The Norman Nation

Q FOLLOWED BY A

2012-01-10T21:43:00.000Z

I recently went on this really great new Website called Facebook and asked some readers if they had any questions about my novel, Domestic Violets, or about writing in general. Here are some of the questions that turned up, followed by the answers that my team of assistants and ghostwriters put together in response.

You’ll notice that some people asked more than one question—often as many as three. Well played, readers. Well played indeed.

If you haven’t "Liked Me" on Facebook yet, you absolutely should. In difficult times like these, I think the world needs to like me now more than ever before.

Gigi C. asked...

Q: Who are your favorite authors?

A: I’ve got a lot of them. Richard Russo for starters. I read Straight Man and Nobody’s Fool in college. I remember the exact moment in Straight Man—during a scene that starred a goose—when I realized that serious fiction could also be funny, which was a valuable lesson for me. John Irving is another old-school favorite of mine. His best books have lingered in my head for a very long time. I have an intellectual crush on Lorrie Moore. Birds of America is one of my favorite story collections. David Sedaris, Nick Hornby, Kurt Vonnegut, Philip Roth, Jay McInerney, Zadie Smith, and Zoe Heller are all fantastic, too. I could go on and on.

Q: If they made DOMESTIC VIOLETS into a movie, who would you pick to play Tom and his father?

A: I actually can’t comment on Curtis’s role quite yet. The book is in the very final stages of being optioned, and an incredibly awesome actor has called dibs on Curtis. More on that soon—I’m told the deal is done and it’s just a matter of signing contracts at this point.

As for Tom, I never really had anyone in mind for him when I was writing the book, but I think Jason Bateman would be an interesting choice. He’s a little older than Tom, but there’s this melancholy world-weariness about him that I think fits well. My agent actually floated the idea of Bradley Cooper a few months ago. I think it’d be a cool character for him to play. He’s an actor who always plays the best looking, most charismatic guy in the room. Seeing him dial that star wattage down a little could be really compelling—sort of like George Clooney in The Descendants.

Oh…and even though you didn’t ask, a friend of mine insists that Justin Timberlake needs to play Brandon, Tom’s would-be agent. Now I can’t get that out of my head.

Q: Do you listen to music while you write, or do you write in silence?

A: Absolute silence is terrifying, so I always, always have something on when I’m working. I normally don’t like listening to my favorite albums when I’m writing, though, like Achtung Baby by U2 or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco. I’m too close to the music I love to have it not take over whatever I’m doing. So, I usually have Pandora running on my computer in the background. Also, a friend of mine made me a mixed CD of movie scores a few years ago. I go with that sometimes if lyrics are messing me up. Scores are good because they’re all sound, mood, and emotion...but no words.

Abby F. asked...

Q: Is there an author that inspired you to begin writing?

A: When I was as kid—like 11 to 17 or so—I read a ton of Stephen King. I wanted to grow up to be a horror writer. I totally ripped him off my freshman year in high school in a story I wrote for the literary magazine. It was about a hunter who mounts all of these horrible trophies and animal heads in his study. One night all the animals come back to life and maul him to death. It remains my crowing literary achievement. One of the janitors at my school actually made a formal complaint to the English department. He was a big hunter, so I guess he was offended.

Matt Z. asked...

Q: How long did it take you to write your first draft?

A: The first draft took about a year, give or take.

Q: When is your writing most productive: morning or night?

A: My entire adult life I’ve had 9-5 jobs, so nighttime is really when I do almost all of my writing. Even on weekends it’s tough to get much work done until after my two daughters have gone to bed. That said, nighttime writing is really more out of necessity than preference. I’d love to wake up every morning, go for a run, and then sit down and get to work. That’s every writer’s dream. Maybe some day.

Q: Did you do an outline first?

A: I’ve never formally written an outline. I do, however, always have key plot points in mind that I’m writing toward, which make up a loose plot in my head. With Domestic Violets, I had a very clear idea how the book would end from day one, so that was really helpful for generating momentum—sort of like downhill writing. For the novel I’m working on now, the end is a little hazier, but there are still some key turns that I know I’m going to want to take. And I’m still trying to work a vampire in there somewhere. A really good-looking vampire. And possibly a car that transforms into a fighting robot.

Laura M. asked...

Q: How much time did you spend on revisions after the first draft was complete?

A: As I mentioned earlier, that first draft took about a year. After that, I messed with it incessantly for about six months, just obsessing over the language and details. Once I had something that I decided was finished enough, my agent sent it to a handful of editors where it began racking up an impressive string of rejections.

Then the financial crisis happened. I remember one day I was watching the news and I had this horrible sense of impending doom—and it was doom that I didn’t even really understand. A couple of days later, I started messing with the book again and trying to weave some of that confusion/anxiety into the story. Six months later, I’d basically blown the whole novel up and set it squarely in the middle of the mess. It really helped add some urgency to the "Death Star" sections of the book.

So, long answer short: one year to write the first draft, and about one more year of editing and fiddling and reworking and destroying.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Vote for Domestic Violets

2011-11-01T18:33:00.000Z

Hello, Readers.

I'm pleased to announce that my novel, Domestic Violets, has been nominated in the Best Humor Category at the 2011 Goodreads Choice Awards. I've never won an award before, and, judging from the other nominees in this category, I don't see it happening here, but my team of assistants and ghostwriters and I would certainly appreciate your vote. Just click on the link below.

Also, if you know any Goodreads nerds who have read the book, please feel free to pass this along to them, too.

And if you don't have a Goodreads account, you should sign up for one. It's free, and, in the year 2011, you really can't call yourself a nerd without one.

2011 Goodreads Choice Awards: Best Best Humor

Vote now for your favorite books!

That’s Not a Cookie

2011-10-24T05:12:00.004+01:00

This weekend, my brother-in-law and his wife were in town for a visit. As they often do, they brought their dog with them, a Cocker Spaniel-Poodle mix named Snood.

As a dog lover, my feelings for Snood are complicated. Superficially speaking, he’s very cute. He’s small, maybe fifteen pounds or so, and he’s got these crazy Yoda ears that jet out from his tiny head like satellite dishes. Dig a little deeper though, and you find that Snood has some quirks. He’s weirdly possessive. He’s prone to unprovoked flashes of violence. He tries to hump my dog Grady constantly. And, he responds to even the slightest perceived mistreatment by revenge-crapping in random spots in the house.

Around 10 a.m. this morning, my daughter told me that she needed to have her diaper changed. She did this the way she always does, by grabbing the crotch of her pants and shouting gibberish at me with a distressed look on her face.

When it comes to diaper changing, my daughter tends to be all business. She usually runs ahead to her changing table, allows herself to be picked up and placed in position, and then she lays there bored while my wife or I tend to her. This morning though, when we got to her bedroom, she broke protocol and ran to the center of the room. “It’s a cookie!” she yelled.

“What?”

Confused, I watched as my daughter picked up what looked like a shriveled brownie from the carpet. She held it out to me, the way you might if you were walking down the street with a friend and you found a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk. “Cookie, cookie! It’s a cookie!”

“Oh, God,” I said. It had taken me a full five seconds to figure out what was happening. “Baby, no. Drop that. Drop it right now!”

As I moved quickly toward her, her expression changed to one that I've seen on other people's faces before, but never hers. It was an older-person's look, a mature, beaten-down expression that I can only describe as slow, grim realization.

Before dropping the small brown wad onto the floor, she said, simply, “It’s poop, Daddy. It’s poop.”

I sometimes imagine what it would be like if Snood could talk. I do this with almost all dogs. I'm certain he'd have a high-pitched, slightly effeminate voice. “She picked it up?” he’d say. "You're kidding. With her bare hands? Well, maybe next time you'll think twice before yelling at me for jumping onto your kitchen table while you're eating breakfast and licking your pancakes. I’m just saying.”

thenormannation@gmail.com

The Anti-Process

2011-10-05T04:47:00.000+01:00

Since selling my first novel, Domestic Violets, and being catapulted into literary obscurity, people have from time to time asked about my writing process. Whenever this happens, I’m faced with a moral dilemma. Do I lie and say something intellectual, or do I, against my better judgment, tell the truth.

Over the last five years, I’ve managed to get a full-time job, a full-time wife, and a full-time daughter. And so my process is, admittedly, less than regimented.

I sit down in my little office upstairs and read CNN.com and tell myself that it’s important for a writer to be informed. If my daughter is asleep, I look at the tiny video monitor on my desk that allows me to watch a black and white version of her hugging her stuffed animals. I spend about 20 minutes wondering how my generation survived without our parents having the ability to stare at us electronically while we slept.

Next, I find a good station on Pandora and check my email. And then I check Facebook. And then I check Twitter. Then I hit CNN.com again, just in case the world has ended in the last few minutes.

I’m usually pretty thirsty by then, so I go downstairs into the kitchen for a Diet Dr Pepper. If I see my dog along the way, I check in and see how his day’s going. And then, with a full soda, I locate my wife. We chat for a bit about nothing in particular until she reminds me that I’m supposed to be writing.

“Umm, that’s what I’m doing,” I tell her.

Back upstairs, I open my Word document and read over whatever I’d managed to accomplish the day before. I spend about 30 minutes being appalled by how bad it is. I make it better by moving the sentences around and changing all of the semi-colons to commas. Then I consider the ramifications of growing a beard. My wife would hate it, but I think it would make me look edgier.

Finally, when all of those things are done, and when I can’t think of anything else that needs to be done, I write a sentence. Then I delete it and write it again. And then I write a paragraph. And then I write maybe one or two more. And then I read them aloud all at once, and they sound really good. I like the flow and how they look on my screen. They’re definitely missing semi-colons, though, and so I go back in and add some of those.

And then I go on Facebook and tell all my friends not to bother me because I’m writing.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Talky Talky

2011-09-12T02:56:00.000+01:00

Last week I appeared—or, I guess, I virtually appeared—on Book Club Girl on Air, which is a cool online radio show in which authors call in and are interviewed about their books and answer questions from listeners from around the country.

A few minutes before show time, I was pacing around my office, a little twitchy from a Diet Dr Pepper bing. I could kind of hear my daughter chattering downstairs, and there was a good bit of thunder somewhere in the distance. It dawned on me then that I’d never really talked publically about the book in any significant way.

I knew the story inside and out, of course. I’d written and rewritten just about every page a dozen or so times, but as the hold music played in my ear, I found myself wondering what the book…means? And then I wondered if it means anything. And then the music stopped and I heard a voice in my ear: “Hi, everyone, this is Erica Barmash for Book Club Girl on Air…”

The show had begun. Perhaps I should have thought of these things earlier.

It turns out, of course, that my neurosis, like most of my neurosis, was unnecessary. As Erica asked me things—and later as listeners asked me other things—it became clear, at least to me, that I kind of knew what I was talking about. And after listening to the show again after the fact, a few other things became clear, too. My voice sounds weirder in real life than it does in my head. I need to work on not saying “um” and “sort of” so much. And, when push comes to shove, I guess I really do hate cats.

You can listen to the entire show uninterrupted now by clicking this link. I hope you find it interesting. And to all the cat people out there, I’m sorry. I don’t really think cats are like tiny, meaner Woody Allens. I have no idea where that came from.

thenormannation@gmail.com

The Glamorous Life of a First-Time Novelist

2011-08-21T21:19:00.001+01:00

I’d been driving in circles like a moron for 15 minutes. I knew that there was a Barnes & Noble there, I just couldn’t remember exactly where.

“Take the third exit on the roundabout,” my navigation system said for the fourth time.

“Shut up, Tina,” I said. I named her Tina two years ago, and I have no idea why. Tina likes to do this thing where she gives up one or two instructions too soon, leaving me to fend helplessly for myself in unfamiliar places

I eventually parked—illegally, I think—and managed to find the store on foot. Inside, it was cold and nearly empty. Two teenaged boys were looking at a Maxim and some scattered freeloaders were reading from piles of books in the café.

Downstairs, I found my novel, Domestic Violets, piled next to some other new paperback releases. Amazingly, there happened to be a man about my dad’s age holding a copy, flipping through it. I stalked him for a few minutes, pretending to be looking at a Golden Retriever calendar. Eventually, without expression, he put the book down and shuffled off.

Since its release on August 9^th, I’ve been showing up at bookstores near my house and signing copies. I’ve been told that a “Signed By The Author” sticker is good for sales. There was no one at the Information Desk, so I drifted around awhile until I found an employee. She was young—maybe early 20s—and she had two lip rings and a nose ring.

“Hi,” I said. “I wrote this book. I was wondering if you guys wanted me to sign all the copies you have.”

“Oh,” she said—and for a good while she said nothing else. She had no idea who I was, of course, and, in her defense, I didn’t look very writerly in shorts, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap. Next time, my plan is to show up in a tweed blazer and an ascot.

After getting her manager’s approval and then frowning suspiciously at my author photo for what seemed like a long time, we stood together behind the Music register with ten or so copies of my book between us. I signed the first one and handed it to her. As I signed the others, she scanned the back of the book.

“Sounds interesting,” she said. But then she had second thoughts. “Well…amusing, at least.” She didn’t put air quotes around “amusing,” but she might as well have.

If I were Tom Violet, my book’s narrator, I’d have said something clever and borderline obnoxious. “Wow, really? Because I was actually just shooting for mildly amusing.”

But I’m not Tom Violet, and I didn’t have the benefit of 19 months and ten drafts of rewrites to come up with anything good, and so I just stood there, grinning and pretending that I didn’t feel a little wounded. “Thanks,” I said.

thenormanation@gmail.com

Shower Me With Like

2011-08-02T03:59:00.000+01:00

As some of you might know, my debut novel, Domestic Violets, which was absolutely NOT ghostwritten by my team of assistants, will be released in one week on August 9^th. To celebrate this exciting event, I’ve decided to launch my very own fan page on Facebook.

I know what you’re thinking. “Oh great, another social media venue dedicated to you yammering incessantly about your dog and what you had for lunch that day. Sign me up!”

Well, Mr. or Mrs. Smarty Pants, you’re wrong…because I’ll also have other things on there, too. For example, if and when the book is reviewed online or in publications, and assuming those reviews don’t contain the phrases “incompetence exemplified,” “overwhelmingly stupid,” and “startlingly unreadable,” I’ll share them on my fan page. I’ll also share general book-related news, like times and locations of upcoming readings and announcements about whichever high-profile literary awards I’ve won that week.

And for those of you who actually want more than just carefully orchestrated, highly filtered information, my fan page is a perfect place to interact one-on-one with me, Matthew Norman, author of Domestic Violets and founder of The Norman Nation. You can ask me questions, post comments and opinions about my work, send suggestions for future blog posts, and share pictures of yourself enjoying Domestic Violets in your own totally legal and tasteful way.

Finally, as if all of those things I’ve just randomly thought of aren’t enough to send you scrambling to your “LIKE” button, I’ll also periodically sponsor contests where fans can win prizes like autographed copies of my book or signed 4x6 photographs of me waving and/or smiling awkwardly.

So, if you’re ready to waste some serious time—and based on the fact that you’ve read all the way to the end of this blog post, I think you are—then click here and “LIKE” me now.

And don’t worry, there’s really no risk. If you decided my fan page isn’t for you, you can do what many, many people have already done over the years and simply “UNLIKE” me.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Dog for Sale

2011-07-19T03:36:00.001+01:00

Yesterday, my wife took our dog to a pond in our new neighborhood to go swimming. I don’t know what was in this pond—it will likely be the subject of an upcoming Michael Moore documentary—but, when they returned, he smelled so horrifically bad that three quarters of our front yard burst instantly into flames.

After sorting things out with the fire department, my wife gave the dog a bath in the driveway while I shielded our daughter’s eyes. And then she gave him a second bath. And then she sprayed him with Febreeze. Her efforts seemed only to anger the smell, though, because its funk has somehow grown even stronger over the last 24 hours. At this very moment, he’s sitting on our bed, as he does, blurred by a buzzing vapor cloud of his own rancid filth.

“My God, Grady, you smell so bad!” I just told him. He doesn’t know what most of those words mean, so he just wagged his tail and then, for reasons I can’t explain, licked my pillow.

And so, with some regrets, I’d like to announce that we currently have a dog for sale. He’s nine years old, a full-breed yellow lab, and he’s very good with children.

In the interest of full disclosure, I feel I should mention a few things.

No matter how many expensive beds you buy for him out of catalogs, Grady is going to want to sleep in your bed with you at night. He’s pretty insistent on that, actually. And he often dreams that he’s chasing things.
Grady eats dog ice cream called “Frosty Paws” four nights a week. I recommend you keep plenty of Frosty Paws on hand because if you happen to run out he’ll stand in front of the fridge for hours on end whining gently with a devastated look on his face.
It’s best to avoid the words “ball,” “outside,” “dinner,” the aforementioned “Frost Paws,” “swimming,” or “car” within earshot of Grady. Phonetically speaking, you should avoid words that sound like these words as well.
If you enjoy watching DVDs, sporting events, or the season finales of your favorite shows, Grady will decide he needs desperately to go to the bathroom the moment you sit down on your couch to do so.
The smell of chicken skin makes Grady completely irrational.
If you are six-feet-two-inches tall, Grady’s tail wags at the exact height of your crotch.
Sarcasm has no effect on Grady whatsoever.
Grady doesn’t drool often, only when you’re wearing your nicest new pants.
Finally, whatever you do—for the love of God and all that is holy—do not let Grady see or smell anything resembling a tennis ball. I’m not kidding.

Please send all inquiries to thenormannation@gmail.com.

Are You Still Talking?

2011-06-30T03:48:00.001+01:00

About ten years ago, a girl said something very interesting to me. I was going on about something, trying to make her and a few others laugh. She put down her drink and said, “You know, you’re always talking, but you hardly ever actually say anything.”

It was one of those abstract bits of criticism that’s so pinpoint, dead-on accurate that you’re left speechless and then, eventually, haunted. I was offended deep down somewhere, but I laughed anyway, and so did everyone else.

For a period shortly after, I remember being conscious of my yammering. Psych 101 at the University of Nebraska in 1995 was enough to teach me that my need to fill voids with words was simply an attempt to get people to like me. I kind of hated that about myself, but that’s what people do when they’re young: hate things about themselves.

Today though, I have a whole different attitude about this issue. I’m still incessantly blathering as much as ever, but thanks to technology, I’m doing able to do it more artfully and effectively than ever. And I don’t have to worry at all about whether or not my hair looks weird and/or stupid while I’m doing it.

Below is a smattering of my recent Facebook and Twitter posts. I trust that you’ll find them to be a tremendous waste of time.

My neighbor's cat thinks it's hilarious to jump out and scare me when I'm taking out the garbage. We disagree on this issue.
I'm going to start ending more conversations by saying "Good day" and then awkwardly walking away.
Breaking News: Yellow saltwater taffy is gross.
I've never been in a dance off before, but it's definitely something I'm interested in.
I would very much like a life-sized gummy bear at my desk that I could casually snack on/cuddle with throughout the day.
My daughter just gave Mr. Potato Head a high-five. His arm fell off.
Some people look cool in bike helmets. I look like a tool.
Whenever I'm in a hotel room, I think, "If I was a rock star, I'd totally wreck this place." And then I go back to quietly trying to find ESPN.
I've eaten enough cheese dip today to dislike myself.
I've said this before, but whenever someone says "tapas," I hear "topless." So, the wife and I are going to a topless restaurant tonight. I'm looking forward to it.
Whenever I run in the rain I feel like I'm in a music video. Especially since I always run with my backup dancers.
My dog's stance on eating things he finds on the street is troubling.
Tomorrow is Friday! That's the day during which I bring most of my awesome.
I think I'm becoming a woman. My wife just said to me, "It's really nice out, you should take a run outside." And my first thought was, "Does she think I'm fat?"
Whenever I find myself in Whole Foods on a weekend, I'm so filled with rage that I want to scream, "You know what people, I voted for Obama, too, but I hate this f@cking place!"
I'm fairly certain there is no fruit in the "Fruity Snacks" I just got from the vending machine.
Be warned, Leftover Pizza I Brought for Lunch. Things are about to get ugly for you.
Please note, I will no longer be using the word "crazy." I will instead be saying "kray kray."
I've always been uncomfortable with the words "pulled pork."
I'm now taking applications for a new arch nemesis. Please forward all inquiries to my assistant's assistant.
I just did bad things to a cupcake. Don't judge me.
I got a haircut today. So I'm all styled and a little less haggard looking. You're welcome, ladies.
I think the fact that every household in America doesn't have a robot butler represents a major failure. I mean, isn't it like 2011?
People have been underestimating my dance moves for years.
Pie charts inevitably make me think of pie. Which sucks, because pie charts often pop up in situations where pie is inappropriate.

Twitter: @TheNormanNation

Fan Page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matthew-Norman/197073723676985

The Bird Whisperer

2011-06-17T03:58:00.001+01:00

Strangely, the thing that excited me the most about moving to the suburbs was the prospect of putting up a bird feeder in the yard. I’ve always identified with birds. There’s something very writerly about them—their twitchiness, misplaced aggression, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and how they’re always banging their faces into windows.

A few minutes after the boxes were off the trucks and stacked at random in our new house, I made up a vague excuse to go to Loews where I bought two bird feeders, two bird feeder polls, and a bag of birdseed the size of a small, Europe road car.

When I got back home I found two perfect spots away from the squirrel-infested trees, stuck the polls into the ground, and filled the feeders, spilling a good bit into the grass. Then I went to the deck and waited.

I’d been thinking about these stupid bird feeders for two months. I’d turned them into a metaphor that represented the next stage of my life—suburban novelist, husband, father of two. My late grandpa was a bird guy, and I liked the idea of being one, too. I went so far as to buy a small field guide, The Birds of the Mid Atlantic Region. I imagined sitting quietly, drinking some kind of exotic, expensive alcohol, as the craziest birds known to mankind converged on my yard. I’d take pictures of them and put them on Facebook and people would like them.

Two days later…there were no birds. None. In fact, I had no proof that a single bird had so much as landed on one of my feeders.

My wife bought me a different bag of birdseed. She knows as little about birds as I do, but it seemed logical that the industrial-sized bag of whatever it was I’d bought was somehow off-putting to the uppity birds of Towson, Maryland.

I refilled one of the feeders, leaving the other full of the original seed, hedging my bet, and then I waited again.

On day five, two cardinals, a male and a female, landed on the feeder closest to the deck. Cardinals are fairly pedestrian birds, if we’re being honest. In fact, my grade school was the St. Roberts Cardinals, all red and white and Catholic. But it was something—actual birds—and so I held my breath, not wanting to scare them off.

The male bird stuck his face into the pile of untouched birdseed. He shook his head around a little, flinging some seeds onto his girlfriend. Then they both looked at each other and did what I can only describe as a bird shrug before flying off into the woods.

“You guys suck,” I said. And then I went back inside.

Goodbye, Charm City

2011-06-01T04:56:00.000+01:00

In ten days, the wife and I will be packing up our row house in downtown Baltimore and heading about twelve miles north to the nearby suburbs. Whenever something ends—be it good or bad—it’s hard not to be at least a little reflective, and so I’d like to take this opportunity to say so long to a few things.

