THE DOMESTICATED BACHELOR

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My 11 Favorite Christmas Albums

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CHRISTMAS RITUALS

January 11, 2010 |

Author admin

by Jonathan Bismuth Perry

I'm quite disappointed this Nativity Creche isn't mine. Click to enlarge.

Before the season is too far gone, I wanted to share my family’s swell Christmas traditions with you in order to engender your deepest sympathies. One day I hope to have my own family and will then be forced to carry on many of these highly specific holiday rituals I’ve grown to love (minus the Golden Insulin Needle Award). Until then, it just so happens I’ve written about these traditions in my unpublished book, The Gentle Art Of Starting A Cult: A Do-It-Yourself Guide, in the chapter “Developing Rituals“, excerpted here for your mockery. So take this holiday greeting card of love and stick it where the sun don’t shine (Iceland) from December to March. But mostly in December.

Our family, like the legions of mankind, is blighted with tradition and has some long established Christmas rituals it returns to year after year because of habit and not at all by force. Christmas Eve finds us gathered anticipatorily in the living room near the Christmas tree where we place wagers on when the dry stick will go up in a glorious fireball of holiday sacrifice. Then we sing through an ancient hymnal of carols like good Whovillagers and execute a small family talent show wherein various members juggle, mime the Nutcracker Suite, or a pianist playing Handel accompanies a castrato or a nose flautist. As we bask in the glow of the pagan tree (pre-fire or post, if Jay wins), we might read the Christmas story from the Bible or Charles Dickens.

After that, we painfully delay the gift unwrapping a little longer to consume special high fat Christmas party foods: mom’s fudge, sugar cookies decorated like Menorah (breaks apart with those little candlesticks), English Toffee, Russian Tea Cakes, Iraqi Chocolate Chip Cookies, eggnog (virgin), fruitcake (virgin), and cheeseballs (Uncle Dan). Apparently, there are also sandwiches and a veggie tray in a pretense of a balanced meal.

A senior member of the family is then designated as Santa, though not forced into a red jumpsuit or Grizzly Adams hirsuteness, and removes gifts from under the tree, distributing one gift per round to each member of the family, until it is discovered that one lucky person has received many more presents than the other members of the family (gift equality is an important part of any communist gifting system). We explain this oversight by pointing out that this person isn’t really the family favorite, but that some of the numerous gifts were less expensive than the few gifts. This fools no one. Still, a good time is had by all/most, and we unwrap and enjoy our grand gifts by breaking them (except when the gifts can break other things) and appreciate the wonderful and colorful Christmas decorations, like the Nativity Creche (not Koresh) with the three elves and white Gandalf action figure, until the wee hours of the morning.

On Christmas morning, after at least 2 hours of sleep, during which time the senior family members secretly filled the stockings with exciting and high calorie content trinkets, we descend as happy vultures onto the stockings at the mantelpiece and, with the festively shaped chocolate or candy canes hidden inside, recreate the buzz of the sugar high from the night before. It’s at about this time that the family presents its Diabetic of the Year with the Golden Insulin Needle Award(which immediately comes in handy). We call it the GINA. Someone very clever might try to rename it the Virtually Annual Golden Insulin Needle Award. It would also make the award shape ironic. We wouldn’t stand for that, though.

In Christmas seasons past, especially when my brothers and I were kids, we would go caroling with family, friends, and members of our church around to homes in randomly selected neighborhoods without neighborhood watch signs. We would sing hearty Christmas carols in multi-part harmony with our pre-pubescent voices and collect money for the poor (I never saw a penny of it) in spite of grumps with rifles and strict non-solicitation laws. Then, when we were done for the night, we would go back to a central location for hot chocolate and cookies. And insulin. All highly specific rituals. Mostly sugar focused. Quite memorable. Things like these make me feel a part of a family. Reminds me that I don’t do much of this stuff anymore and really should consider seeking some sort of therapy for depression (or, maybe, start a cult. Or a family.).

Um, Merry Christmas. We don’t all have Diabetes. What are your Christmas traditions? What would you add to your traditions if you could?

