, I stumbled upstairs, careful not to look at the tree. The three of us queued up at the top of the stairs and closed our eyes, then my mom led us all down the stairs until we were all facing the tree.

"Open your eyes."

We all "Ooh" and "Aah" over the presents and the tree, and tell my parents what a beautiful job they've done again this year. My parents stand there beaming, and look at each other, my father clasping his hands together, shoulders a little hunched, my mother stepping in closer to him. They are proud and satisfied and happy. It's the best part of Christmas.


THAT IS, UNTIL WE start opening presents. You should see this hoody jacket my brother gave me! This shit is so fly. I put it on, and instantly felt beautiful.

The other gift of the day was from my sister and her boyfriend to my parents. It was this gorgeous decanter they'd all seen at a silent auction a few weeks back. My parents had bid twice on it, but were ultimately outbid. Thinking hope was lost, Jeff says to my sister, "Why don't we win it and give it for Christmas?" (The guy's racking up point's left and right, starting with when he stepped out of his jeep to meet my parents for the fist time. I was on the phone with my mom at the time, and when she sees him she goes, "Oh! He's cute... oh... okay... oh my... okay, I need to go.")

From there, we get all dressed up in our new clothes, stand around the tree, take a picture, and call it a day.


Merry Christmas.

Nick Pitera - "Silent Night"

If you shut your eyes, it's remarkable.

A little less Yenta, a little more chalupa.

I TURNED THE CORNER onto Broadway, headed towards the closest grocers to grab a few things for dinner, and ran into my neighbor's son standing with his little cousin. He's about eleven-years-old and pudgy, and she was bundled up and had her nails polished. A couple months ago, Oscar escaped from my apartment by knocking aside a screen, and wound up walking through the kid's window from outside. Oscar eventually came back, but the kid didn't mind giving me a lecture when he saw me.

"You need to keep a better eye on that cat."

"I know," I said.

"He came right into my room," he said sternly, but then he brightened. "He's so nice though and he let me pet him. I gave him milk."

"It's a wonder he came back," I said.


SINCE THEN, THE KID brings up my cat whenever we see each other, and tonight was no different. Tonight, though, he ventured into new waters.

"Your cat? Is he a girl?" he asked, apparently hedging the issue.

"No," I said. "He's a boy."

"Shoot," he said.

"Why? Did you have a bet?"

"Not yet," he said and looked over at his cousin. They both looked up at me intently.

"Do you play guitar?" he asked.

"No, but I really want to learn," I said.

"You play piano?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Drums?" As I shook my head they grew increasingly incredulous. "Do you sing? Dance?"

"Only in my apartment when I'm alone," I said smiling, but they just looked up at me blankly.

"Shoot!" he said. "What do you do?"

Now it was my turn to look at them blankly. I couldn't very well tell two preteens that I spent what little free time I have drinking beer, talking on the phone, reading the New Yorker, and wandering aimlessly around Facebook.com. "I ... um... go to school." This seemed both an honest and a responsible answer. They seemed confused, but willing to take my word for it.

"You got a girlfriend?" his cousin asked shyly.

"Yeah, you got a girlfriend?" he asked. "A guy like you needs to have a girlfriend. How old are you?"

"25," I said.

"Yeah, you need a girlfriend. A guy your age needs to have a baby." He'd apparently forgotten that I can't even keep an animal to his exacting standards. You know, the standards by which you somehow manage not to lose your pet out a sixth story window.

They were in clear agreement on this baby point, however. His cousin had perked up, and looked at me like she finally understood the mystery standing before her. "My sister is 20 and she is almost done with school. She already has a baby, too!"

The kid's eyes lit up and he stepped forward, grabbing my arm and motioning for me to lean in close. I bent down. "I can hook you up with a girl," he said, and then let go of my arm. He nodded meaningfully with a very serious look on his face.

Advertising just to reinforce the brand image.

BEHOLD THE DOPE MITTENS I purchased for $0.79 at one of the many dollar stores in the hood, Viva La Vida. I'm fairly certain that the people who made these had no idea what these words meant, but thought they were pretty in the way that Japenese teenagers will write English words on their textbooks (or, for that matter, the way Americans get vaguely Asian "characters" tattooed on their lower backs and shoulders that read "Cuddle Cookie").

I don't need a man, I have a pussy.