Goodbye, giant rat that I found in my grill that one time. As long as I live, I’ll never open a grill again without thinking of you. You taught me that no matter how masculine I feel on a given day, I’ll always be capable of screaming like a woman.

Goodbye, ice cream truck that shows up every summer night at 11 pm. I used to assume you were a rolling drug mobile, but, it turns out, you really do sell ice cream.

Goodbye, drunken twenty-three-year-olds walking loudly but harmlessly past my house at 2 am. You remind each Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night that I have no regrets…but that things are fun while they last.

Goodbye, sweltering heat. People always say that the suburbs are a few degrees cooler. I have no idea if this is true. I guess we’ll find out.

Goodbye, old school neighbors. One moment you’ll casually say something startlingly racist, and then the next moment you’ll smile sweetly at my daughter or offer to help me unload my car. You taught me a great deal about how interesting paradoxes can be when developing a character.

Goodbye, parking spots that are four inches too small for my car. You taught me that when properly motivated I can swear like a character in a Guy Ritchie movie.

Goodbye, crazy woman in the Betty Boop nurse’s smock who always tells me loudly that my dog is very, very handsome. You’re a scary chick, but you like animals, and I dig that.

Goodbye, sirens. You always seemed to work overtime whenever I was on the phone with my parents, which is why neither of them has been fully relaxed in about a decade.

Goodbye, guy down the street with the shifty eyes who I’m pretty sure is a drug dealer. We didn’t talk much, but your proximity was enough to make this skinny white guy from Omaha, Nebraska feel at least a little bit edgy.

Goodbye to all of you—and goodbye to the street festivals, meter maids, hungover breakfast places, guy on the moped with no muffler, late-night sidewalk arguments, cars backfiring that may or may not be a gun shot, and the Korean store owner who sometimes smiles and sometimes doesn’t. I may not think back on all of you with total affection. But, each of you, in your own weird way, has been part of a time in my life that I wouldn’t change for anything.

Oh…but don’t worry. My office is still here. And so are most of my friends. So, you’ll probably still see me about forty or fifty hours a week.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Come See Me At Book Expo America

2011-05-20T04:33:00.002+01:00

Have you ever thought to yourself: “You know, I enjoy reading The Norman Nation, but what I’d really like to do is see the writer of The Norman Nation, Matthew Norman, sitting quietly at a table by himself wearing a sport coat.”?

Well if you have, then I’m happy to tell you that your weirdly specific fantasy is about to come true. That’s because I’ll be appearing this coming Wednesday, May 25, at Table 26 at Book Expo America (BEA) in New York City at 10 a.m. Technically I’ll be there to sign advanced reader copies of my upcoming novel, Domestic Violets. However, I’ll be happy to sign other things, too, including, but not limited to: comedic caricatures of me, comedic caricatures of you, posts from The Norman Nation that you’ve printed out, baseballs and/or footballs, the foreheads of your children, any kind of non-dangerous animal, things related to the state of Nebraska, head shots of notable television stars from the 1980s, Big Gulp and/or Starbucks cups, and copies of novels written by writers who are far more famous than I am.

And, just in case you’re not interested in me defacing your property with my handwriting, I’ve also heard rumors that BEA writers sometimes give things away at their signings, like candy or extremely expensive watches. I’ll do some brainstorming with my team of lawyers and assistants between now and Wednesday. Maybe we’ll be able to think of something interesting. But I should probably ask, is anyone allergic to shellfish or expired prescription painkillers? Just let me know.

Note: if you are planning to attend my signing at BEA, please approach my table slowly and, whatever you do, do not look at me directly in the eyes. There’s about a 65% chance that I’ll totally freak out.

See you in New York!

thenormannation@gmail.com

New Look. Same Awesome.

2011-05-11T03:18:00.002+01:00

It dawned on me the other day that my world-famous blog, The Norman Nation, looked as if it had been designed by a very old person who is frightened of computers. So, as a man of action, I called in the least incompetent of my many personal assistants and demanded that she do a redesign immediately.

Three hours later, after my bi-weekly spa/hot yoga/skin-cleansing session, I returned to find this: The All-New The Norman Nation homepage. My personal assistant, whatever her name is, did such a great job that I gave her the rest of the week off. And by that, I mean that she can leave on Friday evening at 4:30 p.m. as long as she skips lunch.

Now, allow me to point out some of the design features of the new site. The background colors, which are are brown and brownish, were chosen to match the exact color of the bronzer I've been using this Spring. And notice the many rows of imaginary books. In the literary world, we call these "symbols." In this execution, they "symbolize" how you all should maybe consider spending a little less time cruising the Internet for God knows what and more time reading actual books. I mean, seriously, what's wrong with you people?

thenormannation@gmail.com

I Am A Weepy British Woman: A Very Short Book Review

2011-05-05T03:11:00.002+01:00

Over the years, I’ve earned a reputation for being pretty masculine. Whether I’m out on my ranch roping steer, getting into any number of fist fights at tapas restaurants, or lifting heavy weights instead of taking a Pilates class, people have come to expect a certain level of unkempt, alpha-male rawness to my behavior.

But, believe it or not…I’m actually kind of a softy.

I demonstrated this in earnest this past week on vacation as I read One Day by David Nicholls. A friend recommended it to me, and so, due to a strange, inexplicable fault in my personality, I was immediately suspicious of it. In my defense, the cover did little to alleviate my trepidation. It appears, as you can see here, to be aimed squarely at 13-year-old girls.

However, about three pages in, I was absolutely hooked. And I don’t mean normal person hooked here. I’m talking straight-up “book nerd on vacation” hooked, the kind of manic, borderline obsessive reading where you can simply do nothing but read because you absolutely have to know if these two charming Brits who don’t actually exist will ever get together.

David Nicholls’ voice, style, and Britishness are addictive. And the characters he’s created—particularly the two leads, charming Dexter and pretty, perpetually down-on-her-luck Emma—are so engaging that my emotions began to align with theirs in an unhealthy way. At one point, as I was lying on a beautiful beach sipping a Corona beside my wife in the middle of a weekday afternoon, I found myself feeling honest-to-God anxiety because Dexter’s mother was sick.

And the end…oh, for the love of God.

I think people who spoil endings should be put in minimum-security prisons, so I’m not going to do that. But, as I powered through the book’s final 75 pages, I actually had to take a deep breath and say to myself, “Listen. You are NOT going to cry on this airplane in front of a bunch of strangers. You are a man. Well, for the most part. Do you hear me?!”

So, if you’re in the mood for a heart-aching romance—and a really great book—I highly recommend One Day. The novel’s architecure, which you’ll pick up on pretty quickly, is a little gimmicky, but the writing, characters, pacing, tone, and intelligence are so great, you’ll be too busy enjoying yourself to even care.

God Save The Queen.

thenormannation@gmail.com

A Blog About Blurbs

2011-04-30T18:45:00.000+01:00

In the publishing industry, there are these things called “blurbs,” and they’re very important. You’ve all seen them. They’re the quotes from writers and celebrities you’ve heard of on the backs of books that say nice things about that book. The idea is that you’ll read these blurbs and say, “Well, if Danielle Steele says it’s a ‘rollercoaster ride of sexiness and edge-of-your-seat suspense’, that’s good enough for me. I’ll take nine copies please.”

The good news: my editor has received more than 100 “blurbs” for my novel, which, I’m told, is unprecedented for a first book. The bad news: well, quite frankly, some of them seem a little half-hearted. Downright mean, even.

Here are a few that I’m confident won’t be appearing on the back of the novel when it’s released in August. I’ve left out the blurbers’ names because authors and/or celebrities are a famously litigious group and my lawyers are pretty busy working on my various restraining orders.

“I’m not gonna say I loved the book. But, I did like it as a friend.”

“I didn’t actually read the novel. But my assistant’s life coach did, and she said that it wasn’t a ‘complete’ waste of time. That’s pretty good. Right?”

“As a recent Oscar-winner for my work in the film Black Swan, I know a thing or two about quality and talent. And let me tell you this, Matthew Norman has hair like an angel.”

“The book is sort of like a sandwich from a vending machine. If you’re starving to death, it’ll do, but it’s not like you actually want to eat it.”

“Well, I’ve read worse books. I guess.”

“This touching, laugh-out-loud story of Tom Violet is one of the best…wait, do we get paid to write blurbs? No? Well f*ck this then.”

“I wasn’t an English major or anything, but, aren’t books supposed to have vampires or, like, time machines and stuff? I read like 40 pages of this thing and it was just like all blah blah blah feelings feelings yada yada. No thank you.”

“I laughed. I cried. And then I got a staph infection. I can’t blame the book for that last one, but, you know, it’d be impossible to say it didn’t affect the overall experience.”

“Ha-ha. Read? Do people still do that?”

If you have a blurb for my book, leave it as a comment or email it to me at the address below and I’ll send it over to my editor right away. One thing though, it would really help if you’re famous. Or, at the very least, incredibly good-looking.

thenormannation@gmail.com

The Theory of Unintended Consequences

2011-04-18T00:38:00.000+01:00

I recently discovered a strange by-product of selling a novel, and that is the fact that people might actually read it. This obviously sounds completely ridiculous, but I have the feeling that this sudden, mildly alarming realization is not uncommon among the writers of first novels.

By the time you actually sell a novel, you’ve probably written one or two failed novels and suffered through about a dozen soul-crushing false starts. And, of course, there’s the ungodly number of short stories you’ve hammered out—Cheever and Carver rip offs mostly—which have never seen the light of day. You share your drafts and wrinkled manuscripts with a select few, sometimes in formal workshops and sometimes with fellow writers you’ve met along the way, but, in reality, no one outside of your carefully constructed circle of book nerds ever actually reads them.

And then, one day, miraculously, you’re standing in your parents’ kitchen in South Carolina a little drunk and your uncle picks up the advance reader copy of your soon-to-be-published novel and starts reading it aloud in front of your family.

This is exactly what happened to me a few weeks ago. My extended family had converged under sad circumstances, and so, as Catholics, we were obligated by papal decree to drink.

My novel, which is due out in August, has a fair amount of casual swearing, but it’s by no means raunchy. Somehow though, my uncle managed to randomly open to a section in which my main character gives a vivid (ok, very vivid) description of his physical reaction to Viagra. I’d read that section dozens of times, like every other section in the book, over the last two years or so. But there, standing between my mom, dad, younger brother, and several aunts, I couldn’t help but wish I’d practiced a bit more restraint. I believe the phrase “chemically altered robot penis from the future” was used, which is a phrase one’s mother should probably never hear—particularly in her own kitchen.

Everyone laughed, because, well, what else can you do in a situation like that? But, as the laughter died down, I couldn’t help but feel like I should explain myself—or, at the very least, prove that I’m not some kind of degenerate. I considered telling them that the impotence is, in this context, metaphorical. It’s less about one man’s struggling penis and more about one man’s struggling sense of his own masculinity in a world that’s out of control.

But, even in my head, that sounded pretty lame, and, at best, only about 45% true. And then I imagined other people—people who aren’t even related to me—reading it and wondering what kind of person would come up with something like that. I doubted very much that I’d ever have the opportunity to stand in their kitchens and defend myself.

And so, finally, I did what a million writers before me have done. I shrugged and said, “Well, it’s not a book for the kids,” and then I had another drink.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Possessive Tense

2011-04-14T04:35:00.000+01:00

Adults often make the mistake of over analyzing a child’s ramblings and trying to eke out hidden shreds of wisdom. But not me. I like kids, particularly cute ones, but I’m rarely floored by what they have to say. I’ve never been at a dinner party and had the mashed potato-covered toddler in the Superman onesie teach me something I didn’t know about how the world works.

“You know, that’s a good point,” I’ve never said to a toddler. “Maybe a two-party approach really is the most effective political system possible.”

Take my daughter for instance. So far, she’s yet to prove herself as a linguist. For example, in a crowded airport lounge the other day, just as the guy with the microphone was about to start herding people into lines, Caroline grabbed the crotch of her little jeans and said loudly, “A poo-poo?”

Note the question mark. We’re still working on the difference between poo-poo and pee-pee, which often leads to this line of questioning, usually in front of a bunch of people I don’t know. Also note the "A." It’s never just “poo-poo.” It’s always “a poo-poo,” as if she’s offering me something.

A glass of water, perhaps? A piece of sugarless gum? A poo-poo?

So, as you can imagine, I was pretty surprised this past weekend when I heard our friends’ two-year-old daughter utter the most emotionally sophisticated sentence I’ve heard in years. We were in our friends' living room having drinks while the little ones toddled around playing with toys and knocking things over. My daughter found a talking Elmo doll and was playing with it intently. When our friends’ daughter saw this, she burst instantly into tears and screamed: “Give me have that!” And then she snatched Elmo from my daughter’s hands and ran out of the room.

“Did she just say ‘Give me have that’?” I asked. Indeed she had. Apparently she’s going through a possessive stage.

When their daughter returned a few minutes later, she discovered that Caroline was now playing with a tray of little plastic cupcakes. “Give me have that!” she repeated, and the whole scene played itself out all over again…and again…and again.

I’ve been thinking about that sentence, and repeating it incessantly, for four straight days now, and I’ve realized that the reason it’s so powerful is that it’s a hauntingly accurate way of communicating an emotion that each of us—toddler or otherwise—experiences virtually every day. We want to be polite, and so society forces us to say: “Excuse me, could I have that please? I mean, if you're not using it, and it's not too much trouble.” But what we really want to be saying is, well… “Give me have that!”

And so next time you see someone with something that you want—a chocolate chip cookie, a cool watch, a BMW, a two-story colonial home with shutters and a wraparound deck—try telling that person what you’re really thinking for a change. From what I witnessed this weekend, it’s actually pretty effective.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Baby Einstein

2011-03-31T03:32:00.004+01:00

One of the disadvantages of being a first-time parent is that you have absolutely no basis for comparison. Therefore, although you consistently round up, you really have no idea if your kid is all that smart.

“Look, she’s pointing at that dog and saying ‘ruff,’” I might say to my wife proudly. Our daughter does this a lot. She points at things and then makes whatever sound that thing makes. My wife’s response is always enthusiastic, but I know her well enough to know that she’s wondering the same thing I am, which is, “Can other 17-month-olds do that? Shouldn’t she know by now that it’s a ‘dog’ and not a ‘ruff’?”

You’d think that pediatricians would help, but, as well-intentioned as they are, they tend to give you parameters so vast that pretty much any child who isn’t raised by wild animals and/or bog people will fit in there somewhere.

“How many words should she be able to say?” you’ll ask.

“Well, it depends,” Dr. He or She will say. “Somewhere between 12 and…all of them. See you in six months. Don’t let her lick the electrical outlets.”

Like most husbands, I’ve always assumed that my child will be as smart as my wife. By now, surely evolution has enough experience to block out all of the mediocre stuff and zero in on the good qualities, right? Well, I witnessed something yesterday that makes me wonder if perhaps a few of my “late-developing” brain genes may have weaseled there way in there.

My wife was working late, so it was just me and the little one. I was watching SportsCenter and she was playing on the floor with her Crayons. Although I occasionally had to remind her that they weren’t for eating or sticking in her nose, things were going well. And then she suddenly started crying. And I mean REALLY crying—the breathless, red-faced, inconsolable kind of crying that makes a parent feel frantic and helpless.

I checked her for bite marks—perhaps a lost cobra had slithered in—but there was nothing. “Baby, what is it?” I asked. But she just kept crying and crying, pleading with me in her toddler half-words to help her. And then I realized what was wrong. She’d been trying to pick up all of her fifteen-or-so Crayons at once to transport them across the room to where her other coloring books were. But because her hands are so small, she couldn’t do it, and uncooperative Crayons kept falling onto the floor. I tried to take them away and carry them for her, but she found this unacceptable.

“Here you go, honey,” just put them in here,” I said. I found her Crayon box and showed her that if she stacks them inside, she can carry all of them anywhere she wants.

I handed her the little box and she stopped crying. She looked at it for a few seconds, considering what I’d just demonstrated. Her bottom lip was still shaking a little—emotional aftershocks.

“See? It’s all good.”

And then she dumped her Crayons onto the floor, threw the empty box at the dog, and tearfully started the whole process all over again.

thenormannation@gmail.com

That Baby is So Wasted

2011-03-19T03:06:00.001Z

For some time now, I’ve been telling the same joke over and over again, and it always, regardless of the situation, gets a pretty good laugh. Here, let me to set it up for you.

I’m sitting with someone—or perhaps a group of people—in a public place. I see a toddler stumbling around, walking in that weird, zig-zaggy way that toddlers walk. The poor kid is usually drooling on him or herself and babbling incoherently. And so I say, “Oh my God, look, that baby is so wasted.”

And then everyone laughs, and for a moment I’m able to bury all of my overwhelming social anxieties and feel good about myself.

Sadly though, thanks to this video that my friend Nicole sent me today, my old safety of a joke has been trumped forever.

If you’ve spent any time with toddlers—or even if you’ve just seen one or two of them on your way to doing whatever it is people without children get to do on weekends—it’ll ring true immediately. That’s because you know that toddlers are basically adorable, drunken little morons who’ve been turned loose in your house to knock things over, unleash completely irrational fits of raw emotion, and eat things that they find lying on the floor.

Feel free to play it loud and pass it along to anyone. I think it’s the only video I’ve ever sent in which no one is swearing and/or doing something offensive.

Enjoy.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Bloggers Without Borders

2011-02-28T00:45:00.003Z

For nearly two years now, I have been telling pretty much anyone who will listen to me that my blog, The Norman Nation, is a joy-spreading international phenomenon that is slowly taking over the world. It turns out…I’m right.

Recently on Blogspot.com, which houses The Norman Nation, I discovered a tab called “Stats." This feature revealed some pretty startling information. For example, to date, The Norman Nation has been visited 7,137 times. Even if you subtract the 500 or so times I’ve obsessively-compulsively stalked my own site to see if anyone has made comments, that’s an impressive number.

As we dig deeper into the numbers, my mind continues to be blown. The site has been visited 514 times from the United Kingdom. Granted, I did live in London when I launched The Norman Nation and I do some stand-in modeling for David Beckham, so that’s not terribly surprising. But what about Canada? I’ve never lived there. In fact, due to a misunderstanding several years ago involving an elk, Wayne Gretzky, and some Canadian Mounties, I’m not even allowed in the country. Still, the site has been hit 514 times from our neighbors to the north.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Canada and the UK? Big woop. Aren’t those basically the 51^st and 52^nd states, just with crappier TV?” OK, fair point. But the site has been hit 113 times from the Netherlands. The Netherlands! I’m not even sure that’s a real place. And how about 105 times from South Korea? 57 times from Latvia. What? Latvia? Are you kidding me? Isn’t that the moon-planet where Chewbacca was born? That’s not all. 54 times from Australia. And 51 times from Russia. That’s the Soviet Union, right? Yeah, I may have single-handedly ended the Cold War.

You’re welcome, Planet Earth.

Are you reading this blog right now from some crazy-assed, possibly-pretend country that’s not the United States? If so, drop us a comment, and feel free to use whatever weird foreign language you speak there.

thenormannation@gmail.com

One of These People May or May Not Be Me.

2011-02-21T04:35:00.003Z

I'd be lying if I said I didn't Google myself more often than is probably healthy. And I'd also be lying if I said it wasn't difficult to resist the temptation to immediately follow that sentence with a joke about masturbation.

Because I'm pretty savvy when it comes to technology and keyboards and typing and such, I recently started doing Google Image searches of myself, too. For those of you unfamiliar with Google Images, it's a tool that those evil super-nerds at Google have built that allows you to find hundreds and hundreds of images that are not even a little bit related to the topic you're searching.

Here's a sampling of what I found when I searched "Matthew Norman." As you'll see, the results prove what I've been hinting at for a very long time: I may actually be a reasonably handsome doctor, an emotional civil rights advocate, a preteen boy who can make it rain from above the rim, David Beckham, or in prison.

And the speculation continues.

Story of the Honey Badger

2011-02-08T02:17:00.000Z

If you’re a frequent reader of The Norman Nation, you know that my staff of needy, illiterate underlings and I set the intellectual bar pretty high over here. And that’s why I wanted to share this link that my friend Michelle sent me today.

It’s a very short nature documentary about the Honey Badger, narrated by a man named Randall, who, in my opinion, should now be legally obligated to narrate all nature documentaries. If you’re reading this at work, might I recommend switching to earphones?

My reaction to this video was truly unique. At first, I was like, “What the f*ck is this?” And then I was sort of smiling. And then I was laughing. And then I was a replaying it like ten times.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go call my lawyer and have him write into my will that this video be played on a large screen at my funeral.

thenormannation@gmail.com

I See Your Stomach Flu, and I Raise You a Stomach Flu.

2011-02-01T02:15:00.001Z

Very early Sunday morning, I woke up suddenly to the sound of someone violently throwing up in the bathroom. It took me a moment to realize where I was and that the person throwing up was my wife.

My first thought was that the wrenching sound echoing off of porcelain represented the end of an era. My wife has claimed on many occasions that she doesn’t throw up. She threw up once, sometime in the early 2000s, but that was just a technicality, and it was on the Jersey Shore, so it shouldn’t count against her. My second thought, much less of a landmark, was that I was about to throw up, too.

Yeah, that’s right, America: we both had the stomach flu.

I have been sick more times in the last 16 months than every other time in my life combined. Same goes for my wife. That’s because we are now the proud parents of a 20-pound germ machine in pink sweatpants named Caroline. But, until this weekend, we’d never been sick at the same time.

Several hours later, both of us delirious, feverish, and shaking, we heard our daughter begin waking up. It’s a slow process, like a hurricane gathering over the Gulf of Mexico. First she babbles to herself for a while. Then she starts making one of five animal noises. Then she sings the first two bars of Row Row Row Your Boat. And then she starts screaming.

“Maybe the dog can take care of her,” I said.

“What?” asked my wife.

And then we were both quiet for a while. Those two sentences had taken a lot out of us.

“How many times have you thrown up?” I asked.

“Four. What about you?”

“Three,” I said.

As the least violently ill member of the family, it was determined that I was in charge. So I sat up. And then I laid back down. And then I sat up again. And then I started walking. I made it halfway to Caroline’s room before stopping to lean against the wall for a while. I had a brief hallucination that my mother was there and that she was happy to babysit. And then my old gym was laughing at me because I couldn’t do a single pull-up when I was 12.

As I stood outside of her door, I could hear that Caroline was now throwing her stuffed animals. They were landing quietly in soft little thuds on the floor. When I set my hand on the doorknob, there was quiet stillness as the singing and chattering and throwing stopped. Her day was about to begin.

Maybe if I stood there quietly for a while, she’d fall back to sleep for three or four hours. Babies do that sometimes, right?

And then my daughter, not even two whole years old yet, said her first full sentence. Two sentences, in fact. “Come on in, Daddy. I’m feeling extra screamy this morning.”