The secret (made-up sounding) word is hirsuteness

Christmas Reads:

Holiday Chocolate-For Independence Day?

11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelors: #s 8 & 9. Proper Socialization/Throw Parties

Holiday Hosting Survival Guide

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Sound Of Music Death Match!! Liesl v Maria

Depeche Mode and High School Girls

Which is Your Type? A Pseudo-Cosmo Quiz

Will Your Siblings Use Up the Good Names?

Kitten of Evil

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Posted in Adult, chocolate, decorating, family, holidays, house, tree |

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Domesticated Bachelor RESOLUTIONS For 2010

January 3, 2010 |

Author admin

Happy New Year and junk! 2008 and 2009 were great years for me. I made swell strides in personal improvement: bought a house, changed jobs for the first time in 9 years, lost almost 40 pounds, finished writing a book, started this blog, and dated a few good-looking and fascinating (if unhappy) women. 2010 is promising and I hope to take a hearty chunk out of its hopeful offerings. Here’s my (public) list of resolutions for the new year (the private list may or may not include shameful notions like ‘Online Dating’, ‘Invisalign’, and job advancement. Yes, the public list is shameful, too.).

(Again, I am not actually a Domesticated Bachelor. I just play one in my mind.)

What resolutions do you goats have for 2010?

Unrelated Awesome Reads:

The Prophecy Of The Tornado And the Trailer

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Posted in 11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor, bachelor pad, decorating, garden, health, house, investing, tools, tree, weight-loss |

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Ode To Autumn

October 4, 2009 |

Author admin

by Jonathan Bogman Perry

I think leaf-peeping sounds like it should be a punishable offense. It would be cool to do, but it just sounds dirty. Anyway, it’s autumn and time to start taking care of the fallen leaves and wrap up the yard work. For about a decade after college I lived in a duplex apartment that was pretty unfit for humanity. There were advantages, though, one of which was the great non-problem of yard work. I didn’t have to do it. It’s one of those odd benefits of apartment living. I actually lived in a basement duplex, so there was a yard on the property and, from time to time, such as when I was dissatisfied with the state of the acreage, I took matters into my own hands and cleaned up my area by trimming back some bushes that had taken to regularly whacking me or removed a discarded refrigerator which has somehow blown into the yard. Yard work wasn’t required of me by the lease, nor, apparently, was it required of anyone.

The thing is, I do actually enjoy yard work and have fond memories of doing it in ages past. I find it even more satisfying now to do at my own place. I affectionately remember during my youth going kicking and screaming to mow the lawn at the threatening behest of my folks, whom, I should add, I love dearly, but might have been evicted by the neighborhood association had it not been for my infrequent yard maintenance. During my near decade of college I would come home once every few months to find that the jungle in my parents’ backyard had managed to swallow most of the yard tools and several large and endangered mammals. Of course, I wasn’t the only one to do the yard work. I do have 2 younger brothers, but either one brother managed conveniently to be overseas in Europe for the school year, or the youngest had a debilitating broken toe which prevented any physical activity besides walking 2 miles to school each way or dancing in the school musical (I really wanted to say ’run on the track team’, but that’s just not so).

I enjoy raking leaves during the crisp autumn afternoons, building great piles of arboreal death, but I would enjoy dental surgery if it were outside in the fall. Autumn is always thrilling with the fantastic foliage colors of red, orange, brown, and yellow and the nip in the air that promises a brisk winter right around the corner. These are the days of the holidays and refreshingly happy vacations. It’s when sports get fun again. I’m sure I would very much enjoy New England in the fall. It’s a fantasyland that I have yet to experience. Perhaps one day when I finally grow up and become a man I’ll move out to New England just so I can be there in the autumn to happily rake up the mountains of fallen leaves that have swallowed the yard and a lost California Condor or two. I’d probably just leave them there. They’re so pretty. The leaves, too.