THE VIDEO BELOW IS SO GENIUS, I'm jealous I didn't think of it first. Can you imagine Oscar in this delightful ensemble? I can't decide if he would submit to the torture the way he does to letting me stick my fingers between his paws and in his mouth (to prove that daddy is the boss), or if he would meow to the high heavens, crying for mercy, before finding some way to extricate himself from the getup.

I once heard that you can tell how smart an animal is by putting a paper bag over its head and seeing how long it takes for the animal to get it off. By this measure, Oscar is brilliant. Cat is out of the bag before I've even let go. My dog growing up, however, less so. You'd put the bag on his head and he'd just sit there motionless, no doubt thinking that this was some test of endurance and that there was surely a treat on the other side. Please God, let there be a treat.

Regardless, I figured that no blog is complete without the blogger introducing their loved ones. Given that I've yet to find my $200K husband at school, I'll introduce the other Mr. Wade. World (which is to say, one one billionth of it), meet Oscar.














"Now I am vaguely famous."

FourFour - "Merry Christmas from Winston and Rudy"

It's not animal abuse if you do it out of love.

Done. (Settle down!)

IT'S OVER! I took my last final this morning. It was beautiful. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if it had been proctored by the woman who proctored our Economics exam.

(To give you a preview of where this is going, there's a reason why proctor and proctologist begin the same way: they're both pains in the ass.)

This woman - who, I might add, had the most spectacularly hideous gold spectacles I've ever seen in my life - got into an argument with one of my classmates over whether she'd given him enough blue books for the test. We needed three, and right before telling us we could begin, she asked whether everyone had enough.

My classmate raised his hand. "You only gave me one."

"Impossible," she said curtly.

The room stopped, curiosity piqued. Impossible? Really?

"Well, I only have one," he said, slightly befuddled.

"That's impossible."

A few of us laughed.

"Settle down!" she said, as if we were middle schoolers. "Everyone settle down!"

Emboldened, my classmate asked, "Can I have my blue books now?"

Her eyes narrowed behind her remarkable glasses. After a moment, apparently having failed to think of a single valid reason why someone would steal two blue books, she walked up the aisle and slapped them onto his desk.

"Alright people, settle down. I said settle down!" At this point, my mouth was literally hanging open. "You may begin."


AS I PUSHED THE SUBMIT button to finish my exam today, I said a silent goodbye to that woman, who basically summed up my entire first semester: absurdly hideous, emotionally trying, and yet somehow, in retrospect, worth the pain.

Still, glad it's over.

Teen Girl Squad #4

"I love you too, Brett."

This is for my people. My business school people.

TAKEN (ALMOST) DIRECTLY FROM a textbook I'm studying today:

A physicist, a geologist, and an economist are stuck at the bottom of a 40-foot pit. They've been stuck for days, and are on the brink of dehydration. They've tried everything they can think of to get out of the pit, tried dozens of hair-brained schemes based on their knowledge of physics and chemistry, and nothing has worked.

Finally, the scientists turn to the economist.

"We're out of ideas. Isn't there anything from your training that could get us out of here?"

The economist thinks for a moment.

"Sure. Assume a ladder."

Oh man, it's funny 'cause it's true. Is reading Corporate Finance fun or what?

Vanilla Sky - "Umbrella"

Assume a US fanbase.

Your wake-up call killed my buzz

I'VE HAD ENOUGH of being odd man out because I happen to sleep with men on the odd night out.

Tonight, hanging out with classmates from school, I endured four separate incidents of people using the word "gay" in a derogatory way. Each time, the person realized what they'd said and apologized profusely. In that moment, this formerly "innocuous" word, this synonym for "lame" or "weird" or "uncool," came crashing into a the reality of a person they know and, on some level, think of as a friend. My hope is that it's a powerful moment for them, and that they never use the word in that way again.

For me, though, the whole experience is a total drag. Yes, on some level I'm glad that I can facilitate greater awareness of the issue, but I'm not hanging out drinking beers with you because I want to raise social consciousness. I'm out because I'm one of the guys - note! not because I want to be one of the guys, but because I actually am one of the guys - and suddenly, I'm forced into being something other than one of the guys. I'm a gay guy. I'm a stand-in for the issue. My sex life is the topic of conversation (in the most boring way) because you've put your foot in your mouth.

What's more, I spend the next few minutes reassuring you that it's cool, that I know you're not a homophobe, that I know I'm the first gay guy you've actually known, really known, that you'd never really thought about the word that way before. The truth is, although I'm the one who should be offended, we're back to talking about you. We're back to soothing your ego.

And you know what? Fuck that. I am not gay for the purpose of straight people.