It’s An Essay About…Something

2011-01-24T01:49:00.002Z

I spoke with my editor this week, and she told me that when my novel is published this Fall, it’ll include a “P.S.” section with a Q&A, an extended bio, and an essay that will be written by…apparently…me.

“The hell it will!” I screamed. But then I remembered that I’ve already spent my entire advance on fur coats, a life-sized portrait of myself sitting atop a horse, and an array of pink diamonds for the misses. So, I pretty much have to do whatever they say.

When I asked what the essay should be about, things got alarmingly vague. She told me that other writers have written about their inspiration, their writing process, the difficulties of publishing a first novel, an analysis of a particular theme, or… “anything really.”

It’s the “anything really” that’s got me stumped. I realize that some writers would thrive under such complete creative freedom. I, on the other hand, am at my best when I am told exactly, step by step, what to do.

While I was getting a massage and having my roots dyed earlier today, my team of assistants and ghostwriters held a brain-storming session to develop a list of potential essay titles. Let me know if any of them sound interesting, and feel free to submit your own ideas at The Norman Nation Comment Box.

• Books: They’re Not Just for Girls
• I Think My Dog Can Read My Mind: A Case Study
• Why Seeing 15 U2 Concert is Really Cool and Not At All Sad
• I Hope All My Old Girlfriends From High School Read This Book and Feel Bad About Being So Dismissive of Me
• Killing Spiders & 100 Other Secondary Uses for This Book
• Stop Calling Me, Natalie Portman: A Collection of Drunken Voicemails
• Spoiler Alert: None of the Characters in This Book are Vampires or Girls Who Do Dangerous Things Like Kick Hornet’s Nests
• The Internet is Just a Fad: An Opinion Piece
• Why The Movie Will Probably Be Way Better
• Snookie vs. Matthew Norman: A Comparative Analysis

thenormannation@gmail.com

The Baby of No

2011-01-14T03:07:00.001Z

I’ll be the first to admit that my 15-month-old daughter’s vocabulary is nothing to notify the folks at Mensa about yet. She’s recently started randomly saying the word “flower.” She’s also got about a dozen half-words that come and go when she’s feeling chatty. Like most toddlers though, her preferred method of discourse is to point at things and then grunt and/or scream until someone brings them to her.

But there’s one word that she’s mastered, and that’s the word “no.” Because this is the only weapon in her verbal arsenal, so to speak, she uses it liberally and with little regard for context.

For example, I might say, “Hey, Caroline, do you want some more milk?”, to which she’ll reply “no” in this bored, indifferent kind of way, and then she’ll go back to jamming my car keys into the electrical outlets or trying to find a way to fall down the stairs into our basement.

Then, on a different day, I’ll ask her an equally innocuous question and get a far more dramatic response. “Hey, Caroline, do you want to put your socks on?”, and then I’ll watch as she springs to her feet and runs away shouting “no no no no” before hiding under the kitchen table for half an hour.

As far as I know, her relationship with socks so far has been fairly uneventful. Apparently sometimes she just really, really doesn’t want to wear them. That seems reasonable enough.

Tonight though, things took an ominous turn. I was making dinner and spacing off as she knocked things noisily around the kitchen, and then toddled over and looked at me very seriously. “Da-da,” she said, shaking her head. “Noooooooooooo.” And then she said it again. “Noooooooo.”

I hadn’t asked her anything. As far as I know, we hadn’t spoken in several minutes. The only logical explanation, of course, is that my daughter is able to read my mind. I can’t remember exactly what I was thinking at that moment, but I’ve known myself long enough to know that it was probably something neurotic, stupid, or just plain self-destructive.

Should I write a vampire book? It’d be cool if I brought the sideburns back, right? Maybe drinking more on weekdays would help me be more relaxed? I bet I’d look edgier if I got a tattoo. I wonder if I should put Caroline’s socks on?

“No, Da-da. For the love of God, noooooooooooooo.”

She’s right. I definitely shouldn’t.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Matthew Norman: Prolific Writer of Fiction

2011-01-05T02:56:00.002Z

So finally I sit down to work on my novel—the very novel I’ve been ignoring flagrantly since Thanksgiving. My Diet Dr. Pepper is in just the right place to the left of my monitor in a faded Yankees cup atop a Simpsons coaster. I’m wearing my favorite oversized sweatpants because when one writes fiction one is required to look like a hungover shut-in suffering from social anxiety disorder.

I open the file on my computer and scroll through its 67 pages, enjoying the grey blocks of words that I, apparently, have written. I briefly consider deleting the whole thing and instead writing a novel about a team of sassy crime-fighting lesbians…who have a time machine…and are vampires. People would buy that, right?

I Google “Lamborghini prices” and try to figure out how many copies of a novel one would have to sell to be able to afford a bright green one. And then I imagine parallel parking a bright green Lamborghini in front of my row house in downtown Baltimore. I imagine looking at my wife in the rearview mirror as I work the complicated Italian clutch. “A little more,” she says. “You’ve got like six inches.”

I read a random sentence from a random page of my manuscript and find that it makes no sense. I’ve also badly misspelled the word “vigorously.” I then read another sentence on another page and begin “vigorously” doubting the credibility of the institution from which I earned my master’s degree. I reach over and grab a well-worn copy of a famous novel that I keep on my desk in the hopes that its random out-of-context sentences will sound crappy too. They don’t.

Before I start writing, I should really check Facebook, just incase anyone has said something witty. A girl I haven’t seen in real life since junior high has written a line from a Taylor Swift song. 14 people like this. Nine others have commented. I should probably check Twitter, too.

Oh look, Jessica Biel enjoyed a salad with Hilary Swank this afternoon. I then spend five minutes trying to remember the exact moment that I made the conscious decision to “follow” Jessica Biel. I make a mental note to drink less before logging on to Twitter.

Wow, this monitor is dusty. I should probably give it a good cleaning before I get to work.

I read the back of the Windex bottle from top to bottom. My mind is partially blown by the fact that there’s a person like me who sits in a cube all day and writes instructions on the backs of household cleaners. I wonder if he or she has a master’s degree. I bet he or she is writing a novel, too. Or maybe a screenplay.

If I won an Oscar for writing a screenplay, would I cry during my speech? John Irving did. What would happen if I got really nervous and accidentally said the “eff” word. Would the orchestra play that music and chase me off the stage? That would be so embarrassing.

I quickly write three sentences. They’re actually pretty good. Unfortunately though, the two paragraphs before them are stupid…and kind of misogynistic. I delete them by holding the “delete” key, and I watch the cursor erase each letter individually. And then I look up “misogynistic” on Dictionary.com. And then I read my three sentences again. They’re not as good as I thought they were, but they’re still not that bad.

Just to be sure, I’ll read them again tomorrow…or maybe Thursday. But right now I should really go see if there are any more M&Ms in that jar in the kitchen next to the……….

thenormannation@gmail.com

A New Year’s Message from The Norman Nation

2010-12-31T22:57:00.002Z

Every year on this day, I send my assistants home early with their meager end-of-the-year bonuses and sit down with a nice box of wine from the gas station and write out my New Year’s resolutions.

This year’s list, composed on biodegradable paper with a pencil whittled from the bark of a mighty oak tree felled by a freak lightening storm atop a mountain, is now complete and has been certified by my neighbor Edna who claims to be a notary public. In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that I have no idea what a notary public is or does.

1. In 2011, I will drink a lot more than I did in 2010. I think that having an alcoholic father will add some much-needed flavor to my daughter’s personal narrative.

2. In 2011, I will continue to exercise half-heartedly and infrequently. I think all of those vampire movies have taught us that people with visible abdominal muscles simply cannot be trusted.

3. In 2011, I will read less. I think we can all agree that books are pretty much just for flag-burning elitists and people who are or might be gay.

4. In 2011, I will use the phrase “Rectum? It damn near killed him!” during an important business meeting.

5. In 2011, I will call my parents less. Let’s be honest, what have they done for me lately? Am I right, or am I right?

6. In 2011, I will watch an ungodly amount of reality television and not even pretend to be doing it ironically.

7. In 2011, I will write far less often. Now that I’ve sold a novel, it’s time to get one of those highly publicized, life-ruining downward spirals up and running.

8. In 2011, I will become extremely famous and unbearable to be around.

9. In 2011, I will say “It’s pretty complicated, you probably wouldn’t understand,” as often as possible. I believe that people appreciate being reminded of their intellectual shortcomings.

10. And finally, in 2011, I will continue to turn helplessly to my wife with a terrified expression on my face whenever math, map-reading, or general day-to-day problem solving is required.

Do you have New Year’s resolutions? Are they better than mine? Why do you constantly feel the need to compare yourself to me? Share them now at the official The Norman Nation Comment Box.

Happy New Year!

thenormannation@gmail.com

140 Characters of Pure Awesome

2010-12-22T18:08:00.003Z

My team of nameless, easily interchangeable assistants recently conducted a survey of random, largely imaginary people outside of a bar last night, and the results were staggering.

Apparently the American people are torn between wanting a lot more of Matt Norman and a lot less of Matt Norman.

“He’s undeniably sexy and has masculinity to spare,” said one Baltimore Ravens cheerleader. “I just wish there was a way to experience him in smaller, less-rambling doses.” Another survey participant who preferred to remain nameless, a young woman currently starring in the film Black Swan, agreed. “Sometimes when I’m looking at photos of him for hours on end, I find myself wishing I could get little verbal snapshots of what was going on in his head, like maybe 140 character’s worth.”

And that’s when I had an awesome idea. My dim-witted, mostly illiterate assistants are always going on and on about something called “Twitter.” Apparently it’s a site on the Internet where super-busy and influential people like me can demonstrate flashes of wisdom and profound intelligence without having to worry about writing actual sentences or using punctuation.

So, after yelling at them mercilessly for the better part of the morning and making two of them cry, I ordered my assistants to build The Norman Nation on Twitter. It’s currently “live,” as they say, and I’d like to invite you all to follow me. I’m told that if you search for @TheNormanNation, my page will somehow appear on your computer screen like magic.

At the risk of sounding too “hard sell,” I recommend checking it out right this very second. I just “tweeted” a “tweet” on my Twitter page about what I had for lunch, and it is insightful, interesting and not at all unnecessary.

thenormannation@gmail.com

The Triumphant Return

2010-11-10T02:42:00.002Z

People are always saying to me: “Oh, I see how it is, Matt Norman. You vanish for months on end without a word, and then you show up out of the blue with another dipshit blog and we’re supposed to go running to our computers like mindless lemmings. Well you know what, Buster Brown? We don’t care anymore! We’re on to bigger and better things. So suck on that!”

And my response is always the same: “Seriously, Natalie Portman, that would be a lot less ironic if you weren’t hiding in my bushes with night-vision goggles right now.”

Alas, regardless of the context or the sophistication of her spy equipment, Natalie has a point. I have, in fact, been gone for some time. But, I’ve got an excuse. And this time it has nothing to do with laziness, fatherhood, low-level alcoholism, or prison.

Several months ago I received a phone call from my literary agent. That’s right, I actually have one of those. She asked me if I was sitting down, and then she informed me that a major American publisher had agreed to buy my novel, Domestic Violets.

I can assure you, no one was more surprised than me, especially considering 90% of the novel was collectively written by my team of personal assistants, interns, massage therapists, and personal shoppers.

As you can imagine, for the next two weeks I ran around the city of Baltimore drunkenly waving bottles of champagne and firing handguns into the air.

And then I spoke with my new editor.

I assumed, of course, that she was calling to get my address so she could send me one of those gigantic checks that they give people who win money on television. But, it turns out my editor had actually edited my book. And worse still…some of that editing required me to do some actual writing.

So that’s where I’ve been, hunkered here in the basement/storage room at my computer, neglecting my job, wife, daughter, and personal health to suffer over semicolons, rethink my characters’ motivations, and desperately wonder if anyone out there will ever care about any of it.

And I’ve loved every minute.

thenormannation@gmail.com

I Can’t Talk Right Now

2010-08-16T03:39:00.001+01:00

I’ve never been very good at spontaneous conversation with strangers. You see it sometimes, people chatting on trains or at dinner parties who’ve never met. I always stare at them—part jealous, part fascinated—as they effortlessly yammer on with one another about where they went to college or which shows they like to watch.

I’ve typically got about 15 seconds of casual conversation in me before I spin into some ungodly verbal panic—45 if I’ve been drinking. At the first hint of awkward silence I inevitably try to make a joke, but because I’m nervous I don’t think to vary my tone and so the other person has no idea whether or not I’m being serious.

“When I was little, my mom drank a lot, so I kind of had to raise myself,” I might say to my wife’s boss, stoned-faced. Or, “I’m not saying I’d ever hit a women, but, the ones I know can get a little lippy sometimes, if you know what I mean.”

At that point, whomever I’ve been speaking with will suddenly need to refill his or her drink or say hi to someone who just walked in, and I’ll be left holding a lukewarm Amstel Light and wishing I had a do-over.

Socially speaking, I’m the kind of a guy who needs to be prepared. Speeches are good for me, particularly at weddings. They give me the opportunity to fiddle with and obsess over every word for months and practice my delivery in front of mirrors.

E-mail has also been vital to my success as a human being. The first time I met my future wife, I’m fairly certain she thought I’d just wandered in from some nearby support group for socially crippled misfits. At one point she was sitting on a couch by herself watching a football game. I noticed that she’d unlaced one of her shoes. It was sort of half dangling from her foot in this adorable tomboyish kind of way and I began to feel my anxiety level rising dangerously. “Look, your shoe is coming off,” I said, apropos of absolutely nothing.

She looked at me, unsmiling. “What?” she said.

I managed somehow to get her e-mail address a few weeks later. There, safely behind my computer screen, I was able to spend hours writing charming, seemingly breezy e-mails that would eventually help fool her into agreeing to spend the rest of her life with me.

Yesterday I was on an airplane flying home from Chicago. It was hot out and the plane was crowded and the boarding process, as it often is now, was just shy of a Rage Against the Machine concert. I was on the aisle doing my best to look like someone who didn’t want to talk to anyone as I clutched my book, stared at my iPod, and avoided eye contact. The woman next to me though was undeterred. She was about my mother’s age, and she was drinking from an enormous fountain soda. “You know, sometimes I wish you could just snap your fingers and you’d be there,” she said.

I was instantly uncomfortable. It was one of those comments that don’t lend themselves to a simple response. For about five seconds I stared at the seat in front of me. Then I said, “That kind of technology would be really bad for the airline industry.”

And that was the end of that conversation.

Maybe I should have asked her for her e-mail address. I’m sure I could eventually come up with something better than that.

thenormannation@gmail.com

When Good Jokes Go Bad: The Matt Norman Story

2010-07-27T03:32:00.005+01:00

People are always saying to me, “Matt Norman, you’re so effortlessly funny and/or wavy haired. How do you do it?” And my response is always the same: “Seriously, Natalie Portman, I told you to stop Skyping me. Oh, and about the movie Brothers. Why do you make such depressing film choices? How about a nice Rom-Com?”

However, as flattering as Natalie’s constant, borderline creepy praise is, from time to time I run across people who find me not funny. Recently, one of those people was my wife.

It was 4th of July weekend and we were in South Carolina with my friend Randy and his wife. The four of us had put on some nice clothes and were beginning a rare night out without the little one. I’d just parked the car and we were all trying to figure out how to pay. There wasn’t a meter or an attendant. It was one of those old school places that survive on the honor system where you jam money into a little slot like a naïve fool. While my wife was trying to figure out the most effective way to fold seven dollars in cash, I found myself reading a faded sign of parking lot rules.

The first two were pretty straight forward. No sleeping in vehicles and no leaving them overnight. Perfectly reasonable. The third rule, however, was very odd. It read, simply, NO IN AND OUT PRIVILEGES. I read it again to myself three times. I had no idea what it meant.

“No in and out privileges?” I said. I thought if perhaps I said it aloud, it would suddenly make sense, like when you’re trying to figure out a personalized license plate. In that split second, I was hit with a joke so pure in its hilarity that I had to fight the urge to jump up and down like a five-year-old.

I cleared my throat. “You know,” I said. “Sometimes when she’s mad, the wife here takes away my in and out privileges.”

With the joke delivered perfectly, I took a step back and waited for uproarious laughter. I imagined them doubled over and red-faced. I've told some jokes before, but this was my crowning achievement...my own, personal Citizen Kane.

Sadly though, and for reasons I still don’t understand, my audience of three was unimpressed. Randy gave me a half-laugh. It was a polite gesture at best. The ladies simply stared at me. After a moment, they blinked simultaneously. Had they not heard me? Were they stunned by the tidal wave of humor I’d just unleashed on them? Several more seconds passed, and they blinked again.

“Really?” I said. “In and out privileges? Nothing?”

thenormannation@gmail.com

I'm Still Standing

2010-07-20T01:31:00.006+01:00

Since about her twelfth week on earth, my daughter has been a champion sleeper. Every night at around 6:55 p.m., she’d gently rub her eyes and sigh theatrically. This was our cue to take her upstairs, dress her in some footy pajamas, and lay her down in her bed.

“Goodnight, sweetie,” I’d say, or something like that. But, by then it would be too late, because she would have fallen instantly to sleep and would not be heard from again until around 6:30 the next morning.

“Our daughter sleeps through the night. Usually about eleven hours straight.”

Either my wife or I would say this to our poor sap friends who have sleepless, unholy demon babies. We’d plead ignorance and pretend like this was industry standard, as if all babies sleep like cartoon lambs. Our friends would look at us, varying degrees of loathing on their sunken, tired faces. “What?” they’d ask, or, “How long?”

“Matt Norman, you good-looking bastard, I hate you,” others would say.

To most babies, sleep is a sworn enemy. Throughout the night, you’ll check your baby monitor and find them doing something other than sleeping. Screaming. Thrashing. Tangling their pudgy limps in their sleep sacks and writhing like recently harpooned sea creatures. A friend of mine once reported walking into his daughter’s room at 3 a.m. to find her smoking a cigarette and sipping from a bottle of 5-Hour Energy Drink. “That’s right, daddy, you’re in my world now,” she supposedly said.

But not us. My wife and I were perpetually well-rested, happy even. That’s because our daughter was the mew prototype—an entirely unique version of a human baby, programmed to sleep for long stretches of time, be adorable, and smell like lavender.

However, about two week ago, our lives changed forever. It was a normal evening. I’d put her down in her crib, set her noise machine to “sleep” and headed to the door, back toward independence and relaxation and parental ease. But there was rustling followed by whining, and when I turned around, my 9-month old was standing in her crib clutching the wooden bars like a tiny inmate. Her hair stood crazed on her head.

My emotions were mixed. The fact that she was standing was a revelation. She’d never done that before. But the fact that she was NOT sleeping was frightening. I didn’t know it then, but one chapter had ended, and another had begun.

“Look who’s standing now, daddy,” she said, flashing two small teeth. “I sure hope you’re DVRing that episode of Entourage, cuz you’re in for a long, long night.”

Spa Day

2010-06-14T03:10:00.002+01:00

The first time my wife and I gave our daughter a bath, we had to keep checking the faucet to make sure water was coming out and not hot lava. To say she screamed would be a gross understatement. Between bursts of hysteria, she’d look up, desperate, and plead for us to stop. She’d trusted us…she’d even grown to love us…and now here we were, waterboarding her in the sink like a very small enemy combatant.

For a while, we considered simply giving up. Emotionally speaking, it was just too much seeing her thrash and scream like that every other night. I envisioned her getting older and living with a phobia of bathing. She’d wear her hair in dreadlocks and sell hemp clothing along the highway and complain about the government. Eventually she’d move to Berkeley, California and break her grandparents’ hearts. If we were lucky, she’d maybe let us hose her down in the back yard every few months. The neighbors would just have to get used to it.

The thing about babies, though, is that their feelings—as intense and uncontrollable as they are—change very suddenly. This has certainly been the case regarding bathing. At some point, maybe two months in, it seemed to dawn on her that being gently scrubbed with a loofha sponge four times a week for 15 minutes isn’t such a bad gig after all. She particularly likes the sandlewood-scented, baby-soothing designer shampoo. In fact, she enjoys the entire process so much that I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t becoming a little resentful of her lack of appreciation.

“You know, when I was your age, my mom drank a lot,” I often tell her. “Sometimes she’d leave for days at a time and I’d be forced to bathe myself using only Windex and whatever was left in the dog’s water dish.”

This is only about 25% true, but I think it’s important for infants to keep things in perspective. Sadly though, it doesn’t seem to be working.

This evening, we were giving her a bath in her inflatable baby tub. I was massaging shampoo into her scalp while my wife scrubbed both of her feet individually with a warm wash cloth. All the while, she basically ignored us, focusing instead on a sudsy plastic seahorse. And then, just as I was about to rinse, she set her toy down and gave me a look of complete entitlement. “That’s right, bitches,” she seemed to say. “This is exactly how this should go. Now, which one of you two smiling morons is going to clean my under bits and tell me how adorable I am?”

Hey, Kids, Someday You Can All Be Just Like Me.

2010-05-08T16:18:00.005+01:00

I was recently a guest speaker at Middleborough Elementary School’s Career Fair here in Baltimore. My friend is an assistant principal there, and—against what I can only imagine was her better judgment—she asked me to attend.

My first reaction was to say yes instantly. But as the day grew closer, I found myself overwhelmed with a truly unique, dual anxiety. Superficially speaking, I imagined a scenario not unlike The Lord of the Flies in which the children would rise up against me. But then, more self-loathingly, it began to dawn on me that I am in no way qualified to advise the youth of America on anything even remotely useful.

“Hey, kids, I’ll be honest. If you play your cards right, math is almost entirely useless. Especially if you’re good-looking.”

“Hey, kids, next time your mommy or daddy says anything about something being too big or too hard, I want you to say ‘That’s what she said,’ and then awkwardly walk out of the room.”

“Hey, kids, when you get to high school, you’re gonna hear someone say ‘Beer than liquor, never sicker’, and ‘liquor than beer, never fear.’ I’m here to tell you, that’s mostly bull$hit.”

“Hey, kids. Last night I dared my wife to give a passing bus full of strangers the finger. Can you believe she agreed to married me?”

Clearly, to make this situation work and to help these children, I was going to have to do what adults do best…lie. And so, on that sunny day in the Baltimore suburbs, I put on a nice shirt with a collar, shaved like a genuine adult, and delivered a PowerPoint presentation all about the joys of gainful employment.

But then a funny thing happened. I was going on about how it’s fun to be creative and that reading and writing are skills they’ll be able to use their whole lives, when suddenly I began to actually believe what I was saying. I told them that grammar is important, and so is spelling. I told them that writing is not only an expression of yourself, but a way to inform and persuade. The movies you love. The books you love. The shows on TV—even the commercials. Those are all written by writers, like me!

Believe it or not, the kids weren’t sharpening their pencils into prison knives or painting their faces with the blood of the weak among them like I suspected they would. They were actually listening to me! Some of them were even smiling and nodding as I spoke. It was obvious: I was making a difference. Their lives were changing. Each of them would go home and demand to be taken to Barnes & Noble to buy the books that would shape their imaginations forever.

