92 degrees.

Hell.

I am on one of those trams whose windows open at a 20 degree slant, thus allowing almost no air in on a hellacious day. I am standing in the back, my body declining from human shape to natural vacation destination. I have become a series of jungles, swamps, waterfalls, and pools.

Most people getting on the tram are subject to my silent damnation. What you smiling for? This guy looks clean as a sheet. Nice hair. Prick. It’s the ones who don’t appear miserable that I loathe the most. The ones who like this weather. If a fellow sweatball climbs the tram steps in misery, I search his face and rate his misery against mine.

Mine is the barometer by which misery is measured. I am at a 7.5/10. There is room for more. Most people are around 6/10. One guy gets a 9/10. His physique makes me look like a trapeze artist. Also, he’s crying.

Just as my thoughts become a little too homicidal, my stop comes. I leave the tram, saunter to the metro station and cool slightly since I am out of the heat conducting metal stick. I get into the station, past the bums, the junkies, and the cops.

And then, as I walk down the steps to the platform, a wind smacks me in my sweaty teeth. I raise my arms like a TV martyr. And there is one minute of happiness.

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Summer evening along the Vltava

Sunday, 9:30 a.m. I am running. The sun is baking down already, so I am in the 6th circle of hell, the circle of hell reserved for those who loathe the heat, love the Bee Gees, and Richard Nixon. Additionally, there is a lot of activity along the river this morning, so I cannot utilize my patented style of sweating and blaspheming (aka: sweatpheming).

I pull sweat out of my eyes as I avoid children, cyclists, children cyclists, and a few drinkers.

The activity grows as I get to the train bridge and I see that there is a gathering of some sort along the bank up ahead. On my way back down the river, I see that it’s a huge festival, with games, concessions, bands, and loads of people. What’s more, these people are having fun.

But it’s summer.

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Night Tram

It’s 2:35 a.m. on a Wednesday and I am standing at a tram stop near the center. It’s middle of the night busy, meaning the normal people are home in bed and the streets are littered with extras from Requiem for a Dream.

Though I do not have a terribly early morning, I crave nothing more than a ham sandwich and my bed. I look down the road and nothing is coming. I never believe it’s going to happen until it does. And then it does.

From around the corner, at 2:37 a.m. – just like the schedule reads – comes the night tram. I could shed a tear of joy, but it’s more because I know a ham sandwich is in my near future.

One of the best things about Prague is that at any time of day or night some form of public transportation will get you home. It’s everywhere too. You can be in the middle of a remote outskirt of Prague 25 and there’s a ghost bus stop or a tram stop.

As I step on the night tram at 2:37:03, I am overwhelmed with happiness. And then I look around and remember the payoff.

It’s the night tram people.

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It’s Sunday afternoon and I am in the mood for a movie. The thing is, it has to be the perfect Sunday afternoon flick. This is a serious decision.

Let’s face it, there are some movies that were created with Sunday afternoons in mind. And, though it’s hard to completely describe what that means, you probably understand. In order for a movie to fit the term “Sunday afternoon movie” it has to fit a lot of parameters.

A Sunday afternoon movie shouldn’t be a thinker, so you should avoid movies that make you crinkle your brow. This includes Pi, Requiem for a Dream or anything that involves reading subtitles in French. They also can’t be too serious. So, no Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, or anything where a non-animated animal dies.

Just keep it in mind that roughly ten hours after you watch this movie on a Sunday afternoon, it will be Monday. You can start thinking again on Monday. But for now, you want to relax and laugh and vegetate a bit before the onslaught of Monday depression.

Here are some ideas.

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Bow before the Philly Cheesesteak.

I woke up in a mood. Yes, a mood. It’s really just a taste in my mouth. Then I made the mistake of going to Google images and looking at photos of food. I am one ravenous bastard. Even the cat scurried under the couch when I started drooling and visually fitting her for a bun and covering her in lettuce and a tomato.

For most of the year, I am fairly good at keeping my cravings at arm’s length. I don’t think about American food because it’s too far away. Sort of like how you don’t think about sex when it’s been more than a few months or you don’t think about Christmas in July.

It’s around this time of year that I begin really craving the food I am going to have in the U.S. It’s surely due to the fact that I will be eating it in 7 weeks. I can almost taste the buttery goodness, see the oversized portions, feel the pounds attach themselves to my waist, suffer the shame and arousal that come immediately afterwards as I wander around a mall or a Barnes & Noble.

Don’t get me wrong, the Czechs do pretty good food. But they don’t do U.S. food. And if you are Czech and reading this and rolling your eyes, I will remind you that when most of you travel you a) bring all of your own food and b) carry all of the ingredients to make Czech bread. So shut up.

This morning, as I choke down a bowl of Muesli and a drinkable yogurt, here’s what I wish I was eating.