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Posted in Adult, apartment, bachelor pad, family, garden, holidays, house |

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The Prophecy Of The Tornado And The Trailer

July 22, 2009 |

Author admin

by Jonathan Bonsai Perry

For years, the mobile home industry, aka trailer makin’ folks, have bemoaned the negative perceptions suffered by their metal box houses. Things have gotten so bad that trailers are no longer at the top of the bachelor pad wishlist. This raises the question, “Why are trailers so poorly regarded?” Why are they not as highly esteemed as their wheeled relatives, the RVs? Really, the two are much like second cousins. Or step-siblings who haven’t talked to each other since that one weird hot night in Vegas. They’re both made of metallic materials and are square-ish and these commonalities should serve to bond them in the deepest kinship since the Hatfields and the McCoys.

Though the RV, Recreational Vehicle, really is a vehicle that you kind of live in (and is a home that is mobile), it gives the impression that you’re just passing through on your way back to your demi-mansion, if not the retirement village, sometime after you‘ve visited the grandkids, every living relative, and 65% of the fruit stands and 90% of the flea markets between Maine and Washington. RVs seem to carry a whiff of excessive wealth and free time, whereas the mobile home, while it is larger than the RV, is not a vacation home, is really your only home, and is much harder to mobilize. They’re much less expensive than normal houses, they’re smaller, and are often set in less than ideal locations, sometimes near neighbors that are considered questionable. But mobile home parks seem to breed something even less desirable: TORNADOES!

Scientific research has shown that mobile homes attract tornadoes in greater numbers than other types of homes or mobile devices (ok, my personal research isn‘t scientific). Tornadoes are awfully fond of the South and the Midwest, having grown up there playing ball, but they’ve also been known to go geographically out of the way, to the ends of the world places like California and Great Britain, just to track down a shiny new mobile home park for a trophy smackdown.

Not only does it probably have something vaguely to do with the metal building doing some weird magnetic ionization with the magical air masses (or not really), but it’s like an easy challenge for a brash young tornado with lots of moxie and hormones. The older, more experienced tornadoes are more constrained and don’t feel the need to destroy every little insignificant metal can along the way. They’ve learned to save up the good stuff for important buildings like the art-nouveau roller skating museum downtown and the historic taco stands so prominent in our bean-and-cheese-lovin’ culture. They’re more likely to make the papers this way. And that’s all they really care about.

One day, every mobile home on earth will invariably be destroyed or relocated by a strong gust of tornadic activity. Yea, verily! For as it is written in the ancient scriptures, unless thou buildest thy mobile homes with rubber materials and perhaps shape them as round balls, thou art just asking for it.

Don’t you see the logic? Mobile homes are going to be blown around anyway, like crazy pieces of belly button lint near a box fan, so you might as well build your trailers with a malleable component that will do as little damage as possible. Insurance rates would drop for everyone, entire neighborhoods could be rearranged with little effort, and joy would reign eternal. You could just roll your home down the street to a better hole. I think it would be swell to watch a ball-house roll and bounce as it settles into a new location near a golf course where the holes are all sizes. That would fix the tornado problem. Fewer witches would be squashed to death. They’d just suffer severe concussions instead. But what do we care anyway? They’re witches, after all, and are lucky the burnings were called off last week.

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(17 Types of Bachelor Pads)

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Posted in house, travel |

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Ignoring Adult Responsibilities

June 21, 2009 |

Author admin

in our dorm room (Left-Jay;Right-my facial hair attempt)

by Jonathan B. Perry

For Memorial Day weekend I visited my brother Jay in Minnesota. I live in Nebraska, so it’s a drive of about 6.5 hours over plains and hills of corn to lakiness with trees, mosquitoes and mutant frogs. I had a super visit, and this holiday drop-in was even a little different from our normal visits. Jay’s wife and their awesome little boy went to Michigan to see her family. Jay stayed behind in MN to see me. Excellent! I especially missed not seeing my four year-old nephew, but was spoiled having Jay all to myself. Even though I’ve gotten over the fact that he’s been married over a decade (and is now sort of a Cubs fan by proxy. Boo. Go Giants!), it’s still a rare and special thing to hang out with him in his solo state.