When I was done with my presentation, I thanked them for having me…and I meant it. “Does anyone have any questions?” I asked.

A little girl’s arm shot up immediately. She was smiling. She wore a t-shirt with a dinosaur across the chest. I was sure she was going to ask me for a book recommendation, or perhaps for some advice on how she could get started at becoming a writer.

“Yes,” I said.

“Umm, hi,” she said. “Do you have a dog?”

The Rules

2010-04-02T02:55:00.003+01:00

I put my daughter to bed tonight. I’ve gotten pretty good at this over the last six months. For about 60 seconds she protested, fists clenched, convinced that something awesome was going on downstairs that she simply couldn’t miss. But then she turned over onto her side and passed out into a 13-pound heap of hopeless exhaustion. To the parent of a young child, this constitutes a small victory—the equivalent of winning a moderately complex argument over a narrow-minded relative at Thanksgiving.

When I returned to the kitchen, I found my wife standing at the counter. She was busy using our blender to grind peas into ectoplasm. She was preparing future meals for the baby. Apparently green slime is good for their developing brains.

It’s stuffy in our house at the moment, but it’s too early in the season for the air conditioner, so I opened the fridge to grab a cold soda. Sadly, there were none. My Diet Dr. Peppers were gone, and so, too, were her Diet Pepsis.

“Shit,” I said. The baby was asleep, so casual swearing was permitted again.

My wife knew exactly what I was talking about. She’d made the same discovery a few minutes ago. There was a time when we used to react like this only when all of the alcohol was gone. Those were simpler times.

“So,” she said. “Since I’m doing this, maybe you could walk down to CVS and get some sodas.”

She’s a smart girl, my wife, and I had to tip my cap at the “since I’m doing this.” I’m not sure what I would have done with the next 30 minutes, but I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t have been as socially significant as blending organic vegetables for our first born. “I’ll be right back,” I said.

The bars begin about a block from our house, and there were 20-somethings everywhere. Some of them were in intramural sports uniforms. Others looked like they were trapped in one of those happy hours that just keeps going and going. The “Humpty Dance” was coming from a bar called Mothers on Charles St. Some dude was trying to parallel park a yellow Humvee.

There was a girl in front of me walking alone in a pair of loud flip-flops. We were the only two people for about a fifty-yard stretch of pavement, and so I cleared my throat and tried to step a little heavier than necessary. Baltimore can be a rough city, and so whenever I’m approaching a girl from behind on the street, I like to let her know that I’m there and, hopefully, that I’m not about to hit her over the head with a tire iron and steal her iPod. She didn’t seem to notice me, though.

When I was maybe ten feet behind her, she stopped suddenly. With a grace that only females can manage, she removed her loud flip flops, shoved them into her purse and stepped into a pair of absurdly high, zebra-print heels. She’d been short a second ago, and now we were nearly the same height. She took a few steps and groaned, limping a little before catching her stride. Her shoes sounded like bricks on the sidewalk.

As I went to pass her, she turned my way. I was looking at her shoes, of course; they were a striking addition to an otherwise sensible pair of jeans and a black shirt. I expected her to be young, just another kid right out of college meeting some friends for drinks. But she wasn’t. She wore a lot of makeup, and she was pretty, but she was about my age, and, like me, she looked kind of tired.

I never know exactly how to handle eye contact with strangers, particularly female strangers, and so I just smiled stupidly.

“They hurt,” she said, sighing and smiling at the same time. “But, I don’t make the rules.” And then she turned right, and I kept going straight, walking toward my sodas.

thenormannation@gmail.com

The Greatest Name in the History of Human Civilization

2010-03-26T22:47:00.002Z

Today at the office I was making miracles happen and giving 110% like I always do on Fridays. But then, around 2 p.m., my wife e-mailed me and informed me that she’d just dealt with a woman by the name of Kitty Vroom. As you can imagine, this ended my productivity for a while.

I’ve been alive for a long time now, and I’ve come across some memorable names. I once met a woman shortly after college named Candy Balls. There’s also an urban legend out there about a Major in the United States Army named Richard Head who goes by Major Dick Head. But no name thus far has been as jaw-droppingly awesome as Kitty Vroom. In fact, Vroom itself is so awesome that Kitty, frankly, seems almost unnecessary—self indulgent even.

I don’t know Ms. Vroom, and I doubt I ever will, but I’m almost certain that she’s not taking full advantage of the awesomeness that is her surname. My whole life I’ve been burdened with the blandness of Norman. Norman is like a pair of old khaki pants or an accountant: necessary, generally speaking, but pretty forgettable and kind of dead inside. Does Kitty know that there are people out there—good-looking people with fantastic hair and world-famous blogs—who would literally pay a million dollars to have been born with the last name Vroom? I doubt it.

Here’s just a sampling of some of the things I’d be able to say if my name was Matthew Vroom.

“Good evening, ladies. I’m Matthew Vroom. How about we get rid of all these silly clothes and go take a ride in my Lamborghini?”

“Hi, Matthew Vroom here. I’m a stuntman/torso model mostly, but I also do some tiger wrestling.”

“Well, officer, my name is Matthew Vroom. I think we can both agree that this scenario was inevitable.”

I would never again simply enter a room. People with normal names enter rooms. Instead, I’d somersault into rooms. I'd attach a small radio to my clothing that played “Unskinny Bop” by Poison on a 24-hour loop. I'd wear a crash helmet all the time, even while showering. It’d be a necessity, really. I mean, with a name like Matthew Vroom, who knows what kind of shit would go down? I'd have leather pants, obviously. If ever I was in a waiting room and someone said, “Is Matthew Vroom here?,” I’d stand up and say “F*ck yeah, Matthew Vroom is here.” And then I’d make everyone in the building give me a knuckle bump. I would wear shiny shirts and those suckers would be one size too small. I’d constantly interrupt people while they were talking and say, “Matthew Vroom is getting bored,” and then I’d slap the ass of the closest female and do the running man out of the room.

In short, I would be the most awesome human being on earth. What about you, The Norman Nation? What would you do if you your last name was Vroom?

thenormannation@gmail.com

You Seriously Can't Take That Dude Anywhere.

2010-03-17T01:02:00.004Z

My wife, daughter and I recently went out of town to a big cabin with a group of friends for a long weekend. One of the attendees was a guy named Joey. Another attendee was a dog named Joey. As you can imagine, this made for a number of confusing moments.

The hilarity began subtly when someone asked, "Hey, is Joey allowed on the furniture?" Someone else had the presence of mind to yell, "Hell no, he isn't!" For some reason, the idea of my friend Joey being banished to the floor was extremely funny, especially after a few drinks. I imagined him curled up next to the coffee table, a put-upon look on his face. "Seriously guys, this isn't funny," he'd say.

Things went down hill quickly from there. Joey the dog--a friendly, well-behaved Golden Retriever--did what dogs inevitably do outside. Moments later, someone said, "Oh no, Joey just crapped on the deck!" Again, imagery was the comedic engine here. Joey, sunken and ashamed, hiding while his wife cleaned his unGodly mess with a plastic bag.

"Can Joey eat cheese? Do you let Joey sleep on the bed? Joey's drinking out of the hot tub again. I guess that's better than the toilet. Look, Joey's rolling around in the snow. Joey's afraid of the vacuum cleaner. Joey's getting over-stimulated" And, triumphantly, "Joey ate the hot dog penis off that snowman!"

Like a child, I laughed at all of these comments. Others did, too, because that's what people do on long weekends, they laugh at things until they spit their beers out and have to lie down. By Sunday morning, though, the joke was close to being played out and I was hungover. Not morbidly hungover, but just enough to be intellectually dulled around the edges. Nobody had made a Joey joke in a while; we were on to other things, I guess.

When I finished packing, I came downstairs and joined my wife at the kitchen table. She was feeding our baby. "What's up, ladies?" I asked. The baby had food in her hair. There's almost always something in her hair. Comparatively speaking, food's not all that bad.

"So, guess what," my wife said.

"Hmm?"

"Joey just licked a glob of peas off of Caroline's face."

For about ten seconds I was utterly confused. I looked at my friend Joey; he was eating a bagel and fiddling with his cell phone in the kitchen.

"Umm, wait . . . what?"

My Opinion is the Best Opinion of All of the Opinions.

2010-02-27T21:15:00.009Z

Yesterday I noticed that we were all out of Diet Dr. Pepper. So, begrudgingly, I took one of my wife's Diet Pepsis. Two sips in, I was ready to spit it out onto the kitchen floor in disgust and rage.

"How can that silly girl drink this?" I asked my dog. "Doesn't she know that Diet Dr. Pepper exists, therefore rending this swill unnecessary?" As is typical of my dog, because he's not very smart, he had no response. But as I stood there, I started thinking about the nature of opinions. More specifically, my opinions. My conclusions were depressing, and they ranged far beyond the realm of diet soda.

Jay Leno is about as funny, in my opinion, as a box of stale Nilla Wafers. Yet he's about to retake The Tonight Show while Conan O'Brien remains (although very rich) unemployed.

I have written two unpublished novels. A dozen or so of my friends from grad school--hopeless books nerds like me who have studied writing their whole lives--have written more unpublished novels and stories than I can keep track of. However, Lauren Conrad from The Hills has published two novels, both of which were bestsellers. Nicole Richie has also published a book. As have Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt. Their books have been described as "very entertaining."

The sound of Sarah Palin's voice makes me long for the sweet, sweet relief of deafness. However, there's a big chunk of white people in the South and Midwest who regard her the way teenaged girls regarded The Beatles circa 1961. People camped out to attend her book-signings. I saw one women crying on the news. She was standing next to a man who wore a T-shirt with a picture of Obama on it. Obama had a Hitler mustache.

I think my gay friends--pleasant guys who pay their taxes and go to work like everyone else--should be able to get married or do whatever it is that I can do. A lot of people--the majority of the country, no less--have a real problem with that. Most politicians claim to have a problem with it, too. Even the ones who really don't.

For a long time I've spent a great deal of energy telling myself how right I am. But what if I'm not? What if all that energy has been spent being wrong? What if Diet Dr. Pepper really ISN'T better than Diet Pepsi?

That's right, homies. The Norman Nation gets political. Don't worry, I'll get back to blogs about baby poop and Natalie Portman next week.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Matt Norman, Reclusive Genius

2010-02-20T17:22:00.004Z

Lately, people have been e-mailing me and saying, "What's the deal, Matt Norman? Why haven't you been blogging? Haven't you been watching the news? Don't you know that this country is in turmoil? Don't leave us now. We need you too much! By the way, those new jeans are fantastic. They make your backyard look like two scoops of ice cream."

My reply is always the same. "Don't make me put you in my junk folder, Natalie Portman. And will you please stop harassing my wife at the grocery store?"

The truth is, though, Natalie is right. Lately, my blogging has become far less frequent. Many of you might think that it's because of all of my charity work, or perhaps the stresses of fatherhood and employment have taken there toll. Well, I'm here to tell you that my hiatus has been completely intentional.

You see, several weeks ago, when famed author J.D. Salinger passed away, I started thinking about literary fame. Salinger wrote some pretty awesome things like 50 years ago, and then vanished from the face of the earth. One would assume that not publishing a word and living like the Uni-Bomber would be bad for a writer's career. Well, not so with Salinger. In fact, it helped him to become a legend, uniting book nerds and lunatics everywhere.

So, in a nutshell, here's my plan. Don't write, stop following society's basic principles regarding hygiene, and then begin cashing enormous checks and being famous. For those of you who are saddened by this, well, I don't blame you. My advice, though, is that you dig up some of the older blogs on my blog, read them over and over again, and obsess over what it is that they could possibly mean.

I should be going now. I have a manifesto to write and then bury in my backyard where the robots won't be able to find it. Holla!

thenormannation@gmail.com

Thoughts on Throwing Up

2010-01-23T19:02:00.002Z

This past Monday here in the United States was Martin Luther King Day. While my previous employer, The Death Star, refused to acknowledge the day’s significance and insisted on continuing to wreak pain and suffering on all things good and innocent, my current employer gave everyone the day off.

A day off when you have an infant is an unusual thing, certainly when compared to your days off pre-baby. In years past, I might have slept in, watched Regis & Kelly, and then wandered aimlessly around a shopping mall in search of crap I didn’t need. This year though, I pretty much spent the day staring at my daughter. She’s too young to be creeped out by this, and so, for the most part, she just stared back.

Around noon or so, when things were going so well, my daughter suddenly and completely without warning threw up all over herself, the couch, and me. It was the same bubbly, skim-milk-colored mess I’ve gotten used to these past few months—gross, but harmless.

“Oh, yyyyyuck,” I said. I’ve gotten better at not swearing in front of her.

Her response was two-fold. First, she got this stunned, wide-eyed look on her face, the look one might have right after witnessing a minor car accident. And then, with spit-up covering her chin and hanging from her little face . . . she laughed.

A few minutes later, as I hosed the room down, I got to thinking. I went to a state university, I didn’t have a particularly difficult major, and I didn’t marry until my 30s, and so I have some experience with vomiting. Over the years, I have done a number of things immediately after getting sick. One time I cried. One time I threw half a slice of pizza at some guy with a goatee. One time I tripped over a nine iron and fell into some shrubs. But I can assure you that I have never once laughed. I don’t think I’ve ever even come close to laughing.

You see, for most of us, throwing up is an evening-ruiner. It’s the manifestation of a series of bad decisions all coming back suddenly to haunt us and to make us feel shame and re-evaluate our own lives. But for babies . . . well, God bless them . . . it’s all good.

Man Love

2010-01-12T01:54:00.005Z

People who know me know that I am nothing if not masculine. Good with a welding torch, skilled at the art of hand-to-hand combat, rugged in a "he totally doesn't even use moisturizer" kind of way, it's as if Mel Gibson in Braveheart hooked up with a Ford F-150 Super Cab Pick-Up and gave birth to a little ass-kicking Matt Norman baby.

Knowing all this about me, my friend Ryan sent me a link to a Web site today that I can only describe as awesome. In fact, I would like to go on record as officially declaring it to be the best non-sports-or-pornography-related Web site that I have seen in the last 24 hours. It is called Art of Manliness.

Finally, there is a Web site that has the guts--yeah, that's right, guts--to explore the inner workings of masculinity. Homoerotic? No. An elaborate overcompensation for many, many shortcomings both physical and emotional? Not hardly, ladies. It's just a Web site about dudes and how we do what we do, and it should be studied like scripture. Sexy scripture.

Have a look, and behold the awesomeness of man.

Hope everyone is having a great 2010!

thenormannation@gmail.com

Goodbye, Decade.

2009-12-31T01:41:00.004Z

Last year when I applied for my blogging license from the American Blog Writing Federation in Washington, DC, I was told that there are two rules to blogging. 1. You must possess an unhealthy, overblown sense of your own self-importance. (Umm . . . check.) And, 2. at the end of any significant period of time, you are required to formulate an arbitrary, wholly subjective list of that period’s best things.

I didn’t see every movie of the decade. Nor did I read every book or buy every album. However, I did consume a lot of those things, and so I have as much authority as any random moron you might see roaming the street yelling at traffic. So, here are my favorites of the last ten years, in no particular order. You’ll note that I’ve listed eleven books instead of ten. I couldn’t help myself, so deal with it.

Movies
The Royal Tenenbaums
No Country for Old Men
Juno

The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Little Miss Sunshine
25th Hour
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Hangover
Sideways
Lost in Translation

Music
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot--Wilco
Kid A--Radiohead
All That You Can't Leave Behind--U2
Aha Shake Heartbreak--Kings of Leon
Funeral--Arcade Fire
Hot Fuss--Killers
Gimme Fiction--Spoon
Rush of Blood to the Head--Coldplay
Fleet Foxes--Fleet Foxes
Vampire Weekend--Vampire Weekend

Books
Feast of Love--Charles Baxter
The Road--Cormac McCarthy
The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay--Michael Chabon
Empire Falls--Richard Russo
The Human Stain--Philip Roth
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close--Jonathan Safron Foer
The Corrections--Jonathan Franzen
Me Talk Pretty One Day--David Sedaris
Disgrace--JM Coetzee
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time--Mark Haddon.
On Beauty--Zadie Smith

What do you think? Am I a sexy idiot with great hair? Am I a misunderstood, sexy genius with cheekbones like those of a cartoon super hero? Do you have a better list? Are you not wearing pants? Feel free to comment below using the official The Norman Nation Comment Box.

Happy New Year.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Microblog: From One Generation to the Next

2009-12-22T22:45:00.002Z

The first few weeks of her life, my daughter looked like no one in particular. She was adorable, of course, but indistinct, like a drawing of someone who doesn’t really exist. Frankly, she could have been the child of any two random, super-sexy white people on earth.

Recently though, with each passing day, she’s beginning to look more and more like someone who could belong to no one but us. It’s easy to point to a nose or an earlobe and claim origin, but it goes beyond that to the point where I now recognize specific expressions and temperaments.

Like my wife, my daughter looks very serious when she’s concentrating. Whether she’s staring at her stuffed giraffe or her own shriveled hand, she appears always to be doing long division. And, also like my wife, she is prone to making a loud public spectacle of herself when she hasn’t eaten for a while.

I’m proud to say that I see a lot of myself there, too. For example, my daughter enjoys being fed by hand, and, like me, she often gets weepy when she’s trying to go to the bathroom.

Seasons Greetings from The Norman Nation.

thenormannation@blogspot.com

Give the Gift of Matt Norman

2009-12-16T22:21:00.002Z

People are always saying to me, “Wow, Matt Norman, 101 followers! Your blog is a runaway freight train of success. And your arms look great lately, too. Have you been taking supplements?” And my response is always the same: “Seriously, Natalie Portman. You have 10 seconds to get out of my garage or I’m unleashing my matching Dobermans.”

You see, normally I don’t pay any attention to how many followers I have. Like my charity work, The Norman Nation is selfless; it’s something I do simply to make the world a better place. But Natalie, before the police took her away, got me thinking. I have to admit it, achieving and surpassing 100 followers is pretty nice, and it’s definitely gone a long way toward filling the many, many voids that I so desperately try to fill with harmful, often illegal substances.

For example, did you know that my mother and father refused to hold me until I was 15 years old? And even then they did so with little enthusiasm. Just wait until my soon-to-be-published autobiography hits the shelves this Spring. It is tentatively titled Why Won’t You Hold Me, Mummy and Pop-Pop: The Matt Norman Story.

With more than 100 followers, it’s safe to say that The Norman Nation is finally legitimate, and so I’d like to officially give all of you permission to use it to brighten some lives this holiday season. If you find yourself stumped for a good last-minute holiday gift for the highly literate yet socially inept friend on your list, forward them a link to my site. The Norman Nation is truly the gift that keeps on giving. And best of all, it’s free.

A free gift with little-to-no tangible value?! Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And he’s been drinking again.

Special thanks to my 100th and 101st followers, Kaitlyn Burke and Catherine Newberry. I don’t know either of you, but let me take this opportunity to pre-emptively apologize for wasting so much of your time.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Microblog: A Study in Maturity

2009-12-11T01:18:00.004Z

Now that I have a job and a baby and a new lease on sobriety, keeping up with my world-famous blog, The Norman Nation, has been difficult. That's why I've decided to introduce microblogs.

Don't worry, they'll still be sexy and 110% Matt Norman, they'll just contain fewer words. You see, I'm not really a math person, but the equation is, according to my assistant Candi, very easy to follow: Matt Norman + Fewer Words = Less Effort. Who can argue with that?

So here goes . . .

The other night after work, I was entertaining my daughter with a series of hilarious farty noises. What was a normal, completely harmless family moment was suddenly turned upside down when my wife entered the room holding a plate of reheated lasagna.

"Can you stick your finger inside this and tell me if it's warm enough?" she said.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime. A better man would have gone with the obvious "That's what she said." A suaver, more European-sounding man, perhaps, may have chosen, "Well, thanks, I'd love to." But I am not better. Nor am I suave. And so, of course, I just giggled for an hour and 45 minutes.

Adulthood. Good times.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Funny Sad

2009-12-08T04:55:00.001Z

A few years ago, my friend Brett got married in the Florida Keys. My wife, who was my fiancé at the time, had a wedding in New York City the same weekend, so I was solo. Two of my friends were alone as well. There was Brad. His wife wasn’t there; I can’t remember exactly why. And then there was my buddy Neal—always the bachelor.

When seating charts were being made, Brett and his soon-to-be wife wisely kept the three of us away from the decent people. Sunburned and womanless, we sat together at a table toward the back. The previous night had been a long one, and we spent most of the first course talking about how hung over we were.

At some point, it dawned on us that a guy with a hang over behaves, generally speaking, a lot like a girl who’s on her period. Bloated, moody, unnecessarily hungry, a little weepy—the comparison was and remains solid. And that’s when one of us—I honestly don’t remember who—coined the phrase “Beer-iod,” as in, “Matt’s on his beer-iod, so he’s lying on the couch and eating Doritos today.”

The three of us laughed like children for an hour straight. For the next three days, whenever a guy would look sluggish, or if he’d complain about something silly, like the humidity, we’d ask him if he was on his beer-iod, and this would lead to more giggling. We were convinced that the term would catch on and become a national phenomenon and that we’d have our own sitcom on NBC within a year. “It can’t miss,” declared Neal, drink in hand. “It’s comic genius.”

We lost my friend Neal last week. And when I say “we,” I mean it—the people like me who knew him, and the people who would have eventually known him. I feel bad for those people, because they really missed out. He was kind and smart and gentle and funny and he would have made a wonderful husband some day, and a wonderful father.

I have hundreds of memories of Neal; I’ve been going over them for a week now. But my favorite has got to be our asinine Beer-iod Revelation. Neal had many, many friends, and he shared a lot of jokes with a lot of people. But “Beer-iod,” well—as idiotic and short-lived as it was—it was our thing. Mine, Brad’s and Neal’s.

My friend . . . you will be missed.

Aged to Lack of Perfection

2009-12-01T01:52:00.002Z

The wife and I went to the mall the other day. If a trip to Banana Republic can be significant, this one was. It was our daughter’s first time out among strangers.

Things were going fairly well. No one had jumped out of a fountain and kidnapped her, and we’d managed not to drop her on her head. Those were, for reasons I don’t understand, my two biggest fears. I’d just finished trying on some pretty awesome jeans, and the wife had picked out two new sweaters. I’m fairly certain we didn’t need any of these things, but we were celebrating. She was able to fit into normal clothes again, and I . . . well, I have a weakness for distressed denim.

I heard the noise from the stroller before my wife did, and I laughed like a child, because that’s what men of my generation do when we hear bathroom sounds. The smell that followed was impressive to say the least, and it filled the Women’s Department like one of those noxious chemicals characters on 24 are always unleashing in crowds.

From beneath her blanket, my daughter looked out at the chaos she’d created, indifferent, a little bored. “That’s how I do what I do, ya’ll,” she seemed to be saying. As her father, I was proud.

