Who's that skank talking to my brother?

"I was serving it up to her, still all friendly like. You know? I hadn't brought it predator, wolf style yet. She like, spoke Italian and Spanish. Totally, like, a girl on my level bro..."

I can't properly articulate how much I wish I blithely quoting Jersey Shore, not retelling one of the most pathetic gym conversations Ive had the pleasuring of overhearing. How can people honestly talk like this? I mean, if this is how you recant the tale of a scintillating 1 AM courtship, I can't fathom what sort of prose spills out of your mouth when you are wooing this exotic dame.

I never realized that it was possible to nearly choke on your own spit, but I came damn close. Its even harder to pretend you weren't reacting to the sleeveless orangutan who was rubbing the super original Gothic cross on his meaty bicep as he looks over midstory. I finished, you know, busting out my 250th bench press rep and briskly walked away to ponder what the hell I just heard. It also made me think, as pretty much everything ridiculous and trivial does.

Last week, I was at my cousin's wedding and talked to one of my other cousin's husbands. And naturally, being in his early 30s and married, he was eager to chat and hear stories about my dating trials and tribulations. Over my 5th gin and tonic, I was telling him how I realized I had grown up just a smidge, cause I could no longer hit on dumb girls. (Now I am not some intellectual snob, umm usually, but if at this point in my life, not matter how gorgeous you may be, if you're wearing a Hollister tank top, my attempts at wit and humor are probably not gonna work and its going to be frustrating for me. Id ask you to read this blog, and you would stop a few lines in cause you don't understand the word articulate and I don't have an Taio Cruz playing in the background.) After he stopped laughing at me and introducing me to the bridesmaids as The Most Interesting Man in the World, he leveled. He said the thing he doesn't miss at all about dating is the moment where you realize you just aren't into the other person. It was a pretty dead on point. I mean, you all know what I'm talking about. You lock eyes with a seductive stranger across the bar, you amble over, excitedly start chatting about what beautiful weather we've been having, and suddenly, you realize that you've have more symbiotic and meaningful conversations with your little cousin Spencer, and he still thinks that its possible to be a Lion when he grows up. I mean, this is a new thing for me. My 20 year old, hell, my 22 year old self was still pretty much believing that if a girl was pretty, she had to have a myriad of qualities that would keep me entertained and interested infinitely. I'm pretty sure I was in love with Natalie Portman's character from Garden State for a solid 3-4 months cause she was pretty and I liked how she phrased certain characters...who cares that she wasn't actually real. This whole point was driven home as I talked to one of the bridesmaids later that night. We began to bond over our mutual love of silly bands when she informed me that all she knew about relationships, she learned from romantic comedies. Like literally, in all sincerity, she took life lessons from Hope Floats or some nonsense. 20 year old Justin would laugh, pretend that he found that endearing, and plan what hallway I would awkwardly try to make out with her in. Newly 25 year old Justin drained the rest of his drink and tried not to throw himself off the balcony out back. And still, I feel like I am light years away from the maturity that would make me ready to participate in wedding festivities I witnessed early that night. Maybe thats why I was seated at a dinner table with a motley crew which included my 12 year old cousin...FML

The other thing I discovered is that no matter how much I've "grown and matured", I still regress in rather rapid fashion when I'm around my sisters and my family for an extended period of time. Less than 24 hours after having aforementioned mature discussions with my cousin's husband, I'm attempting to give one of my little sisters a wet willy as she sleeps in the car or splashing another with water as we are waiting in line for a Smithsonian museum. Maybe by "too much family time" they are really alluding to the fact that you transform back into your prepubescent self. I couldn't tell you the last time I was around one of my friends and I felt the need to kick one of them in the back of the knee and chuckle as their leg buckles, but with my family, my sisters and I felt that it was the best game ever and participated in it frequently. Mind you, my sisters are 14, 16, and 21, its not like any of us are little kids...except at heart, *sigh*.

I'm clearly a sucker for pop punk music with sappy lyrics about girls and undertones of how much they suck. But I've gotten close to critical mass. I have so many great pop punk bands from the last 5-7 years, that I don't find myself discovering any new ones, or really wanting to. I just cycle through, unless something catches my ear. Well, I came across a band from the ever prolific New Jersey scene which stirred me. Seriously, for all the ripping on NJ, that state produces amazing music, whether it be the Boss, or countless amazing bands like Saves the Day and Midtown. Well "I Call Fives" has slide into that realm for me. Tons of energy, awesome melodies, and some stripped down acoustic gems. They remind me alot of Hit the Lights, who crept up on me with their hook-filled badassery and then promptly changed lead singers, meh. More than I Can Handle is amazing and This Town is fantastic as well. Their full band stuff is frenetic and catchy, but the acoustic stuff sets them apart.

"I will make this out, to be more than I can handle, baby I never had a doubt..."

JW