It was like being back in college and living together in the dorm again: the Perry Brothers staying up into the wee hours and talking about nothing, except now we’re in our 30′s and there’s the specter of work lurking in the back, as well as mortgage refinance talk and not a lick of school. And for Jay, a wonderful family. Yes, we still had our responsibilities, but could vaguely pretend them away for a few days (at least I tried to). We even toured part of the greater Minneapolis area, which included Minnehaha Falls and the Ikea store. Oh, and the Mall of America.

What if, at a moment’s notice, you could be free of all your adult responsibilities? Fold up your grown up stuff and stick it in a box in the garage for a bit. It’d be like those childhood summers where you’d sleep in and do whatever you wanted to all day, every day. No work. No school. The adults would be away at work, so there’d be no one around to hold you responsible for anything. You could go down to the creek, play video games, watch tv, read comic books, eat junk food, swim.

But like all summers, they end and you have to go back to school or your job and mortgage and student loans. Back to life. Back to reality. (hum relevant 80s song). Plants must be watered. The lawn needs to be cut. The cat missed you and threw-up all over your sofa in retribution, so you have to clean that up, too. This visit with my brother was a special sanctuary from the real world and I look forward to savoring the next one. We really should do more of these. He could even visit me and I could drag out the Sibling Bonding Rituals I wrote up many years ago and forget they’re super lame. Yes, the sibling bonding time is the best. I do want to see my nephew, though.

How NOT To Decorate The Bachelor Pad

June 5, 2009 |

Author admin

Art waiting to be hung

by Jonathan Bonnaroo Perry

Even though I moved into my new house about 8 months ago, I still haven’t put up most of my wall art because I’m not fully settled with the furniture placement and want to trade out some stuff, like the couches. I may not move things around for a bit, but I might put in some built-in bookcases soon and this could affect organization of wall art. Also, I was originally thinking I’d go with a slight Asian decoration theme (kind of ‘Asian meets French Country in the Suburbs’ aka ‘Bachelor Needs Designer‘), but my art is largely comprised of Egyptian papyrus paintings, so I’m a little perplexed. I don’t want to be too scattered. Fortunately, the house has much more space than the micro-apartment and I can spread out the mess so things don‘t look as junky.

In the old apartment, I maintained some essential articles of furniture so that I could, if necessary, sit down. Upon getting my own Hobbit hole after college, I brought from my dorm room a ratty old grey stuffed chair (I gutted it last year for the coins inside. It turns out the color was originally blue.). I found some more shabby items at used furniture stores and answered newspaper ads for an enormous gold couch and 1970s end tables. Since then, I’ve been upgrading, gradually dumping the crappy items for slightly less-crappy WalMart and Shopko furniture (the furniture styles in my house now average early 1990s). In the small apartment I had several full bookcases that filled up the walls, then stacked in front of and next to those were a number of boxes and clear storage containers full of decades of hoarded items I’ll never use, but can’t throw away because of the nostalgia disease I inherited from my packrat ancestors.

Early pic of old apartment. Decoration not visible

Besides the basic furniture crapfest, I decorated the old place a little. My decorating style started with a delicately balanced mix of framed art (in the living room) and tacked-up posters (in the bedroom and hallway) with some travel calendars placed here and there. It might have worked if the posters were art nouveau in frames, but my posters were maps, castles and Hindu deities tacked, taped, or puttied to the walls (deities for decoration only, not worship). There were also a couple small flags from the British Isles. I rather liked the pastiche nature of it all, but interpret psychologically that I had one foot in one world, a world of mature adults with refined tastes who have framed art, while my other foot was sucked in the mud of another world, a world of childhood, casualness, and bachelordom. As these worlds pulled me apart, I stretched into painful splits that put undue pressure on my netherlands.

The new living room has naked walls

My framed art is primarily a collection of Egyptian papyrus paintings that I had mounted at great cost as I found myself conveniently unemployed out of college. They made my apartment living room a pseudo-Egyptian shrine to Ra. I continued the Egyptian theme with that enormous gold couch (that housed guitars and a neo-Egyptian calico cat I fed), and topped it off with a good sized bust of Tut that doubles as a useful candle holder (the candle is behind the glass eyes, so the eyes of fire can be wickedly impressive). I even have two hanging Chinese art scroll-painting-things that I brought back from Taiwan which are quite excellent and filled up entire wall sections in my short-ceilinged apartment.