Frazzled, my wife snatched up the baby and headed for wherever it is that people change diapers in malls. I was instructed to pay for our stuff and meet her by the pretzel stand. Shortly thereafter, I realized that a guy with an empty stroller and a handful of women’s clothing gets a lot of attention. “Where’d your baby go?” asked the clerk, smiling. She was pleasant looking, my age, give or take.

“I sent her on a Starbucks run,” I said. “Daddy needs a chai tea latte, stat.”

My whole life I’ve been cursed with an inflection-less voice, and so I sound serious even when I’m saying absurd things. This makes for a lot of awkward silences. When I handed her my credit card, she asked to see my ID. Normally, this process doesn’t end in me feeling bad about myself, but this was a day of first.

“Wow, when was that picture taken?” the woman asked.

I looked down at the tiny image of myself in my hand. My hair was a little longer. I was clean shaven, grinning stupidly like people do in drivers license photos. “Um,” I said. “Like, two years ago.”

Speaking of awkward silences, the clerk’s expression changed. She started to say something, and then stopped. She did this two or three more times. Finally, she managed a complete sentence. “Oh. Well, fatherhood has . . . matured you,” she said.

Next stop, Men’s Cosmetics. Daddy needs some eye cream, stat.

Mouse House

2009-11-21T23:52:00.002Z

The other morning, I came downstairs into the kitchen to make breakfast. When I flipped on the overhead light, there was a mouse standing next to the oven. For what seemed like five unbroken minutes, we stared at each other. He was busted, and he knew it. But he also knew that my days of being able to catch any animal faster than a Basset Hound were long over.

Recently, I’d begun to suspect that we might have mice. There seemed to be a constant rustling coming from the kitchen. There were frequent flashes of gray at the corners of my eyes. And, of course, there were tiny little turds in places where turds shouldn’t be. I’d managed to bury this in the back of my mind, but then there it was: undeniable proof.

“Dude,” I whispered. “Go away.”

Eventually, in no particular hurry, he disappeared beneath our refrigerator. I felt an overwhelming sense of dread.

Back in my childless bachelor days, I lived in a tiny apartment in Arlington, Virginia. Every winter, a family of mice would move in. I essentially gave them the run of the place, and they lived happily on Dorito crumbs and the heels of my bread. It would be easy to assume that this agreement I had with the mice—to live in harmony—was based on laziness. But it wasn’t.

Most guys wouldn’t have a problem killing mice—or, at the very least, overseeing their deaths. Clearly, though, I am not most guys. I look like one, I suppose. I can grow facial hair surprisingly fast, and I wear lots of sports-themed clothing. But, emotionally speaking, I’m pretty much a pear-shaped 14-year-old girl with braces who wants to grow up to be a veterinarian.

Mice are adorable, defenseless creatures. In movies for children, they often wear scarves and drive small motor bikes. But, they’re also rodents. And rodents carry germs, and they crap everywhere, indiscriminately. I am no longer a childless bachelor, and I’m married to a person who feels that the words “rodent-infested” are not words commonly used to describe an ideal home for a baby. Maybe she has a point.

This afternoon, a nice man named Mike came to the house. My wife was wise enough to call in a professional. My skills are mostly grammar-related. Mike set up a series of sinister little guillotines around the house and loaded them up with bait that he assured me “the little bastards can’t resist.”

And so I wait. At some point, probably tonight, there will be a snap from the cupboard, or, perhaps, from beneath the oven. The sound of adulthood.

thenormannation@blogspot.com

Is This Funny?

2009-11-16T03:02:00.003Z

The other day, my friend Ryan told me a joke. Well, he wrote it, actually, over e-mail. This is how jokes are told in the year 2009: virtually, from one cubical to another.

I immediately loved the joke. It was simple, perfectly clean, and absolutely absurd. I’m happy to announce that it is officially among my favorite jokes of all time. It dawns on me now, though, days later, that it might be one of those jokes that only people like Ryan and me enjoy.

I’ve developed a scene in my head. My friend Ryan is at a dinner party. He’s drinking a martini and wearing a sport jacket and talking to a bunch of good-looking people he hardly knows. He delivers his joke and then smiles, only to be met with bland stares and soul-crushing silence. “Security,” says the host, and Ryan is whisked away and beaten mercilessly by goons.

A side note here: Many of the scenes I develop in my head end with my friend Ryan being pummeled by goons. One in particular takes place in a karaoke bar in Virginia that plays only country music. Ryan is wearing a purple cowboy hat and twirling a lasso. But I digress.

The simple fact that you are reading this blog instead of doing something even a little bit constructive is proof that you are among an ultra-select group of awesome people who have their fingers placed firmly on the pulse of modern-day humor. And so I turn it over to you, my nearly 97 followers around the world. Is this joke funny?

A cow climbs up a pine tree. A squirrel in the pine tree says, “What are you doing up here?” And the cow says, “Oh, I thought I’d climb up here and eat some apples.” The squirrel says, “Apples? But this is a pine tree.” And the cow says, “That’s okay, I brought my own apples.”

Please comment with your opinion. Funny or not funny? If you say "not funny," I invite you to share a joke that you like better.

The Norman Nation. It’s not just sexy. It’s interactive.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Bathroom Humor

2009-11-09T01:06:00.001Z

This week, my daughter will be one month old. I think we can all agree: comically speaking, that’s pretty young. However, I’m proud to report that she has already developed a healthy, if not entirely sophisticated, sense of humor.

Her favorite joke, one she performs three to four times a day, is to go to the bathroom on me while I’m changing her diaper. Those of you who don’t have children might doubt whether or not an infant has enough going on cognitively to pull something like that off. In response, allow me to pose a question, one that I believe was posed before me by Shakespeare. If you spent 23 hours and 55 minutes a day sitting on the toilet, how would you spend those five minutes of freedom? Would you spend them going to the bathroom?

I think she knows exactly what she’s doing.

The scene is almost always the same. I place her carefully on one of several changing mats. Sometimes she looks up at me. Sometimes she looks off over my shoulder into whatever space it is that babies stare. Her expression is innocence personified, but behind those eyes she’s scheming. Her father is no genius; she knows this. He’s perpetually tired, and his reflexes have been dulled by 15 years of binge drinking and attending rock concerts.

Things begin smoothly. The diaper comes off, its contents are inspected and discussed in vivid detail, and then it is deposited into a Star Wars-looking robot machine that cost as much as my first car. I lift her up by the ankles like one might a chicken that has escaped and make a few passes at her nether regions with a baby wipe.

This is where things often go tragically wrong.

In the three seconds it takes me to grab a new diaper, she prepares herself—readying the cannons and getting into attack position. When I lift her again to put things back together, she opens fire. Often the number is one. That’s not so bad. Sometimes the number is two. I’ve learned to live with this. But, more often than not, the number is unidentifiable—it’s caught somewhere in the middle, it is its own number entirely. This involves the washing machine—immediately—and then a few moments of gentle, masculine weeping.

You win again, baby. You always do.

Street Theater

2009-11-02T01:19:00.004Z

Last night was the first Halloween night since I was 18 in which I have been neither drunk nor dressed as some sort of an idiot. When you live in a city like Baltimore, clarity of mind often affords you a front row seat to some pretty funny $hit.

It was maybe 2 a.m., and I was awake, lying in bed, thinking about whatever it is that people think about at that time of night: stuff that might make a cool screenplay . . . things I should have said to bullies when I was 12 . . . whether or not I’m the sort of guy who can pull off a soul patch. I kind of think that I might be.

On weekend nights, our street is, essentially, a drunken pedestrian highway leading away from the bars. And so, through the bedroom window, I heard lots of drunk girls laughing, and I heard the clomping of the shoes they’d chosen hours ago but were now regretting. I heard lots of guys, too. They were mostly shouting and pushing each other into parked cars. One group talked about how awesome it’d be to smash my neighbor’s pumpkins. This led to a loud argument about Billy Corgan and whether or not he sucks.

Among all this noise, however, a simple exchange between two passing males has stuck with me all day today. They were drunk, but not aggressively so, and they didn’t seem to be in any sort of hurry. One said to the other:

“And so I told that crazy bitch; I said, bitch, you get out of my house or I’ll have my mom throw you out!”

Suddenly, I was wide awake.

“What did he say?” I said, not out loud of course, but to myself, all inner-monologue-y. If Baltimore were a different kind of city, and if I were a different kind of person, I’d have leapt from my bed, thrown on whatever clothes were nearest and chased them down Charles Street.

“Guys!” I’d have yelled. “Hold up. I need some more information about what you just said.”

There’s a good chance that at that point they would have, out of reflex, simply bludgeoned me. But, assuming the best-case scenario here, I’d have asked. “What is it that makes that bitch so crazy? Does she live with you and your mom? And, why do you need your mother to throw her out for you? Seriously, dude, what kind of women have you surrounded yourself with?”

Sadly though, I stayed there in bed, and within seconds their voices and their footsteps were gone. And now I’m left to fiddle obsessively with this domestic Rubik’s cube. There’s a scene in my mind in which a middle aged woman with a perm throws a screaming 22-year-old girl with a tongue ring out onto the sidewalk. In my mind, there’s a small dog barking incessantly, and everyone is smoking. “Get out of here, you crazy bitch!” she’s screaming. Somewhere, in the distance, there are police sirens.

Baltimore, Maryland. Charm City.

thenormannation@gmail.com

World’s Greatest Dad

2009-10-27T02:39:00.002Z

When I was younger—back when fatherhood was, at best, an abstract concept—I always promised myself that when my time came, I wouldn’t be one of those glassy eyed dads who can talk about nothing other than his adorable children.

Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t planning on being The Great Santini or anything. I’d like my kids. I’d read to them and teach them about not touching burners and how much better dogs are than cats, but when push came to shove, I’d still be able to say something witty about politics. I’d be able to read books and keep up with what cool people are wearing and live a life that was at least similar to my pre-child days.

Well, it’s been fourteen days since the little one arrived, and I am currently an unrecognizable shell of the person I once was. The novel I’m trying to get off the ground has sat dormant; my thus-far poorly developed characters are floating in suspended animation, waiting to be told what to do. I can’t even remember their names. My house looks like a Babies R Us threw up in it. I have no idea what’s going on with the healthcare bill. A public option? Huh? Cap and trade? What is that again?

Strangely though, I find none of this even a little bit troubling. It’s like that movie, the one with Nicole Kidman about the body-snatching aliens. Halfway through, the people who had their body snatched are kind of like, “you know, this isn’t so bad after all.” My daughter is sitting next to me. Fast asleep, she’s wearing a pink onesy and she’s sitting in a little vibrating chair. Every few minutes, for no reason that I can identify, she flings her blanket open and tosses her arms up in the air. She’s a miniature referee. She’s calling touchdowns in a game that no longer interests her.

Is this who I am now? Am I going to start wearing sweatpants in to the grocery store? Am I going to hear single people at work discussing a big movie that just opened and not know what the hell they’re talking about? Am I going to start complaining that Letterman comes on too late or that the neighbors make too much noise coming home from the bars on Thursday nights? Is the youngish, socially interested quasi man of the arts dead? Is he gone forever?

Oh well. Let’s be honest. I doubt if the world will miss him all that much. Frankly, he was getting to be a little smug for his own good. And all that business about Natalie Portman being in love with him. What was he, twelve?

Day Baby vs. Night Baby: A Case Study

2009-10-19T00:26:00.002+01:00

People are always saying to me, “Matt Norman, I hear you’re a daddy now. I sure wish you were my daddy.” My response is always the same: “Seriously, Natalie Portman, that’s the creepiest thing you’ve ever said to me. Now how did you get past my security system?”

But, as usual, Natty P. speaks the truth. I am, indeed, officially responsible for another human life.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that “This Guy” believes in giving 110% -- 115% if the humidity is low. Therefore, in just a few short days, I have pretty much become an expert at both parenthood and baby psychology.

“An expert, Matt Norman?” you say, with doubt in your voice, furrowing your brow.

That’s right, reader, an expert. And I really don’t appreciate your tone, by the way.

You see, for those of you who haven’t had a baby, you might not know that every newborn is actually two separate, very distinct entities. Henceforth, I shall refer to those entities as Day Baby and Night Baby.

Day Baby
Day Baby is so mind-numblingly cute that you’ll hardly be able to deal with it. She will sleep like a cartoon panda all day long. “Oh my God, you are so freaking cute,” you will be heard saying, loudly, over and over again, amazed that your DNA was able to contribute to such profound adorableness. Occasionally she’ll open her eyes, and, for the briefest of moments, she’ll look at you, and although she won’t smile, you’ll see that she understands who you are. She’ll sneeze and you’ll nearly burst into tears. She’s stretch her arms or hiccup and you’ll wonder why you waited so long to have a baby in the first place. “What have I been doing for 32 years?” you’ll ask. “I’ve wasted so much time. I’m going to quit my job so I can stare at her all day. I need to have more. Seriously, like right now. Where can I get a dozen of them? The Internet?”

Night Baby
Metaphorically speaking, Night Baby is a sophisticated robot sent from the future to crush your soul. She will cry so loudly that you’ll check her diaper for broken glass. She will squirm and she’ll wail, and it won’t let up, regardless of what the clock says, because the clock is something you invented, and it means nothing to her whatsoever. You’ll do the things you learned in the baby books that your friends gave you, the shushing and the swaddling and the swaying, but they won’t help at all. In fact, they will somehow make her tiny, fist-clenched rage worse. She’ll be a seven-pound monster in pink jammies, feeding off of your exhaustion. “Why are you doing this to me, baby?” you’ll ask, pleading now, begging for an answer. “Don’t you even care that I bought you all this stuff? I had my whole life ahead of me, and now you’ve ruined it! I could have been a professional dancer or . . . something.” And then, you, too, will be crying. Really crying, not like the crying you did that one time when you accidentally watched The Notebook on HBO a few years ago when you were hung over. “My God, my God,” you will say, yelling at the ceiling, “why have you forsaken me?”

But then the sun will come up. Because the sun always does, no matter what. You’ll comb your hair and you’ll take a shower. You’ll have some caffeine and you’ll brush your teeth and . . . “Oh my God, look at her little feet! They’re so tiny. I need to take a picture of her with my iPhone and send it to everyone I know. Her head smells like flowers! Did she smile at me? Seriously, I think she smiled at me!”

thenormannation@gmail.com

The Reversal

2009-10-08T04:00:00.004+01:00

For most of 2009, I’ve been a drain on society and, more importantly, my wife. A sexy drain, one with hair that can only be described as angelic, but, a drain nonetheless. Every morning, she would go off to work and I would wander unshaven around the house watching daytime television and having long conversations with the dog.

Recently though, something truly unexpected happened. Two things, actually. One, I got a job. And two, she went on bed rest.

Most men—better men—would be supportive in a situation like ours. I, however, have handled it smugly and with a great deal of sarcasm. This morning, which was my third day of work, my alarm went off and I made a big show of turning it off and climbing out of bed. I was playing the part of a beleaguered breadwinner, weary from many, many years of working for the man.

“Wow,” I said. “It sure is early.”

I could tell my wife was awake, but she was choosing not to acknowledge me. This is her right, I suppose. It should be noted, though, that when I wasn’t working, I at least pretended to wake up when she did. I would even smile, occasionally.

“I tell you what, baby,” I continued, flipping on my reading light. “I’m gonna go for a quick run, then I’m gonna take a shower. After that I’ll eat a light breakfast, then I’m gonna go to my job—the place where I work—for like nine hours or so.”

She sighed, shuffling a little. People do this, I’ve found, when pretending to sleep.

“What are you gonna do?” I asked. “Oh, that’s right; I forgot. You’re gonna lay around in your pajamas all day. Well, say hi to Judge Judy for me. I’ve got some bacon to bring home.”

I turned off the light, and the room was dark again. But before I could leave, I heard her voice, sleepy from behind me. “You’re an idiot,” she said.

We like to joke with each other, my wife and I. What she meant to say, of course, was, “You’re a gainfully employed idiot. And your hair looks terrific.”

Holla!

thenormannation@gmail.com

I Am So Rich

2009-10-02T22:54:00.002+01:00

I’ve got some big news. This morning I was sifting through the hundreds and hundreds of e-mails I receive on a daily basis at thenormannation@gmail.com from my many, many fans. There was the typical stuff—requests for personal appearances, poems about my hair, more underwear pictures from Natalie Portman. But then something unusual caught my eye; it was an e-mail from something called THE BIG LOTTO TEAM.

You won’t believe it. Turns out I’ve won a million dollars!

I know! I’m as shocked as you are, especially considering I don’t even remember entering “an exclusive Internet lottery competition.” No matter, it’s right there in my inbox, in black and white—“Congratulations, Matt Norman! You’re the winner!” Not “a” winner, but “the” winner. I must be the only one!

I called the wife and told her to quit her job, which, of course, she did immediately. Then I called the company that just hired me—the place I haven’t even started working for yet—and told them I wouldn’t be there on Monday. I mean, seriously, when you’ve got this kind of money, jobs are for suckers, right?

When the wife got home, we had some bourbon and watched Live with Regis and Kelly, and then I said what anyone would say in my position. “OK, honey, where should we go first? The Lamborghini store, the big gold chain store or the fur coat store?”

She was pretty excited, but, she’s kind of a pragmatist, so I could see those wheels turning. “Are you sure this is legitimate, Matt Norman?” she asked. “I told my boss to shove it, and then I slapped the head of HR across the face. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Sweety, are you kidding?” I said. “Just look at this e-mail. It’s fool-proof. See how it says “winner” and “one million dollars?” All I need to do is send them my credit card and social security numbers and we’re good to go!”

I guess that did the trick, because she gave me a big hug and said, “Well, in that case, it’s Miller time!” Let me tell you, if you’ve never watched an eight-month pregnant woman shotgun a 40-ounce can of beer, well . . . my friend, you haven’t lived.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go call all of our friends and tell them that we’re now way to rich to hang out with them. Ha. They’re such losers.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Early Damage

2009-09-28T06:23:00.003+01:00

My first girlfriend’s name was Leslie. We were in the fourth grade, and we were going together. That’s what we called it at St. Roberts in Omaha, Nebraska. Not going out or going steady, just going. We were a phonetically efficient bunch, even back then.

My relationship with Leslie was short-lived, and I realize now that it existed almost entirely in my own imagination. We couple-skated a few times at skating parties. She called me once on the telephone from a slumber party. It was probably the most thrilling five-minute conversation I’ve ever had. On Valentines Day, I gave her a special card that I’d bought at the drug store. All in all, this doesn’t amount to much, but at the time I was pretty sure that we were going to get married. I’d get my drivers license and we’d have a small ceremony on the beach and then we’d live in an apartment above my parents’ garage like Mike Seaver had on Growing Pains.

Then, one afternoon at recess, I was standing around waiting for the bell to ring when a group of five or six girls from my class surrounded me. They were all giggling, which is never a good sign. One of them, I don’t remember who, said, “Matt Norman, Leslie thinks you’re stupid, and so she’s dumping you.”

In a matter of seconds, everyone was laughing at me. The girls. The boys. The teachers who’d been assigned recess duty. Adults who’d been driving by stopped their cars to see what all the fuss was about, and then they started laughing at me, too. Shell-shocked, I looked around, but I didn't see Leslie anywhere. She was probably off living it up, enjoying her new-found freedom. Holding hands with a fifth-graders, perhaps.

I’m old enough now to know that life is really just a series of scenes like this one played out over and over again. The variables may change slightly, but that feeling—that dreadful circle of anxiety and devistating humiliation at the pit of your stomach—is always exactly the same.

It’s amazing the things that go through your mind late on a Sunday night when you can't sleep. If nothing else, it probably would have been a pretty cool apartment.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Church Chat

2009-09-21T19:32:00.007+01:00

Like a lot of people from my generation who were raised Catholic, I have gradually over the last ten years become a Godless heathen. I don’t know exactly when this happened. Perhaps it was when I stopped giving things up for Lent. Perhaps it was when I stopped knowing when Lent is. Either way, I’d be lying if I told you that it hasn’t been a lot of fun.

Sadly though, it would seem that my blissful trip through sacrilege has come to an end. My wife recently informed me that because we’re having a baby, it’s about time we join a church. Apparently, this is what people do.

Upon hearing this, my first reaction was to burst into tears. My second reaction was to throw myself through our front window and begin running. My third reaction, though, was simply to sigh. I was like an old criminal. I’d been on the lam for years, and finally the squad cars had arrived squealing to a stop at my doorstep. There was this overwhelming sense of inevitability.

Therefore, this past Sunday, instead of sleeping in or watching Meet the Press or football highlights or going to breakfast like hungover teenagers, the wife and I went to church. My wife isn’t Catholic, and so we’ve opted for Presbyterian. I’m not entirely sure what the difference is. They have most of the same prayers that we do, they’ve just messed around with the words a bit. There’s a lot less kneeling, though, which is nice.

We were sitting near the back. My wife was looking at the action going on upfront. As far as I could tell, she was paying attention. I, on the other hand, had busied myself with a stream of disjointed mental babbling.

Did I put my phone on vibrate? How embarrassing would that be? Will I ever publish a novel? How tall is Magic Johnson? 6'9". Yeah. Why do celebrities give their children such stupid names? I should e-mail my brother later. Does my corduroy blazer make me look like I’m trying to seem intellectual? Does that woman over there know she shouldn’t mix blue and black like that? Should I consider tooth whitening? Is there just one more season of Lost, or two? I could sure go for a fountain soda right now.

There was some blessing going on, some candles and whathaveyou, and I noticed a kid a few rows up. Dressed in a sharp little oxford shirt, he was looking back over the pews. Our eyes met, and the expression on his face was one of intense, almost frantic boredom. He seemed to be asking me for help with his eyes. I shrugged and nodded toward my wife to let him know that I was pretty much in the same boat.

That’s when this little boy, maybe three years old, decided that he’d had enough. He looked at his father, and then he looked at his mother. They were staring forward, thinking their own thoughts, perhaps, and so he just took off. He climbed down from his pew, side stepped his older sister, and made a break for the big door at the back of the church. He was laughing, his eyes big and joyous with escape. He was clutching a Transformer action figure.

Godspeed, little brother, I thought, as he ran by. Godspeed.

thenormannation@gmail.com

A Look at Something That Might Become Something

2009-09-18T19:06:00.004+01:00

A lot of you know me as Matt Norman, former J.Crew model turned internationally famous blog writer and karate expert. But, in reality, I'm much more than that.

Over the last few weeks, I've started working on what I think may become my third novel. Third novel would sound a lot more impressive if the first two had actually been published, but, as the kids say, "it is what it is."

As a change of pace from my usual blatherings about nothing in particular, I thought it might be fun to show you all the first chapter. As far as novel chapters go, it's not very long at all. However, I must warn you, it's longer than my average post, which typically can be read in a matter of joyful moments. Or, as some of my fans have told me, in one trip to the restroom.