Once and for all, let me enumerate the things I am not:

I am not your wake up call.

I am not your kicky, zany best friend.

I am not your interior decorator.

I am not your shopping partner.

I am not your next-best option on a Friday night.

I am not your musclebound (unfortunately) sex-crazed club kid.

I am not your trendy accessory.

I am not your Real World token cast member.

I am not your hair stylist, and I am not giving you a makeover of any kind.

And to prove it all, I give you Margaret Cho. (Ha!)

Margaret Cho - "ITOTIW, Part 1/10"

"You go girl! You go! No, I mean you go! Bye!"

This goose is cooked.

WE'RE SMACK DAB in the middle of finals right now. Two down, three to go. I've been attacking Economics problem sets like a wounded creature in a last ditch effort for survival, but thanks to two friends in the library, I've powered through a lot longer than I thought I would.

The library is a mixed blessing. On one hand, you look around and see other people studying, which motivates you to keep going. On the other, even with headphones on and a nose to your practice exam, you're fair game for any random conversation your study partners desire.

Tonight's topic of choice: Top Hotties, proving that the nation's future business leaders think with their wangs and snizzes as much as they do with their dope Excel models and cheat sheets. Emails have been exchanged, lists made, conferences held.

The problem with making these definitive judgments during exam period is that people tend to develop Library Hot. That guy you wouldn't look twice at during the semester? You're suddenly thinking he might be doable in the dim, florescent lights of the library stairwells. That girl who hasn't changed her sweatpants in five days, and who you suspect may be sleeping in a pile of crumpled Accounting notes? You're suddenly certain she needs to get a life.

Avoiding the trap of Library Hot is the main reason we all need to take a study break every now and then. Step out of the library and onto the street and remember what normal people look like. People who shower. People who manage to pull a brush through their hair. People who don't look like they've been awakened in the night by a rushing mind thinking, "Assets equals liabilities plus owners equity."

Or maybe to see people who have more important things to worry about than whether they get that job at Goldman they don't really want, but God dammit, they've worked for it and they're going to get what they deserve.

Gui Boratto - "Beautiful Life"

It's okay, Nana. We all drop fruit sometimes.

"Yeah, you blend."

I WAS WALKING DOWN my street, wheeling my blue grandma cart behind me. I had laundry with me, and was on my way to Up All Night Laundry.

Up ahead I saw this little firecracker guy who I’ve sometimes seen around the building. A month or so ago we’d ridden in the elevator together, and he’d struck up a conversation. At the time I thought he might have been on some upper, but since then, I’ve realized that’s just how he is. He was standing with two other guys I didn’t recognize.

“Hey, what’s up dude?” he asked as I walked past.

“What’s up,” I said, stopping and grabbing his hand with my left hand, still holding my cart with my right.

“What you up to?”

I gestured to my cart. “Going to do laundry.”

“Again? You went last week.”

“Yeah, but I do it every week,” I smiled and started to walk up the street.

“So how long you live in the hood, dude?” he asked, putting his hands in the pockets of his enormous jacket and walking with me.

“Since August.”

“Alright, alright.”

“How about you?”

“I always been here. I used to lived in the Polo Grounds over there,” he said, pointing off towards Bronx, which didn’t seem like the neighborhood, but I let it go. “It used to be the home of the great New York Giants, but they turned it into projects.”

I nodded, not sure of what to say about that. We stepped off the curb to cross the street. “How long have you lived in the building?”

“Eighteen or nineteen years. I got friends there.” He paused and looked up at me from under his black hat. “You’re cool with me, dude.”

“Thanks.”

“You know how we do around here. You know how it is. You gotta do what you gotta do to make it.”

I realized he was talking about selling, and again, wasn’t exactly sure how to respond. Things they don’t teach you around the pool in Connecticut. I let out a short little laugh, and just said, “Yeah.”

“What’s your name, dude?”

“Ben. What’s yours?”

“TK. I’ll call you TB for Tall Ben. Big tall Ben. I like that.”

I smiled. Usually I make some sarcastic comment when someone references my height, but TK was, you know, a drug dealer, so I let it slide. “BTB, right?”

We’d reached the laundromat. It was crowded. People were sitting around watching the flatscreens mounted high on the walls. It looked like there was a home improvement show on, which I thought was weird given we were in the middle of a city and I doubted any of my neighbors had a country house.

TK looked in, then at me, extending his hand. “I’ll see you around, TB. Be cool.”

Jay-Z - "Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)

The hood is distinctly less glamorous.