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Jake and Damien return to Ireland…by dolphin!

Ever since I was a kid, I have been enamored of all things spooky – creepy houses, ghost stories, twisted tales, eerie sounds in the woods. If it sent a shiver up my spine and made my hair stand on end, then I liked it.

These spooky things made my mind reel with imagery and ideas and, as a result, my first short stories were born of them. A cabin in the woods had a disturbed past, a little girl standing on a path near a farm involved a macabre tale. Everything was subject to my dark imagination. In hindsight, I probably should have been sent to a psychologist.

The first time I visited Ireland, I fell in love immediately. Around every bend in the countryside there is another misty view of a castle, a green patch growing through a burned out cottage, or a farm on a distant hill. In every tiny hamlet there’s a Celtic cemetery, a 200-year-old pub, or some Druid ruins. Ireland is the place where your dark imagination is meant to run free.

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With an hour to kill and a desperate screeching coming from my belly, I hit my favorite kebab joint in Andel. It’s a cheap, quiet place that offers huge portions of Turkish food that quells my need or interest in human partnership.

I order, then carry my heavy plate through the bustling middle room and into the nearly empty backroom. There are three tables, I sit at the back one. Besides myself, there is a couple huddled together at the far table, murmuring to each other in that imperceptible language that only couples speak in.

I pray to Gluttovia, the Sumerian goddess of the gluttony that is about to visit my table. Just then, the woman explodes into a shit storm of tears and sobs. The man looks morose, holds her hand.

Crap. They’re breaking up.

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I have recently become fascinated by the hundreds of seemingly random holidays that usually go unnoticed by the average Joe. To illustrate, let’s look at May.

May is National Hamburger Month and National Blood Pressure Month. This is good because most of the people who celebrate National Hamburger Month are going to need blood pressure medication. May is also National Salad Month and National Barbecue Month, which seems another doomed pairing. And, just for those who go too overboard with barbecues, hamburgers, or blood pressure, it also happens to be National Recommitment Month.

Each week is dedicated to a cause as well. The second week of May is Wildflower Week, the third week is National Police Week, and the fourth is Emergency Medical Services week.

Every day in May – and every other month – is dedicated to some unusual celebration. There is Star Wars Day (May 4th), No Diet Day (May 6th), Clean Up Your Room Day (May 10th), Fatigue Syndrome Day (May 12th), and Dance Like a Chicken Day (May 14th). Let us hope that the EMTs don’t celebrate too hard during their week or people suffering injuries during the chicken dance might have to go without attention. I am fairly certain that my students celebrate Fatigue Syndrome Day every day of the year.

But it has occurred to me that we are getting ripped off here. All I celebrate is Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, VE Day, my birthday, the anniversary of the first time I touched a boob, Jenna Jameson’s birthday, and Pizza Day. Otherwise, there is a whole, giant world of holidays that we are missing.

But not anymore!

This week I have decided to observe each holiday in some way. Here’s my plan.

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This autumn you (yes, you) are going to get your first university writing assignment. And whether that assignment is a research paper, an argumentative essay, or a report, your problem is the same: how do I impress my professor with my academic writing? In order to do well, you need to impress your professors. To achieve this goal, I recommend three points: avoid stating a clear argument, do not organize your paper, and use big and complicated words.

The first way to impress a professor is to avoid stating a clear argument. Clear arguments are straightforward, boring, and simply tell the professor exactly what you are writing about. Rather, the main idea of your essay should be a mystery. This allows the professor to spend hours studying your essay in search of the mysterious argument and main point. Aren’t you always more impressed with a movie that keeps you guessing? Well, approach academic writing the same way: clear writing is boring. Be mysterious.

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Sunday is Mother’s Day. And if you didn’t know that, then you are not on Facebook or you are just a bad child. Anyway, most of you – hopefully – bought flowers, cooked dinners, made phone calls, or remembered that your mommy carried your lazy ass around for nine months, ruined her uterus bringing you into this world, and then put up with your shit for two decades.

Now, my mom rocks. She brought up four kids who have become somewhat reasonable adult human beings. She was a working mom, who cooked, cleaned, mediated, troubleshot, put out fires (sometimes literally) and yet didn’t once stab any of us. If you have met me or any of my siblings, you know that this last bit of restraint entitles my mom to breakfast in bed, a box of cookies, a Law and Order marathon, and a massage every day for the rest of her life.

No doubt your mom does too. Well, maybe not Law and Order, but you get the gist: our moms deserve a lot more than one day of recognition.

But that’s Sunday, what about Monday? Since Monday is the most-hated day of the week, I am assigning it Bad Mother’s Day, for those mothers throughout history who just shit the bed in one way or another.

Here are some bad mommies.

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