As is my custom, I've blurred out the swearing just incase anyone is dealing with nosy IT guys. I think I got them all. Allow me to apologize in advance, however, for some of the subject matter. It is, perhaps, not for the PG-minded of readers.

We're All Going to Hell

Chapter 1

“Hey. Luke. Lukie-Luke. Wake up, brother.” The voice, familiar, is sing-songy, affected. “Hey, hey, Lucas. Lucas wake up.”

Technically, he is awake; he has been for about thirty seconds. He’s sure though that if he’s perfectly still, the man—the voice—will go away. That happens sometimes: it just sort of leaves, as if it was never there in the first place. Particularly when he’s sleeping. Maybe when that happens, it’s a dream. Well, it’s always a dream, he supposes, in the defining sense of the word, but sometimes it’s more of a dream than other times. Whatever that means. It’s a very complicated concept for him to get his mind around. It always has been—from the very beginning.

“Luuuuuuke.” The voice changes now. “I am your faatha.”

This is an old bit, a not-so-good impression of Darth Vader, and the man seems to think it’s pretty funny because he always snickers afterward, like no one has ever said this to him before.

“Seriously, man. I wanna talk. I’m bored. Nothing to do tonight. You’re the only thing on my agenda. That sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? Like I don’t have anything better to do.”

Lucas sighs, the way people do when they’re pretending to be sleeping; he’s really trying to sell it. He’s in no mood for this tonight. He’s in no mood for this any night, actually, but less so tonight.

“Oh, come on. That was a fake sigh. You’re a sh*t actor, you know. Always have been. Acting takes commitment. It takes skills.”

Lucas opens his eyes, finally giving up, and, of course, there he is, sitting at the computer chair, reclining a little, his legs crossed. The man is dressed this time in leather pants, a black t-shirt and a black leather jacket. And, as usual, he’s wearing those stupid sunglasses, the ones that wrap around his head. Fly glasses, he calls them. They scream of the 1990s. He looks like a clown.

“There he is! Mr. Lucas.” The man claps his hands, a lazy, sarcastic round of applause. “What’s up, man? I thought I was going to have to start shaking you around, screaming and all that. I hate when you make me do that. It isn’t dignified, a man in my position, to be carrying on. I have a reputation to uphold, you know. I was knighted, after all. Well, sort of. I’m not British, so it’s more of a--”

“Go away.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. We haven’t talked in ages. Just wanted to see how you’ve been, mate, that’s all.”

The Irish accent is off tonight. It always seems to come and go, like watching an actor struggle with a dialect over the course of one of those long period pieces. “You don’t even sound like him, you know,” Lucas says.

The man lights a cigarette and takes a big, exaggerated drag of it, running his hands through his longish, black hair. Too black, obviously colored. Lucas can tell even in the dimness of his room. The only light is from the streetlamps outside, creeping through his blinds. “Am I buggin’ ya? I don’t mean to bug ya,” he says, and then laughs again. “When you’re famous, like me, world-f*cking famous, your accent kind of evolves. People like me have been everywhere, heard everyone. Go online and listen to some Madonna interviews and you’ll get what I mean. That bird doesn’t know where in the hell she’s supposed to be from. Hurts to listen, too. Personally, I think she’s just afraid--.”

“That’s not it,” says Lucas. He’s sitting up now, leaning against his headboard. “Your accent sounds wrong because I can’t do an Irish accent. Therefore, you can’t do an Irish accent either. I’ve thought it all through. I’m on to you.”

“What are you implying, Lukie? I don’t believe I like your tone.” Smoke hangs around his face and it fills the room. Lucas used to worry about this, about the smoking or the yelling or the singing or whatever the man did when he showed up, but he eventually figured out that it isn’t necessary to worry. Later, there’s never any evidence that he was ever actually there. The dream thing, again.

“I’m implying the same thing I always imply. That you don’t exist. You never have.”

The man fingers a black rosary that hangs below his throat, a gift, he claims, from the Pope. He laughs, a condescending, European sound. “You’re talking sh*t. If I don’t exist, if I’m not who I say I am—or, who, to be fair, I’ve implied that I am—than how do I know what you were dreaming about just now, you sick f*cker?” The man nods at where Lucas’s boner is, hidden beneath a slight rise in his comforter. “Girls don’t really like that kind of thing, you know, putting it all over their faces and such, like in all those videos you watch on your computer. Trust me, I know, I’ve tried it many times. Their reaction is always . . . anti-climactic. Well, so to speak.”

Lucas shakes his head, covering himself with a spare pillow. The man is always doing this. He's always grandstanding, claiming to have created things, like pitbulls and MTV. That’s the thing about him that Lucas can never fully understand. On the surface, he claims to be one thing—an obvious thing Lucas can see with his own two eyes. That changes from time to time. Although it hasn’t changed in quite a while, not since his dad played that album for him, Achtung Baby. But, beneath that, like, between the lines, he claims to be something much more significant. Something not even human, technically.

Lucas takes a deep breath. “You know what I was dreaming about because I know what I was dreaming about. I don’t remember what I dreamt about last night. So, neither do you. You can’t trick me any more, like when I was a kid.”

The man shifts in his seat and ashes on the carpet, not giving a sh*t. It’s all part of his persona. “The greatest trick I ever played was convincing the world that I don’t exist.”

“Now you’re just quoting The Usual Suspects,” says Lucas. “I’ve seen that movie like a hundred times. You know, you’ve never once quoted a movie I haven’t seen? In fact, have you ever noticed that you’ve never once told me something I don’t already know? You just repeat things. Like, obvious things that I’m already thinking.”

The man leans forward, flashing his teeth. “And have you ever noticed that you don’t have any f*cking friends and that maybe you should be a little more courteous because you might need me more than you think you do?” His voice is sudden and mean, like a snarl. The man can be like this sometimes. Friendly, and then, just as quickly, not friendly.

Lucas sinks into his bed a little and looks at his closed door. He wishes the man would go away and never come back. His life would be a lot easier.

“I’m sorry,” the man says after a moment. “That was mean. It’s just . . . well, it’s just hard to talk to your generation. You’re so f*cking desensitized. I mean, I show up here in your room in the middle of the night, and you act like it’s nothing, like you’ve f*cking seen it before. What’s a playa gotta do to get noticed around here, burn the f*cking house down? Show up on a fifty-foot jumbo screen? The f*cking cover of Time magazine. God, you’re all so unoriginal. Your whole demographic. Unorigninal. The f*cking lot of you.”

“I’m unoriginal? Dude, you’re the one who shows up looking like . . . that all the time? He’s not even that popular anymore, you know. I mean, not like he used be. And he hasn't dressed like that in years. It was just a . . . a character or whatever. Back in the 90s.”

The man adjusts his fly glasses, pushing them up the bridge of his nose; they’re a little too big for his face. “All of this is your choice, Lukie. It always has been. I was perfectly happy before, as Michael Jordan, and before that when you were going through your Brad Pitt Fight Club phase. Believe me, it was a blast looking like that. I couldn’t take my eyes off myself. Anyway, you’re getting me off script here, you clever bugger. It’s a sin, you know.”

“What do you mean? What’s a sin?”

“What’s a sin?” the man mocks Lucas, flicking his cigarette behind the dresser. “Imagining yourself splattering all over some poor girl’s face like a damn sex-criminal, that’s what. Talk about a f*cking violation. Do you think that’s what the lovely female face was created for, to be soiled by your dirty little man seeds? I hardly think so. Pervert.”

“How can that be a sin? It was a dream.”

“Hey, I don’t make the rules, and I’m definitely not criticizing. I just think that lying to oneself is lame. Amateurish, really. And it’s also a sin, lying to yourself, though just a technicality, I think. Again, not my call. I adhere to a far more streamlined version of morality. A f*ck of a lot less finger-pointing and name calling. So what if you want to toss it all over your lab partner’s face? I mean, who doesn’t, right? So what if you want to say f*ck all the time or kill a whole bunch of people you don’t like. Sh*t, who am I to judge?”

Lucas bites a sore cuticle, tugging at dead skin with his teeth. “My brain chemistry was altered, that’s all?”

The man lights another cigarette. He has an endless supply. This version of him smokes almost constantly, and you can hear it in his voice, like the sound of scraping when he talks or sings or yells. “What are you talking about?”

“An intense event or a trauma can change your brain. It can make you see things or hear things that aren’t really there.” Lucas is reciting now from the books and Web sites he’s read over the years, and from what the doctors told him so long ago. Years now. “That’s all you are. Synapses firing with nowhere else to go. And they create . . . you.”

“So you think you’re . . . what? Crazy? Damaged? That’s what they’ve made you believe?”

“No. I’m not crazy. If I was crazy, I wouldn’t know that you’re not real. I’d actually believe that you exist.”

It feels good to say this, to tell the man this to his face. When Lucas was a kid, he used to be so afraid of the man, whoever he was pretending to be. Lucas would nod; he’d simply agree with whatever the man said, shivering and stammering at the monster who was pretending to be someone else. But not anymore.

‘You’re just me,” he says. “A part of me.”

“Oh Lucas. Lukie, Lukie, Luckie. I promise you. I am real. And, I’m sure as hell not you—or a part of you. Thank . . . well, God. No offense.”

“Yeah? Then who are you?”

They have been at this moment before, at this odd impasse of momentary, weighted silence. For all of the man’s posturing and acting out, he’s never come out and actually admitted who he is. Or what he is. He’s never used that name—or any of the dozen or so other names for what he pretends to be.

The man takes his glasses off now, for dramatic effect no doubt, but it’s too dark, and so there’s just black there in his eyes, like two big marble pupils and nothing else. “You know exactly who I am. And I know a lot more than you do, you skinny wank.”

And then he’s gone. And so is the smoke.

thenormannation@gmail.com

How to Get Out of Jury Duty

2009-09-15T20:50:00.004+01:00

I have managed to avoid being called to jury duty now for nearly 33 years. I have done this by drifting around the world, avoiding gainful employment and frequently changing my name. My friend Wes -- who, like me, is both awesome and currently living in Baltimore -- has not been so lucky. He was informed yesterday that he’ll be a juror for two full weeks.

When I heard this, I couldn’t help but laugh, because this is typically how men react to their friends’ misfortune. But then I got nervous. If this could happen to Wes, then surely it could happen to me, too, right?

Therefore, I’ve come up with a list of possible ways to avoid being selected if the judicial system ever happens to discover that I exist. I now share it with you, my loyal, civic-duty-avoiding fans.

1. Arrive wearing a “What Would Michael Vick Do” T-shirt. And nothing else.

2. Tell the foreman that you need a five-minute break in order to “badger your witness” in the restroom. The use of “air quotes” here is essential.

3. Tell those in charge that you’re a convicted felon. If they don’t believe you, commit a felony right there in the courthouse. I’m thinking something harmless, like money laundering or mail fraud.

4. Repeatedly ask when Batman will be arriving.

5. Tell them that you haven’t committed to a stance on the death penalty, but that the little man who lives in your underpants believes in the swiftest, most severe punishments possible.

6. Describe your philosophy on constitutional interpretation as “Jack Bauer-esque.”

7. Inform the judge that he or she is guilty . . . of making you touch yourself.

8. Find the oldest person in the room, wink, and then loudly ask them if they’d like to come back to your place and treat you like a hostile witness.

9. When asked to state your occupation, tell them that you’re “a private dancer, a dancer for money.”

10. Regardless of the specifics of the case, bring a doll with you and repeatedly ask both the plaintiff and the defended to show you where the bad man touched them.

thenormannation@gmail.com

Manicure Guy

2009-09-11T19:32:00.003+01:00

Over the last few months, I’ve learned that there is a ten-minute window of time during which I can be in a maternity shop. Once that window closes, depending on how much caffeine I’ve had, I typically descend into a full-blown emotional breakdown.

The other night, my wife and I were in a store at the mall called Destination Maternity. I was standing quietly, holding her bags, while she looked at some T-shirts. I noticed a pink one that read “The Baby Makes the Belly Go ‘Round.” That’s when I leapt to my feet, burst into tears and made a break for the exit.

It’s hard to say for sure where I was going. The food court? Perhaps the Foot Locker? Either way, I didn’t make it very far. Arms flailing, my vision blurry from crying, I was stopped suddenly when a small girl in black jumped out from behind one of those mall kiosks.

“Can I show you something?” she asked. She was foreign, very pretty and bored-looking, the way girls at mall kiosks usually are. There was a half-eaten pretzel on a little paper plate atop her cash register.

“OK,” I said.

“Let me see your thumb.” It seemed like an odd request. I was emotionally vulnerable, though, and so I did as I was told. She held my wrist and looked down at my thumb as if trying to read my fortune. “You must have a difficult job,” she said. “Your nails are very rough.”

I’ve had some jobs in my life, none, though, that any reasonable person would call difficult. “No,” I said. “I . . . I do very little.”

She smiled. “I will take care of you regardless.” A thick file appeared from nowhere, like a magic trick, and suddenly she was buffing my right thumbnail. After about thirty seconds of work, she squirted a small drop of oil on my cuticle and then continued buffing. “This is going to be amazing,” she said. “Are you ready?”

“I think so,” I said.

She stepped back, pocketing her file, and smiled again. That’s when I saw that I now had one smooth, perfect fingernail. It looked wet, but it wasn’t. I fought the urge to put it in my mouth. “You like it?” she asked.

“Ummm,” I said.

she told me that for just $50 I could purchase my very own nail kit, and with that kit I could give myself manicures for a fraction of the cost of going to the salon. It was, far and away, their best-selling product.

“But . . . um . . . I really don’t think I’m a manicure guy,” I said.

She looked at me then, furrowing her brow a little. I have a feeling that she’s heard this line before. “Hmmmm," she said. "You definitely look like one to me.”

Chimp to Join Cast of Fox’s 24

2009-09-08T20:42:00.004+01:00

As usual, Fox has been pretty tight-lipped about the upcoming season of 24. However, I was fortunate enough recently to sit down with the show’s co-creator Robert Cochran on The Norman Nation’s official yacht somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Cochran revealed the addition of the new character, which promises to make this season unlike any other.

As fans well know, Special Agent Jack Bauer has a tendency to go rogue, and his relationship with fellow agents is often strained. That will all be exacerbated during January’s season opener when he meets his new partner: a CTU-trained bomb-detecting monkey by the name of Mr. Boom-Boom.

When asked about the controversial creative decision, Cochran, who was sitting in a bathtub full of money at the time, couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m not gonna lie; we were starting to run out of ideas,” he admitted. “Then, one night, Keifer Sutherland called me with a revelation. Apparently he’d attended some fundraiser at the Bronx Zoo and gotten into a fist fight with a chimpanzee over some food pellets. As he was beating the animal into submission with a cappuccino machine, he said it all just clicked. I was like, ‘$hit, why not, man?’”

The plot, which, as usual, will run in real-time over 24 episodes, centers on an evil conglomerate of vaguely Middle Eastern terrorists with indistinguishable accents who are trying to blow up pet stores around Washington DC for no apparent reason. Over the course of the season, Jack and Mr. Boom-Boom will grow closer and closer. Finally, after teaming up to defeat a group of Muslim extremists in a karate fight, the two will become something more akin to brothers than just mere partners.

Cochran said he preferred to avoid specifics, but he hinted at several enticing tid-bits, including a CTU motorcycle with a sidecar for Mr. Boom-Boom, Jack screaming “Do you have any idea what I’m capable of?” and a dual interrogation technique featuring head-butting and feces throwing.

“I’m really not all that worried about ratings,” said Cochran as he lit a roll of hundred dollar bills on fire and threw it at his assistant. “The show has never made any more than a little bit of sense, and people still keep watching. Combine that with a monkey in sunglasses who’s skilled at hand-to-hand combat? $hit. We’ll be driving diamond-plated Lamborghinis by episode five. Holla!”

Conversations with the Dog

2009-09-06T18:55:00.003+01:00

Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of people—women, usually—talk about how great it’d be if dogs could talk. I’ve given it some thought, and I agree. It would be great. For exactly five minutes. And then it would quickly devolve into the most annoying thing in the history of civilization.

My wife is out of town for the weekend, and so last night I did what any guy would do. I went out with some other guys and treated my body like you would a rental car in a third world country. So, at 6:30 this morning when my dog nudged me awake to see if I wanted to take him for his walk, I told him to go back to sleep because I was dying. He sighed theatrically and turned his back to me.

If he was suddenly blessed with the powers of speech, I doubt if this scene would have played out quite so smoothly.

“Hey,” he’d say. “Hey. Matt. Are you awake? I got like 16 hours of sleep yesterday, so what do you say we go for a walk?”

“Dude, go back to sleep. Everything hurts.”

Four minutes later, he’d try again. “Hey. Matt. I know I can talk now and everything, but I still don’t really have any concept of time. Do you want to go for a walk now?”

“No!”

“How about now?”

“Shut up!”

“Well . . . I certainly don’t think yelling is necessary. I guess I’ll just lie here while you continue to get your rest. It’s certainly well deserved, what with all the work you put in last night at 2 a.m. when you came stumbling into the house, tripped over the coffee table and declared war on that bag of Doritos. Well done.”

"You know, speaking of work. I was chatting with some of the other dogs yesterday, Trixie and Scooter from the park, and they were telling me that their owners are gone during the day because they have jobs. Why don’t you have one of those?”

“Please be quiet.”

“OK, how about this? You lie there with your eyes closed, and I’ll keep dropping my tennis ball on your head? But first, I’ll get it really slimy.”

Eventually, he’d let some time pass, and I’d forget that he was there and that he could talk. The sounds of birds and pedestrians and Baltimore outside the window would be reduced to a steady hum and I’d drift back into that sweaty, fretful sleep that can only be achieved when unsupervised 32 year olds pretend to be 22 year olds.

And then the little bastard would nudge the back of my neck with his nose. “Hey. Be honest with me for a second. Do you ever wish you could lick yourself?”

15 Things You Should Never Say During a Job Interview

2009-09-01T19:11:00.007+01:00

I recently met with our Senior VP of Current Events – her name is Tiffani – and she informed me that we’re presently in the middle of what experts are calling a “global financial clusterf*ck.” Well, at The Norman Nation, we’re about more than just being super funny and fantastically good-looking. We’re also about helping people, especially pathetic people who are unemployed.

That’s why I’ve put together a list to help those among you who are currently in search of a job. Regardless of how confident you feel or how much you’ve been drinking, it is very important that you do not say any of the following during an interview.

1. Convicted? No, no, definitely never convicted.

2. Hmmm. I’d say incompetence. Or prostitutes. It depends; do you mean my biggest personal or professional weakness?

3. I don’t smoke; however, five or six times a day I do enjoy a “scotch” break.

4. So, when’s startin’ time around here? Because Live with Regis and Kelly usually runs until about 11.

5. I need you to be very specific here, OK? I’m talking word-for-word. What is your company’s policy on sexual harassment?

6. What? Spell check. They have that now?

7. Technically, it’s called sensual massage. It’s very relaxing. Here, turn around.

8. That’s right; the Church of Lady Gaga. I’m a high priest.

9. OK, so, what size bra do you wear?

10. University of . . . Something or Other. I don’t know. What does my resume say again?

11. Granted, I was drunk, but she looked a hell of a lot older than that! High-five.

12. Tuna fish. Every day. Yeah, I usually just heat it up in the community microwave in the employee lounge.

13. That’s so cute. They give girls their own computers and desks now. It’s like they’re real employees.

14. Do the cubes here have privacy doors? Because let’s just say daddy likes to “streamline some processes” around 3 p.m. every day. If you know what I mean.

15. And then I said . . . liquor? Are you kidding? I don’t even know her!

Master Bedroom

2009-08-31T00:47:00.002+01:00

Every night now at about 9:30, my wife goes to sleep. When I say “goes to sleep,” you probably imagine someone brushing their teeth and washing their face and climbing comfortably into bed. With pregnant girls though, it’s much more sudden than that.

Last night she was in the middle of talking. There she was, stringing together a coherent thought, something about the show Mad Men, I believe, when suddenly she stopped midsentence, swayed a bit, and then collapsed onto the floor in a sighing heap. Sometimes, just to be on the safe side, I make her wear a bike helmet around the house. Eventually, after a series of gentle shakes and pokes, I was able to guide her up to bed.

Her new sleeping schedule has created a problem for me. I am not pregnant, nor am I a toddler, and so 9:30 is too early for me to call it a night. This, however, is not the case for our dog. Other than eating and sticking his head in our garbage cans, going to bed is his favorite thing to do. Consequently, each night around midnight, when I’m ready for bed, I find a 75-pound yellow lab curled up in my spot. Often, for comic effect, he’s resting his head on my pillow.

“Dude,” I whisper, shaking him. “Move over.”

Our dog is at an age now where he understands that I’m probably never going to beat him. I’m never going to kick him out onto the streets of downtown Baltimore or chain him to a cinder block in the back yard or withhold his gourmet, vitamin-enriched dog food. We both know that I don’t have the stomach to do any of those things, and so he’s perfectly happy to completely ignore even my most basic commands.

“Seriously. Move over. Please.”

This usually goes on for about fifteen minutes.

Last night, as I squeezed in next to him across my allotted nine inches of mattress, my dog lifted his head, just barely, and looked at me. Like all dogs, he’s able to communicate with his eyes. “She loved me first, you know,” he said, smiling. “You’re just some guy she met at a Super Bowl party.”

And then he went back to sleep.

Pregnancy Would Probably Bring Out My Dark Side

2009-08-27T23:08:00.005+01:00

I just got back from the doctor’s office. Don’t worry ladies, I’m fine. You see, my wife is seven months pregnant, and so we spend a lot of time there. Well, if I’m being specific, we spend a lot of time in the waiting room. The periodicals there consist of one Sports Illustrated from 1998 and a bunch of magazines that I don’t think I’m legally allowed to read.

When we finally made it into the little room, the same thing happened that always happens. I stood there like a lonely, super-sexy giraffe while a number of very intelligent-looking people tended to my wife. They touched her stomach and took her blood pressure and heart rate.

“How are you feeling?” our doctor asked.

My wife pulled a strand of hair behind her ear. “Good,” she said. “Really good.” Everyone was smiling.

It struck me at that moment that this simple exchange of mundane dialogue is a perfect example of why women are tougher than men—particularly this man, me, Matt Norman. If I were my wife, this is how I would have responded:

“What? Are you f*cking kidding me? How does it look like I’m doing? It’s 100 goddamn degrees outside and I’m carrying around a 25-pound playpen in my stomach, you freaking moron. In fact, just now, while I was saying that, this little monster inside me drop-kicked my spleen. Yeah, that’s right, my spleen! Last night in bed, right after I finally fell asleep, she did the same thing to my bladder. So, I’ll tell you how I’m doing, you grinning a$$hole. $hitty. That’s how I’m doing. Now how about you stop poking me like I’m a goddamn science experiment and do something useful with yourself like going and getting me some motherf*cking ice cream. For the love of God, what was your specialty in med school? Asking dip$hit questions? And you, over there? Nurse What’s-Your-Face? What the hell do you think you’re looking at? Would you like to see a close up of my fist? And why is it so freaking hot in here? Ahhhhh!”