There are lots of other little statues and busts which helped give my place a demented old maid museumy touch. In the ‘foyer’ I had a bust of Franz Schubert (with glasses) and a bust of one of the Richard Strausses to inspire me musically. Then there’s the Beefeater bobblehead I brought back from England. The miniature Scottish knight had his sword positioned in an attack stance above the head of one of the three mini-Buddhas my brother Chris gave me for Christmas a few years ago (one has achieved cage-dancing Buddha status).

This Chinese Scroll Painting is one of few pieces up

Perched atop my bookcase, the gargoyles stared down judging my sloth and a brass-finished lion judged my weakness. I’m not sure what the Mayan Chakmul judges or even how to spell Chakmul or if it‘s really Mayan and not Aztec or Incan, but apparently it’s Mexican because my brother Jay brought it back from Mexico (I think my History degree was just voided). I also had a string of Chinese lantern lights on one bookshelf and a string of bubble lights on another bookshelf, next to which was my groovy lava lamp to remind me that hippies gave something pretty excellent, if useless, to the culture after all.

At this point, despite all my collected junk, I didn’t go overboard and collect a roomful of miniature owls or cats to keep me company during the remainder of my dementia, but this step is a short trip. I have actually known 2 older women who collected an incredible number of miniature owl figurines, which was impressive and kooky and a really strange coincidence. What are the chances of knowing 2 unrelated older women at different ends of the country who fill large areas with different sizes and makes of owls?

I think most of my nicknacks won’t make it out of storage into any normal part of the new house. They’ll probably just stay wrapped delicately in their boxes, in a kind of nicknack limbo, next to the rest of the hoarded items I’ll never use. Sweet nostalgia.

The secret word is Davenport.

Continue Reading: Bachelor Step #1: THE BACHELOR PAD

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17 Types of Bachelor Pads

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Posted in apartment, art, bachelor pad, decorating, house |

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11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor-The Complete Guide

June 1, 2009 |

Author admin

by Jonathan B. Perry

Over the last few months I’ve enumerated how to become a Domesticated Bachelor (even though I’m not one). In trying to improve myself, I’ve discovered some key things that might help me to be a better man or at least quantify my failure. The following links explore these steps to becoming a Domesticated Bachelor. I’ve made this handy guide and gathered them together in one master list for your convenience, joy, and mockery. Click each link for deeper exploration.

First, what is a Domesticated Bachelor? Here we define our boy, the Domesticated Bachelor, and give his fake Latin name.

The Steps:
1. The Bachelor Pad-Obtain a nice abode to which you can invite people. Maybe a woman-type person (not really a hermaphrodite, unless you really want to).

2. The Right Wardrobe-Wear non-tent-like clothes. Lounge jackets. Suits. Wooden shoes. Red dickies. Dress well. Look nice.

3. Shape Up Fatty-Don’t be fat or unhealty. Be well groomed. Increase your self-esteem. Get a Slim Goodbody suit. White-person afro is optional.

4. Learn To Cook-Make omelettes. Feed yourself. Feed others. Don’t date your mom.

5. Travel The World-Travel the world for the obnoxious stories. Impress people, you jerk. Oh, maybe test travel with a ladyfriend (separate hotel rooms, of course).

6. Be A Jack-Of-All-Trades-Be decent at lots of stuff. Become a contestant on Jeopardy! Be a Smart Alec.

7. Master Something-Be really good at one thing. Maybe get a Masters Degree. Figure out where that apostrophe goes. Then tell me.

8. & 9. Proper Socialization/Throw Parties-Avoid becoming a hermit like Ted Kaczynski. It’s good to know people & meet them & entertain them. Don’t kill them. Bad goat.

10. Collect The Right Toys-Find the things that use up your time & decorate your place. Buy huge electronics through Skymall.