And then, after I left, I’d demand that the poor bastard who married me fan me with a giant feather all night while I lay in a $5,000 massage chair with a cool towel over my head. “You did this to me, you skinny twerp,” I’d yell. “So, keep fanning, ‘cuz mommy’s hot!”

“Well, OK then,” our doctor said, closing her folder with confidence. “Everything’s going just great. I’ll see you guys in two weeks.”

“Bye.”

I’m Not Sure What Twitter is Exactly, But This is Funny

2009-08-24T21:08:00.003+01:00

In the complicated world of humor, there’s an age old formula, similar to the theory of relativity, with which one simply cannot argue. Old People + Swearing = Funny.

When I swear, which I do all the motherf*cking time and with great zeal, it’s only moderately funny. It’s a little funnier, perhaps, if I’ve just recently been hit in the crotch with a woofle ball bat by a toddler, but, either way, there’s nothing particularly revolutionary happening. However, when a senior citizen hikes up his or her pleated, polyester trousers and lets it rip. . . well, comedically speaking, that’s something truly special.

My friend Ryan recently sent me something from Twitter called ShitMyDadSays that leverages the aforementioned formula with great results. I’m only vaguely sure what Twitter is. I believe it’s what the kids do while taking whippit hits. But the point is simple: some dude named Justin has begun documenting, word for word, the random crap that his 73-year-old father says and posting it on the Internet so people like us can laugh while taking breaks from working or looking at online pornography.

I think it’s important to note that The Norman Nation currently has 89 followers. Justin and his angry dad have 22,899. Now I’m depressed. And, as always, a little drunk.

Enjoy.

Oh, and if the links above don't work for you, visit http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays.

People. Who Needs 'Em?

2009-08-20T17:33:00.005+01:00

When I was younger, I used to pretty much like everyone. Like most teenagers, my standards for what constituted a decent human being were pretty low. Basically, if you had a car, you were solid. If you were super good-looking and had a car? Well, you were awesome.

As I've gotten older though, I've started to realize something. I don't really like most people. In fact, I sort of loath them. What's worse, I'm perfectly comfortable making broad, sweeping generalizations about groups of people I don't even know. I'm not talking about racism. My prejudices are far more sophisticated than that, refined even. For example, if you're a guy and you have one of those really thin chin-strap beards, you're probably a douche. If you pop the collar on your polo shirt, you'd probably be well served by a punch in the face. If you have a sticker on your car of any of the Calvin & Hobbs cartoon characters peeing on something that you don't like -- such as a rival brand of automobile -- you're an idiot. The list goes on and on.

It's gotten to the point, frankly, where I'm hardly even able to leave the house. And this includes my several exotically located and wildly expensive beach houses. Bars are, of course, off-limits. Especially those bars where people younger than me go. Movies have become difficult to sit through, because there's always some ramrod talking on his cell phone behind me or becoming loudly confused by the intricate plot of Transformers 2. And, hey Lard Ass, is it possible to open that bag of Sour Patch Kids any louder? Don't even get me started about anyone even associated with The Hills.

However, I doubt if there is a single activity on earth that offers better proof of the downfall of people than a large rock concert.

Last weekend, the wife and I attended a U2 show. During the band's first song, humanity's biggest jackass and his imbecile girlfriend parked themselves right in front of us. Of course, of the 90,000 or so in attendance, he was the tallest and she was the drunkest. For two hours and 23 songs, they danced around like methed-up teenagers, repeatedly crashing into everyone in site, most often, it seemed, my pregnant wife. Occasionally, to diversify their portfolio of irritating behavior, they would take breaks from thrashing about to French kiss and dry-hump as if it were, respectively, there last nights on earth.

The crowning achievement in their nightlong quest to make me hate them took place during one of U2's most famous songs. It was midway through the show, and the crowd was singing along and I'd almost forgotten about Team Water on the Brain in front of me. And then, after some deep tonguing, the guy looked into the girl's glassy eyes and said, just loud enough for everyone to hear, "I'vvvvve found what I'm looking for."

And just then, 90,000 people vomited at once. You may have heard about it on the news. If not, you should Google it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go spend a few weeks in my underground bunker where no one is allowed. Except my wife. I like her. For the most part.

The Fictional Version of Me

2009-08-13T21:13:00.001+01:00

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about fictional characters and how, usually, they’re a lot more awesome than real people. Because real people are burdened with reality and consequences and normal human behavior, they’re usually stuck loitering in the background being all quietly sensible, even when the situation at hand calls for something much grander.

A few months ago, my wife and I took an absurd, once-in-a-lifetime trip around continental Europe. One afternoon, we were riding mountain bikes around rural Turkey. It was, as I assume it always is in rural Turkey, knee-me-in-the-groin hot, and we’d stopped at the top of a massive incline to rest. My wife, who was about five months pregnant at the time, assured me that mountain biking was OK as long as we occasionally took breaks. I’m not sure who told her this, but she’s smarter than me, and so I believed her.

We were sipping water and enjoying the view when we heard a donkey cart clacking slowly up the other side of the hill we’d ourselves just climbed. The donkey who was pulling the cart was clearly struggling. Stumbling a bit, he began calling out in protest in his weird, donkey language, and then, stubbornly, he came to a stop near the top of the hill.

We laughed at first, not so much because it was funny, but because it was the sort of thing two people from Nebraska and New York respectively don’t see very often—a donkey saying “You know what, eff this bull$hit.”

But then something awful happened. The man driving the cart, some old farmer-looking guy, yelled something hostile in Turkish and started whipping the poor donkey’s backside. The animal called out again, obviously in pain, but the man kept at it. Finally, the donkey took a few labored steps and started once again trudging up the hill.

The fictional version of Matt Norman—some guy in a book or a movie who sort of looks like me but has a broader chest—would have been decisive in his actions. He’d have let his rented bike fall to the pavement and he’d have jogged the fifty or so feet between him and the donkey cart. Without saying a word, he’d have snatched the whip out of the guy’s hand and given him five sharp snaps across the chest before hurling the whip into the forest. The man would have learned his lesson, and the fictional version of Matt Norman’s wife would have thought he was awesome. He wouldn’t have ended up in a Turkish prison or getting his ass kicked by a passerby. The scene would have simply been over, and everything would have been better.

Sadly though, this was not a book or a movie. I do not have a particularly broad chest, and instead of coming to the defenseless animal’s rescue, I stood there like a useless fool. “Wow, what an a$$hole,” I said to my wife, and she agreed.

I am now sitting in an air-conditioned house in the United States, sipping a freezing Diet Dr. Pepper. But I suspect that donkey’s situation has improved little since then. His life, I imagine, is just one long hill after another. I wish him all the best.

It’s Not So Much the Heat . . .

2009-08-10T22:35:00.003+01:00

My wife is one of those people who tend to stay positive about things. If there’s a silver lining buried there beneath the mangled wreckage of some colossal clusterf*ck, she’ll dig it out and show it to me and remind me that I dwell too much on the negative.

The other day, she made me move the heaviest kitchen table in the history of modern carpentry into the basement. It was so soul-crushing in its massiveness that I had to call on my poor friend Wes to help me. When we were finished, both of us crying a little and bleeding internally, she smiled and said, “Look how much room we have now!”

My mother is the same way. Well, sort of. Her approach is to look at something negative and then breathe a sigh of relief because the situation could always be a hell of a lot worse. We were on the phone a few weeks ago, and I was telling her how depressed I am because no one seems to want to publish my novel. Her response was: “I know, honey. But think of it this way. At least you don’t have testicular cancer.”

They’re both right, I suppose. The kitchen is a lot roomier now, and, as far as I know, my testicles are doing OK. However, try as I might to subscribe to their half-full view of the world around me, it’s impossible to be anything other than annoyed that I currently can’t go outside for more than three seconds without immediately sweating through my clothes.

The temperature here in Baltimore today is about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. However, when you take into account the humidity and the fact that we’re surrounded by cement and bricks, it feels kind of like that scene in Indiana Jones where they open that chest and all those Nazis get their faces melted off.

My dog is currently lying spread eagle next to an air conditioning vent, but a few minutes ago I tried to take him for a walk. It’s usually his favorite thing to do in the entire world, but when I grabbed his leash, he looked at me with what can only be described as great trepidation. Once outside, he did his dirty business on my neighbor’s stoop. However, when I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk around the block, he looked at me and said, “Are you kidding me? Go f*ck yourself.”

On the bright side though . . . it is pretty cool to have a dog that can talk.

Does This Tank Top Make Me Look Crazy?

2009-08-07T21:39:00.001+01:00

There’s a crazy man who lives in downtown Baltimore. I see him almost every time I go running in the city’s Inner Harbor, and whenever I do, regardless of the weather, he’s wearing the exact same thing: threadbare jean shorts and an old wife beater. I’ve nicknamed him “Tank Top.” I’ve never been very good at nicknaming; I can never think beyond the wildly obvious. I call my dog “Yellow Animal,” and my wife is “Tall Girl Who Lives in My House with Me and Likes Math.”

Broadly speaking, there are two types of crazy people in Baltimore. The first are harmless. They wander about, smiling and waving at pigeons and chattering away happily with people who aren’t there. Collectively, we, the not-crazy citizens of this turbulent city, agree that they’re not going to hurt anyone.

And then there are the crazy people like Tank Top.

His brand of whacko leans toward anger. He leers, shifty eyed, at everyone, and he seems to be holding some long-standing grudge against the invisible person who is standing always to his right. People, particularly women, walk wide circles around him, and I don’t blame them. I once saw him angrily drawing slashes on his forearm with a magic marker. “There!” he kept yelling with each deep black line. “There!”

This morning, as I ran along the murky water, I stopped to fiddle with my iPod, moving it along to one of those songs we listen to only when we’re running. That’s when I noticed Tank Top. He’s usually on the move, but today he was sitting on a bench, and he appeared to be saying something to me.

I was a good thirty feet away, and so it was safe to pull my earphones out and make eye contact. Crazy or not, I doubt very much that Tank Top would be able to catch me, if it came down to some sort of frightening chase scene.

“Hey,” said Tank Top. And for a moment, that’s all he said. So there we were, two out-of-work guys staring at each other on a humid morning. But then he tugged his beard, and his expression took on a sort of clarity of focus. “Jesus loves you,” he said.

It was a strange thing to be told by a guy like Tank Top. Not so much because of the sentiment, which was undeniably pleasant. It was his tone that was odd. He told me that Jesus loves me the way one might yell “Yankees suck!” from a passing car, like he believed it wholeheartedly and it was really pissing him off.

I’m awkward around strangers, especially scary, crazy strangers, and so I told him “OK” and ran on. However, I’ve been able to think of little else since. Hey. Jesus loves you!

What could he possibly have meant by that?

The Unnecessary Man

2009-07-31T21:56:00.004+01:00

Grammatically speaking, pregnancy can be confusing. A lot of couples go with first person plural. “We’re having a baby.” “We’re eating for two.” “We’re no longer aloud to drink grain alcohol and then race dirt bikes.”

I, however, have decided to go old school. I know that it’s 2009, and I’m well aware of the fact that we have a Democrat in the White House, but I am not pregnant. Far from it. There is, frankly speaking, nothing interesting or miraculous or even life-affirming going on inside of my body. I am a painting hung in the lobby of a hotel. Sure, I’m aesthetically pleasing and undeniably sexy in a raw, hyper-masculine sort of way, but there’s really nothing here worthy of discussion.

This point has been made perfectly clear to me over and over as I’ve accompanied my wife to the doctor’s office.

Inside that tiny little room with its paper-covered bed and frightening diagrams of things I don’t even want to talk about, my wife is treated like something never before seen by mankind. Her temperature is taken. Her expanding belly is measured with great care. She’s asked how she’s feeling, eating, and sleeping. She’s quizzed about her emotional well-being and whether or not she’d like a glass of water. Her arm is touched gently, and she’s asked if she has any questions—any questions at all.

I, on the other hand, am a far less precious commodity. This is how it goes. My wife and I sit quietly in the examining room, waiting. While she checks her Blackberry, I pretend that the tiny plastic baby on the shelf is a football, and I try to hike it to her. When the doctor walks in, I am given a curt little nod, and from that moment on I become the equivalent of a potted plant that is too big for the room and is somehow in everyone’s way. After the second visit, the staff gave up saying “excuse me.” They just shove me out of the way now, occasionally kneeing me in the groin.

Being ignored by a room full of women is nothing new, believe me. But, let’s take a step back here and analyze the situation. Am I really that unnecessary? Think about this: would we even be having this conversation in the first place if it wasn’t for me and my own, admittedly less-impressive, miracle? And how about 18 months from now when a certain miniature someone in her pink jammies sees a spider or is convinced there’s a monster lurking about in the closet? Will I be unnecessary then?

Hmmm, well, maybe. But she doesn’t know that. Not yet anyway.

I am man! Hear me . . . sigh quietly to myself in a dejected way!

That’s the Smell of Freedom

2009-07-29T17:05:00.003+01:00

I was walking my dog the other day. The Family Norman is currently residing in temporary corporate housing in downtown Baltimore. It’s a sort of limbo apartment with beige carpeting, basic cable and white towels. It’s nice and all, but it’s nice in the way that your rental car is when you visit some random city for a wedding. A Honda something or other that you never really chose, but there you are, driving around in it anyway.

As we turned a corner in search of an appropriate parking meter to defile, my dog stopped suddenly and stuck his nose in the air. This happens a lot, and so I gave him a little pull, but he was dug in hard, sniffing away. And that’s when I smelled it, too. Hamburgers.

After some quick investigating, I discovered that there’s a restaurant in the building next to ours. Apparently their ventilation system is rigged to empty out onto the sidewalk, essentially blasting passersby with a warm meat breeze.

This is one of those situations one could call ironic. At least I think it is. I’ve always found that term kind of confusing.

Until very recently, my wife and I were living in London, England. As my many readers know, The Norman Nation usually stands high above stereotypes and broad generalizations, but, I’d like to go on record as saying that absolutely everything you’ve ever heard about British beef is true. Spongy and cooked to a gray mass of ungodly sliminess, it tastes like something dug out of the garbage by pigeons and then run over by bicycle messengers. Speaking of my dog, one time he accidentally ate half of a discarded British hamburger that he found in Hyde Park. After swallowing, he looked at me with sad, desperate eyes and then tried to throw himself in front of a cab.

My point: it’s not good.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I’m proud of my British readership. England is a wonderful, charming place, and the people are as lovely and intelligent as any in the world. I’m just saying that their beef is unfit for creatures who, forgive me for saying, occasionally eat their own poop.

But, now that I think about it, this isn’t really about London or Baltimore or even hamburgers. It’s about the fact that wherever you’ve been, it’s always nice to be home. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my dog and I are going to take a walk around the block for the 80th time this week.

The Norman Nation: Now with Even More Funny and Awesome

2009-07-28T01:23:00.005+01:00

87 years ago, when my great grandfather, Mathias Von Sexyface Norman III, founded The Norman Nation in a little corner shop in Valentine, NE, he had one goal: to give hard-working, God-fearing Americans a safe, clean place to waste their valuable time.

Today, as CEO, Senior Accountant and Head Custodian, I work upwards of two to three hours a week to keep Pop-Pop Norman’s tradition alive and well. That’s why I’m happy to announce an all new initiative that promises to make the site even more outstanding.

Until today, all of the devastating wit and life-changing insight featured on this world-famous blog have been created exclusively by me and my imaginary team of assistants, spokes models, stylists and manicurists. Going forward, however, I will begin occasionally guiding my readers to third-party vendors of both Awesome and Funny.

In business, it’s called outsourcing. In real life, it’s known as profound laziness.

Deep Thoughts
Several weeks ago, my friend and long-time The Norman Nation reader Ryan Effgen alerted me to the existence of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.

You may remember Jack Handey from his many appearances on Saturday Night Live in the 80s and 90s. This brilliant site has collected thousands of his “Deep Thoughts” and placed them in one giant, time-sucking site that is guaranteed to make you even less productive at your soul-crushing job. Just hit “refresh,” and the thoughts keep on coming.

And, if you know of any Web sites, videos or images available online that you think followers of The Norman Nation might enjoy, please send them to thenormannation@gmail.com today. If your suggestion appears on The Norman Nation, a generous gift will be made in your name to The Human Fund, which does not exist.

I See Famous People, Part 2

2009-07-24T00:04:00.005+01:00

Someone asked me once what my blog, The Norman Nation, is about. I get nervous when I don’t know the answer to questions, and so I said that my blog is about how awesome I am, and then I ran away crying. In truth though, if The Norman Nation is about anything, it’s about the exact opposite of that.

If you’ve read all 52 of the blogs on this blog -- and, let’s face it, what else do you have to do with yourself? -- then you know that The Norman Nation is, at its core, one giant testament to my startling lack of social skills.

In my entry I See Famous People, I told you about my uncanny ability to spot celebrities and then, in turn, to make an ass of myself in front of those celebrities. Some people are good at math. Others can operate on a toddler’s brain. I, however, am skilled at the art of seeing Ben Affleck on a crowded New York City street and yelling, “That’s Ben Affleck!”

About a month ago, my wife and I were in a rural section of Turkey. This, obviously, was her doing. I didn’t even realize that Turkey really existed. I thought maybe it was an imaginary place, like Narnia or Cleveland. But there we were, in Turkey, being escorted into a restaurant. When we sat down, I immediately realized that the actress Frances McDormand and her husband Joel Coen (of the famous Coen Brothers) were at the table next to us.

Because I am the way that I am, I took a deep breath and prepared to scream "Fargo is the greatest movie ever!" But my wife stopped me. “Matt,” she stage whispered. “Seriously, don’t embarrass me.” Amazingly, I didn’t. Instead, I sat pretending to eat dinner and listened to every word they said until they were gone.

This would have been a crowning achievement in adult behavior if it weren’t for the events of the next afternoon. My wife and I were on a hike, trudging through some ruins, when, low and behold, we saw Frances McDormand again! She was touring with an unfamous woman; her husband wasn’t there. “Hello,” she said, smiling. But then her expression changed. “Hey, you two were at the restaurant last night. You’re Americans, too.”

I’m not sure how dramatically my facial expression changed, but internally I was dealing with the overwhelming thrill of being recognized by an Oscar-winning actress. The following is an unedited account of the conversation that followed.

Matt Norman the Idiot: “Yep, that was us. My wife and I are really big fans.”

Frances McDormand: “Oh, thank you. That’s very nice of you to say.”

Matt Norman the Idiot: “Wasn’t that restaurant wonderful? We really liked it.”

Frances McDormand: “Yes. Did you try the liver? It was amazing.”

Matt Norman the Idiot: “No, I didn’t. I’ve always been a little scared of liver.”

Frances McDormand: “Well, if you’re going to try liver, you might as well do it in Turkey.”

Matt Norman the Idiot: “Yeah. When in Turkey, right?”

I have no idea what compelled me to claim to be frightened of liver. And, further, I don’t know what “When in Turkey” means. Perhaps I was trying to make a pun on the phrase “When in Rome,” or, more likely, anxiety and stupidity simply collided in my over-excited brain and those senseless words were the result. Either way, Frances, unimpressed with my childlike attempt at small talk, fake-laughed politely and walked away, leaving me standing beneath the Narnia sun, burning with shame.

Matt Norman, Silencer of Toddlers

2009-07-21T21:29:00.001+01:00

Every summer, the wife and I travel to my in-law’s place in upstate New York for a family reunion weekend. When I first started attending these things, they consisted mainly of adults drinking and playing golf. Over the last few years though, we’ve added a new element into the mix: children. A lot of them.

There’s a one-year old girl. She’s adorable, but she’s just learned to walk and so she needs to be stared at 24 hours a day. We collectively took our eyes off of her for five seconds on Saturday and she tried to eat what I think was goose crap. There’s another girl, too. She’s four and has the most awesome Long Island accent in the history of children. Trying to imitate it on a blog is impossible, but hearing her ask her mother for a sip of coffee is something I’ve been replaying in my head for 48 hours straight.

It’s the boy though, my two-year-old nephew, who I can identify with the most. He’s a skinny little kid with a dramatic cowlick who, like me, is prone to unprovoked spells of hysterical crying. This weekend, I was milling around in my in-law’s kitchen, stepping over dogs, when I absent-mindedly ate the last chocolate chip cookie.

“I want a cookie, too,” he said, suddenly, from down below. I’m considerably taller than he is.

“Oh, dude, I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s the last one.”

I don’t have children yet, and so I deal mainly with people who aren’t two years old. I was expecting a shrug, perhaps an “Oh well, no biggy.” What I got instead was a look of sheer outrage, followed by a quickly escalating series of sobs.

“I want a cookie,” he insisted. “I . . . want . . . a cookie!”

“No no. I don’t . . . I mean . . . there aren’t any more of them. They’re gone.” It probably didn’t help that while I was saying this I was chewing that last cookie. It really was delicious.

He stamped his feet, frightening one of the dogs away, and then he held both hands over his eyes and cried and cried. He cried the way people cry in movies, when the actors are trying a little too hard. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he seemed to be shouting, thrashing about there in his Cars t-shirt and blue Crocs.

My first instinct was to run away, to dive into the closest available car Beau-and-Luke- Duke style and drive toward the Canadian border. But, after a deep breath, I was able to compose myself. I’m three months away from having a child of my own, and so I looked at this as a learning opportunity. I crouched down to his level and did my best to smile through the screaming. I gently removed his hands from his face and looked into his eyes. “You know,” I said. “With the economy the way it is, not to mention all the wars and the deteriorating situation in the Middle East, is this really something we should be crying about?”

To my surprise, my nephew immediately stopped his tantrum. His arms fell to his sides and he looked at me, frowning a little as my words sunk in. “I know, right? Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?”

“Cookie,” my nephew said. And then he walked away.

Yes. Cookie indeed.

Thoughts on Toplessness

2009-07-08T09:37:00.003+01:00

Years ago, the show Seinfeld introduced the concepts of good and bad naked. Hair brushing, according to Jerry, was good naked; coughing, though, was bad naked.

It was a hilarious episode, of course, but, admittedly, I never really identified with it personally. You see, as a chronically thin Catholic from the American Midwest, I have rarely been confronted with nudity, be it good, bad or otherwise. And when I am, it’s usually dark, and I feel too guilty to enjoy it anyway.

This past month, however, my wife and I have spent some time on the beaches of continental Europe. In the summertime, in places like Greece or Spain or Croatia, women unite in one powerful voice against the oppressions of bikini tops, and so I’ve found myself literally surrounded by breasts for much of the last 30 days.

My feelings on this --Breasts-a-Palooza 2009-- represents a slow, steady evolution. At first, my reaction was too giggle uncontrollably. “Look,” I stage-whispered to my wife. “That girl over there isn’t wearing a top! Do you think the police are going to come get her?”

“They don’t have to wear tops here, Matt,” she said over the top of her book. For ten unbroken minutes I stared at her with my mouth open. How could she be so casual about something like this?