11. Get A Good Job-The super job enables the life & the stuff & the self-worth. The other stuff feeds from this.

The secret word is dominion.

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Posted in 11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor, bachelor pad, dating, house |

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Tree Pruner or Medieval Weapon?

March 2, 2009 |

Author admin

treepruner2 by Jonathan B. Perry

Saturday night I went into Ace Hardware to use my $5 birthday gift card before it expired (I’m on their mailing list). I dragged my car the 3 minutes through the snow and ice with the single purpose of buying a tree pruner, one of those telescoping tree pruners for high spots in your tree that you can’t reach with the regular clippers. Now, in December I actually climbed one of my trees to trim it, but that didn‘t feel so safe and I was a bit lightheaded after coming down. I’m not the monkey I used to be. Ace has 3 telescoping pruner models and even though there was a big price gap between the 8 foot and the 12 foot models, I went with the more expensive 12 foot pruner and can’t wait for it to warm up just a little so I can pretty-up my trees.

Taking my long pruner down from the display, it occurred to me how much this felt like a medieval weapon. This was perhaps why I dawdled in the store a little longer, walking up and down the aisles, either feeling like a guard with a spear or a horseless jouster. jousting2 It was pretty excellent. I even ran into an old friend who was shopping for a drill bit (I won’t say anything about tool size comparison). The cashier asked a bit sarcastically if she could bag it up for me. It felt great to finally get this excellent gardening tool-weapon to add to my arsenol of domestication.

I remember using the telescoping pruner on my grandparents’ property in CA over the years. They had walnut trees, oaks, and eucalyptus, mostly. They’ve since sold the grand old acreage, much to everyone’s great sadness, but I bet they still have their tree pruner. They still have trees. They still like tools. They’re still alive.

Posted in bachelor pad, garden, house, tools, tree |

8 Comments »

My Bachelor Pad

February 6, 2009 |

Author jonathanatos

by Jonathan B Perry

In accordance with my own steps to becoming a Domesticated Bachelor edict, # 1 The Bachelor Pad, I bought a house in October. 5341-melrose2 It’s my first house. The house is younger than I am with a new non-leaking roof and new furnace and a/c. I like it, especially the French doors and the yards, and I hope to do some minor remodeling and landscaping. Until recently, I lived several years in a run down basement apartment that flooded and whose retaining wall to the porch was crumbling. I dreaded a dark morning where I might wake up to find I’d become trapped in my subterranean tomb with a very limited supply of chocolate ice cream and cookies to carry me into the afterlife. I’m sure I have a photo of the wall somewhere, but can’t find it and don’t really want to creep around the property now to photograph it with my phone.

So far, the new house is a bit messy, not being quite unpacked, but no where near as dreadful as the old apartment. One of the benefits of maintaining a filthy place is that it keeps you from mistakenly inviting visitors over. No one wants to do that. Visitors will only make your house dirtier, consume your french-doors3 resources, and still judge your house/apartment regardless of how spic and span it is. I know this factually because I have friends that popped in at the most inopportune times, such as when I was moving the cat’s indoor sand volleyball court from the kitchen to the bathroom. Since then, the legend of my squalor has traveled the circuit of acquaintances and developed a fantastic mythology that has winged serpents crossing the threshold to hunt rabid country-city-suburb mice (which is quite nearly a falsehood). With the apartment all to yourself you can live free of the many encumbrances that might somehow cause you to forget to feed the cat who might die unfed while you’re entertaining judgmental guests. No one wants to risk the beast’s life for the sake of hospitality, unless you actually have a cat and are truly aware of its inherent evil (my cat is already dead, so that’s no longer an issue).

If you do happen to have friends, which I have in the past, you might find it easier to do your socializing at their residences. Often, first rate entertainment is provided and, depending on the friend, there may be pizza or casseroles involved. This is good because in addition to the free nourishment and socialization, you’ve avoided causing any excessive buildup of filth in your own quarters, instead causing it in the quarters of those who can either fix it or just don‘t care. In this way, you may be able to stave off moving for just a little longer without having to clean. Or get married. Vacations are also good to this end.

The secret word is subterranean.

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