At a certain point, I learned to control the giggling, but my attitude toward the breasts became something bordering on unhealthy. I would try to read, I’d brought a whole stack of books with me, but reading is virtually impossible when breasts are being flung about so liberally. “OK,” I would say to myself. “I’ll read this paragraph, and then I’ll sneak a glimpse at the breasts, and then I’ll read another paragraph. OK . . . go.”

A few weeks ago, in Barcelona, I noticed a guy about my age, Spanish-looking, sitting on the beach. He was happily reading a soccer magazine, and he seemed not to be distracted at all by what was around us. He caught my glance, and with my eyes, I said to him, “Dude, what’s your secret? Do you not see what’s going on here?” With his eyes he said to me, “Umm, you’re American, aren’t you?”

Now, as our trip is almost over, I’m no longer obsessed. I’ve moved on. I’ve grown up. In fact, I find myself more than a little annoyed with the breasts. It’s like, “Listen up breasts, I see what you’re doing over there, and frankly I find it boring. Now go away so I can finish this New Yorker article in peace.”

The fact is, I’ve realized what Jerry Seinfeld was trying to say some 15 years ago. There really can be too much nudity. Some nudity even goes so far as to systematically undermine the special place that nudity holds in each of our hearts. For example, a topless girl applying sunscreen is a lovely thing that could eventually be harnessed to end wars and create world peace. But, two topless girls playing Uno? A topless girl eating a turkey sandwich and doing soduko puzzles? Come on now ladies, you’re better than that. The world is counting on you.

I’m Matt Norman, and I approve this message.

Real Leaders Follow

2009-07-04T16:12:00.003+01:00

People are always saying to me, "Matt Norman, your blog, The Norman Nation, is truly special. Your words touch me in ways that I have previously only been able to touch myself." And my response is always the same, "Seriously, Natalie Portman, get out of my yard."

But, it turns out that goofy little Oscar nominee has a point. You see, for months and months now, you and I, blog reader, have laughed together, used swear words together to comic effect, and, of course, ripped on French people together. In that time, I am willing to bet that I, if even in the smallest, most completely appropriate way, have touched you.

If my assumptions are correct, then I would like to invite you to become a follower of The Norman Nation. Becoming a follower is simple, just click "Follow" in the right-hand corner and follow the instructions. If you are already a follower, feel free to make up a different, more attractive identity and than have that person become a follower, too.

I know what you are thinking. "What is in it for me," right? I anticipated that question, you cynical bastard, and so I have asked a few of my 77 followers from around the world to share their stories. I then disregarded their stories and made up my own, much better versions.

"I used to be a raging alcoholic who alienated every decent person in my life. After becoming a follower of The Norman Nation, I am still drunk and alone, but, because the gutter in my neighborhood has wifi, when I am lying their in a bloozy stuper of crushing depression, I am able to laugh and laugh."
--Bob (Boise, ID)

"Before discovering The Norman Nation, I was a mere city planner with, I will admit, kind of funny-looking ears. And now I am the President of the freaking United States! Seriously. I have my own plane and everything!"
--Anonymous (Washington, DC)

"Once I was a lonely teenged girl who liked books and doing math problems. Since discovering Matt Norman and his blog, I have given up all those silly words and numbers, gotten my tougue pierced and started wearing tube tops. Thanks, The Norman Nation, I could not be happier! I am not at all empty inside!"
--Tiffani (Las Vegas, NV)

There you have it. I mean, would these people that I just made up lie to you? I think not. Become a follower today!

And oh yeah, Happy Birthday, America!

A note from the writer: Sorry for the oddly formal tone here. I am writing on a computer in Croatia, and the keyboard has no apostrophe sign, thus making contractions impossible. What a silly country, right?

12 Things I've Learned in Europe

2009-06-28T16:38:00.008+01:00

After a little more than a year and a half, my wife and I's time in London has come to an end. Before we head home though, she thought it'd be fun to say goodbye to this big, strange continent with gusto. And so, for about two weeks now, we've been drifting around Europe like a couple of aimless nomads getting sunburned and drinking crappy Coca-Cola Lights and buying large silk rugs that I have no idea where we'll ever put when we get home.

Along the way, either while sitting in airports or shuffle-walking through crowded museums, I've learned 12 things about myself, my wife and the world around me.

1. Pregnant women need to eat every four hours. At four hours and five minutes, things turn bad very fast.

2. When an airplane lands successfully, Middle Easterners offer a round of applause. The odd thing is, they seem to be doing it out of habit more than genuine appreciation. The expression on their faces is like when you're in a beige conference room singing happy birthday to a coworker for whom you feel complete indifference.

3. The world's manufacturers of deodorant record the vast majority of their sales in the United States.

4. Everyone in Europe smokes. Everyone. Yesterday I saw a toddler smoking. When I told him that cigarettes are bad for children, he gave me the finger and called me a stupid American. Come to think of it, though, he did have a mustache. Perhaps he was just a very tiny little man.

5. Speaking of pregnant women, when they're American and they're wearing expensive sunglasses, skirts and tank tops, they get a lot of attention while walking around predominantly Muslim cities.

6. The "Rat-Tail" haircut is making a comeback in continental Europe. The fact that President Obama's foreign relations team hasn't addressed this is a threat to our national security.

7. Regardless of the language presented, I am physically incapable of reading maps. My wife does not find this charming.

8. Women in Greece go topless at the beach. This makes it very difficult to get any reading done, particularly when sunscreen is being applied.

9. Having your novel rejected by every editor in New York while you're on vacation is just as depressing as it is when you are not on vacation.

10. I will likely never be too old to giggle like a child when I read or hear the phrase "duty free."

11. European men are somehow able to look pretty cool wearing capri pants. I, however, am not.

12. Taking exchange rates into account, a half-hour gondola ride in Venice costs roughly as much as a gently used 2007 Honda Accord.

See you July 11th, America!

I Didn't Think I'd Be This Sad

2009-06-26T15:38:00.005+01:00

When I was a little kid, I was absolutely crazy insane for Michael Jackson. This probably isn't the most interesting or unique thing I've ever written on this blog; when I was a kid, everyone was crazy insane for Michael Jackson.

I hadn't discovered girls yet, and, perhaps more importantly, I wasn't old enough to look behind the curtain intellectually and question why it was that a grown man would hang out with a chimp and live in an amusement park. Like all kids, I lived on the surface of the world around me, and I was happier for it. I had a poster of him in my room and his officially licensed stickers on my Trapper Keeper. I bought the Thriller tape and literally wore it out, and so I had to buy it again. Years later, I bought the CD in college, and when I eventually lost that, I downloaded it on iTunes.

My grandmother died when I was in the fourth grade, and so I remember her just barely, more like snapshots than actual memories. She was tall and dangerously thin, and she was a quiet woman from the Midwest with cold hands. I was at her house in Council Bluffs, Iowa once, and I was watching Michael Jackson on television, probably a recap of some cheesy awards show on MTV. I explained to her who he was and told her in staggering detail why he was so incredibly awesome. I may have even used the word rad. She just sort of nodded her head and told me that that was very nice.

My birthday was a month or so later. I have no idea how old I was, however old second or third graders are, I guess. After my special dinner, my grandma presented me with perhaps the greatest birthday gift ever. She'd sewn me one sparkly, sequin glove, just like Michael Jackson's.

My parents were a little tentative about their young son prancing around Omaha, Nebraska in a sequin glove, and so they forbid me from wearing it to school or soccer practice. But I wore it everywhere else--everywhere else. I was the coolest little boy in the history of the world.

Michael Jackson has been reduced to little more than a punch line for the last 15 years. Deservedly so? Maybe, maybe not. But next time you're at a wedding or a graduation or any other party, whether you've been drinking or not drinking, pay attention to what happens when one of his songs comes on.

Michael Jackson, with one sparkly glove, I salute you.

A Man, His Wife and a Room Full of Rugs

2009-06-22T16:22:00.003+01:00

There are about a million rug shops in Istanbul, and they all look exactly the same, which is why I have no idea why my wife and I were in this particular one. Silk and wool rugs were piled haphazardly, like colorful logs of firewood, all around us. Every 90 seconds or so, a white box on the wall would beep and shoot out little cloud of air freshener. It wasn’t helping very much.

“Where are you from in the America?” the smiling, sweating man asked us.

“Washington, DC,” my wife said. This is the location we’ve chosen to claim, because no one here knows where in the hell Baltimore is.

“Really? My cousin is there. She is studying in the School of the Washington.”

I’ve never heard of the School of the Washington, but it was too hot to challenge him on this. I’m sure his cousin is a lovely girl, wherever she really is. And besides, I was busy marveling to myself at how odd it was that I was even in this situation. A single guy goes to a Super Bowl party with some friends, he meets a lanky girl in an ill-fitting sweater and four and a half years later he’s in a rug shop in some steaming, crazy-assed city in Europe.

The man and his silent assistant had unrolled at least a dozen rugs on the floor and I was going cross eyed. The men stared at us, searching for signs of interest. Sweat was now streaming freely down my back.

Beep. Hiss.

“You like the rugs with the abstract shapes, or the ones with the pictures and the symbols?” he asked. Believe it or not, I’ve never given this issue much thought. The last rug I bought was fifteen years ago. It was from Target and I choose it from a plastic bin because it matched the T-shirt I was wearing that day. The cheapest of the rugs my wife and I were looking at now could have purchased multiple Sony Playstations. Somewhere in the recesses of my brain, the 18-year-old version of Matt Norman was disgusted.

Over the course of the next twenty agonizing minutes, my wife narrowed the pile down to two rugs. Both were silk and, as far as I could tell, identical.

“What if I make a crazy price?” the man asked. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Will you buy the rug then? We will make the business?”

Now it was my wife’s turn to shrug. It was a meaningless gesture though; everyone in the shop, even the cat sleeping in the corner, knew we weren’t leaving without a rug.

“Which one do you like better?” my wife asked me.

I’ve been married long enough to know that “I don't know, whatever,” is a card you can only play once or twice a year, and so I squinted my eyes and pretended to consider my answer with great care. “That one,” I said, pointing to the rug on the right.

“Why?” she asked, as she always does.

“I like the pictures and the symbols,” I said.

Airport Chatter

2009-06-15T15:29:00.004+01:00

Due to a series of strange events that I don't want to talk about specifically or I'll start crying, I spent 14 consecutive hours in the Atlanta airport last week. It was as awful and as lonely as you can imagine, as I drifted from concourse to concourse carrying my luggage and leafing through dreadful books by people like James Patterson and Danielle Steele.

Along the way, after four hours or so, I gave up trying to entertain myself constructively and began simply staring at people and eavesdropping on whatever it was they were saying. Some people are happy in airports; they're on their way somewhere fun and warm. Others are sad; they've left someone behind or are heading somewhere crappy, probably for some job they hate. But most people are simply annoyed, pissy under the sheer weight of the unGodly number of hours they have to wait until they get to leave.

Here are some pieces of some of the conversations I listened to. I jotted them down in a notebook that I keep with me. This notebook is meant for novel and/or short story ideas, but I use it mostly for doodling pictures of cartoon birds.

"$hit, I don't care. Do you want to eat at Chili's or do you want to eat at . . . umm . . . whatever that f*cking place is over there."

"Did you hear how loud that guy was breathing? He should get those strips that the football guys wear on their noses."
"People keep talking about socialism. Is that, like, the Russians?"
"How about instead of a $7-food voucher you give me the last five hours of my life back?"
(Man talking on cell phone in line at Starbucks) "He chewed what? Oh Christ."
"Hey, dude. Do these vouchers work for beer? Please say yes."
"Are you kidding me. I could have ridden a f*cking camel to Newark by now."
"Mommy, I did a poopy. It's a bad one."
"If you look at Obama's ears too long, you'll never be able to take him seriously again. For real."
"Yeah. Supersize. The really big one. And one of those pie things. And can I get a Diet Coke, too?"
(Exchange between two teenaged girls, one of whom was reading an US Weekly) "This Kate chick sounds like a real ho' bag." "Well, you'd be a ho' bag too if eight babies came out of your va-jay."

Reflections from the Beach

2009-06-10T19:26:00.005+01:00

I’m supposed to be back in London right now. That was the plan. But apocalyptic thunderstorms somewhere in the Mid Atlantic Region yesterday prevented that, and so today I did what any patriotic American would do. I went to the beach.

In my awkward, often sexless young adulthood, I found that the beach was usually more hardship than it was worth. I’d sit smoldering on my sandy chair and hate myself for not having the balls to talk to any of the dozen girls in bikinis lounging in all directions. Now though, because I’m both married and in my early-to-mid 30s, I’m finally able to relax and enjoy myself for a change.

When you’re not consumed by self loathing and glistening navel rings, the beach is actually a pretty entertaining place. They serve nachos there, as well as freezing sodas the size of fuel-efficient Japanese sports sedans. As I slurped away, trying half-heartedly to read an article about the economy (apparently things aren’t going well) I found myself mesmerized by two things that I’ve never really paid much attention to at beaches until now: children and dogs.

There was a little girl in a pink bikini; she was no more than two years old. She had one of those pot bellies that only toddlers can get away with, which her parents had caked with sun block thick enough to grout a shower. She watched patiently as her sunburned father inflated a dinosaur beach raft. This took about 15 minutes. When he was finally done, the girl clapped and then immediately lost her raft in the wind. She watched in horror as the grinning dinosaur went skittering down the beach toward the surf. The look on the winded dad’s face was hilarious, like ironic resignation, and then he leapt from his towel and ran through the flaming sand.

To me, this scene seemed like a perfect microcosm of what it must be like to be the father of a daughter. Next though, to my left, I witnessed the other, grosser side of that scenario. Also potbellied, a little boy wore baggy swim trunks that appeared to be filled with a load of something. For optimism’s sake, we’ll assume it was sand. He was throwing a stick into the water over and over again for a soaking dog that looked like something in the cocker spaniel family. On the twentieth or so retrieval, the boy decided to mix things up. Smiling, he put the slobber-and-ocean-gunk-covered stick in his mouth and took off running down the beach. Confused, the dog made a brief whimpering noise, and then trotted away in the other direction.

“Oh my God,” said a man, bemused and also sunburned. “Tyler, that’s disgusting.” From the tone of his voice, it was clear that this wasn’t the nastiest thing he’d seen Tyler put in his mouth. And then he, like a hundred billion fathers before him, stood up, brushed himself off, and chased after his squealing child.

Ahhhh . . . the beach.

So long, America. I'll see you again soon.

Watch Your F*cking Mouth Please

2009-06-09T03:29:00.006+01:00

I borrowed my parents’ car this weekend to drive to a wedding. I’m the sort of person who gets lost a lot, and so I took advantage of the car’s built-in navigation system. For reasons I can’t quite explain, I named the device’s female voice Tina.

“Make a legal u-turn,” Tina told me. I was somewhere in North Carolina, and I’d pulled off her route in search of Diet Dr. Pepper. She told me again, a bit more impatiently, five seconds later.

“Shut up, Tina, you ignorant slut,” I said. That’s when it dawned on me that perhaps I swear more than I should.

Most people swear when they’re angry, like my wife, for example. She used the eff-word twice in one sentence in front of my mother a few months ago when our local grocery store screwed up our turkey order at Thanksgiving. Me though; I’ve always been a more matter-of-fact swearer. “Hey grandma, could you pass the f*cking potatoes?” “Wow, this car smells like a monkey’s a$$.” “Is Lost new tonight? F*ck yeah, Lost is new tonight.” That sort of thing.

As charming as all this may sound—poetic even—it’s all going to have to come to an abrupt f*cking stop in October when I officially become a father. Oddly, this is perhaps the one thing I’m going to miss most about the carefree, filth-laden days of my youth. I’ve happily said goodbye to cruising the bars for girls. I’m too old for all that, and, frankly, I was never very good at it anyway. Apparently girls in bars don’t like being awkwardly leered at from a distance. And I doubt if sleep deprivation will be all that bad. I’m not much of a sleeper anyway nowadays, what with all my charity work and my many public appearances in support of The Norman Nation, an internationally famous blog with a worldwide followership of nearly 77 people.

But swearing . . . holy f&cking $hit, I’m going to miss the hell out of it. In fact, I have to admit, I’m a little nervous. I don’t even know if I have the goddamn vocabulary needed to communicate effectively without obscenities. For example, how would you even go about saying something like “Hey, look at that douche bag over there in those stupid f*cking shorts” without using swear words? I mean, how would the listener know my opinion on the shorts? Without leveraging the words “stupid” and “f*cking” to articulate my point, there really could be all sorts of confusion.

“Wait, do you like the shorts, or do you not like the shorts, Matt Norman? I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, you f*cking idiot.”

$hit. Fatherhood’s going to be harder than I thought. I wonder what else I'm going to have to give up. Hmmm, does anyone know what the parenting books say about drinking an entire box of wine by yourself and watching Cinemax?

Apparently I’m that Creepy Guy in the Bookstore

2009-06-04T22:59:00.004+01:00

This afternoon, I was wandering around Barnes & Noble by myself, which is something I do a lot now. When you don’t have a job, filling the hours can be daunting, and so surrounding yourself with books allows you to convince yourself that you’re doing something at least mildly constructive, even if you spend most of that time looking at pictures of actors from shows you don’t watch drinking lattes in US Weekly.

Celebrities really are just like US!

After a half hour or so, I happened to find myself up by the information desk. There was a middle-aged woman stationed there. She looked like the sort of person who’d work at the information desk at a bookstore, with glasses and such. I noticed another woman approaching, a customer, and she was flanked by two bored-looking children wearing Crocs.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m looking for one thousand white women.”

This immediately struck me as an odd thing for someone to say to someone else so casually, and so I quickly replayed it in my head. When everything came back clean, I turned around and said, “Well, come on. Who isn’t? Am I right ladies?”

Like a lot of people who mask insecurity and crippling neurosis with humor, I smiled and waited for the inevitable burst of laughter. However, what I got instead were two of the blankest stares in the history of human civilization.

“One thousand white women,” I said. But, this didn’t seem to clear things up at all. In fact, their stares, if possible, grew blanker. The two children, a boy and a girl, were staring at me now, too. My face grew hot, and I considered the logistics of inventing my own personal laugh-track. It would be the size of an iPod and I’d keep it in my pocket for situations like this.

“Well, OK then,” I said, finally, and walked away.

Thirty seconds later, as I hid behind a Twilight display, the help desk lady whispered, “We really do get all kinds in here.” Apparently, One Thousand White Women is the name of a book. Who knew? Sounds like quite a read though.

Ooooooooooo look! Jennifer Love Hewitt is surfing!

Is That a Snake Eating You Alive or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

2009-06-03T04:06:00.005+01:00

I read an article in the New Yorker yesterday that so thoroughly scared the holy sh*t out of me that I have just now, some 22 hours later, stopped screaming.

The author, Burkhard Bilger, revealed that the state of Florida is presently on the verge of being overrun by Burmese pythons, animals who—ohmyfreakinggodly—can be as large as 20 feet long. What’s worse, these slithery bastards are currently multiplying at unprecedented, NBA-player levels. And, when global warming is taken into consideration, along with snakes’ ability to travel, by the year 2100 there could be pythons as large as your most unholy nightmares living as far north as Manhattan.

Did you people not hear what I just said? Because if you haven’t leapt from your chair and begun wildly flailing your arms, then clearly you didn’t. I mean, seriously, I just reread these first two paragraphs and had to give myself a horse tranquilizer.

You mean to tell me that for the last year we’ve had to listen to people talking about the stock market and the auto industry and pig flu, and all the while snakes the size of studio apartments have been giving birth to baby snakes and are now slithering toward my house to do their evil bidding and to try to eat my dog?

Why isn’t the president giving nightly press conferences on this? Why doesn’t Fox News have a graphic yet? Why hasn’t Jack Bauer gotten involved? And, most importantly, why am I just f*cking hearing about this now?! Thanks a lot, liberal media!

As successful as the article was at making me sh*t my pants, it was not successful, however, at offering any solutions for how to solve this problem. And so, yet again, it is up to The Norman Nation to come to the rescue. This morning, my staff and I—minus the interns, who I’ve tasked with de-snaking my beach house—devised a three-pronged plan for how to defeat these snake terrorists and preserve America as we know it.

Build a Giant Snake-Proof Wall
I’m not 100% sure which states border Florida, but The Norman Nation proposes that we build a 100-foot wall between those states and Florida. Atop that wall we will post Army men and we will arm them with laser guns.

Remove Florida
Once this wall is completed, which we estimate will take like five or six days, the U.S. government will use dynamite to literally detach Florida from the continental United States. Florida would then drift off into the ocean, sort of like that pirate ship at the end of The Goonies, which I think we can all agree is an awesome movie.

Blow Up Florida
Once it is far enough away, the government will shoot nuclear missiles at Florida until it and its new civilization of snake monsters are thoroughly blown up. To be safe, the water where the floating Florida once was will then be blown up, too.

Is this plan aggressive? Yes. Does it wildly overstep any and all rules of government authority? Perhaps. However, as we all know, desperate times call for desperate measures, and I can’t think of anything more desperate than being chased down the street by a pack of man-eating snakes. Can you?

And besides, let’s be honest, aside from Epcot Center, are we really going to miss Florida all that much? I await your call, Mr. President. But please, don’t call too early. I’ve recently taken a horse tranquilizer.

Now You Can Hire the Awesome

2009-05-29T10:24:00.002+01:00

People are always saying to me, “Matt Norman, you should get a job, you know, like do something with your life.” My response is always the same. “Shut up, mom. I am doing something. Now get out of my room! Jeez!”

Now that I think about it, though, my mom might actually be right. You see, since January—when I was let go from my position as propagandist aboard The Death Star—I’ve written a lot, including nearly 40 blogs on my world-famous blog, the seventh draft of my novel, and the first 15 pages of a new novel. The thing is, that kind of writing—although super awesome and totally worthwhile—doesn’t pay very much. In fact, it pays nothing. Well, less than nothing, really, if you use fancy-pants words like “opportunity costs.”

And so, as of today, I’m officially putting myself back into the job market! I know, it's pretty exciting, huh?

Do you work for a company that currently has crap that needs to be written? Do you personally have crap that needs to be written, but you’d rather drive a rusty spike through your eye than write that crap? Are you functionally illiterate, and, therefore, incapable of writing your own crap? Well, look no further, because the solution to your problem is right here, and its name is Matt Norman.

Believe it or not, I have a decade's worth of experience at writing crap. I can write funny crap. I can write inspirational crap. I can write crap that sounds interesting but really means very little. I can write crap with lots of important-sounding words in it, like mission-critical or value-added or right-sizing. And, perhaps best of all, I can write crap that effectively scares and/or coerces people into buying things they probably don't need. Here’s an example from my portfolio:

Seriously, if you don’t buy this crappy product, you’re going to be so screwed. Your wife will probably leave you, and, let’s face it, you don’t have the skills to find a new wife. Am I right, or am I right, you paunchy bastard?

Along with my obvious acumen* at the writing of crap, I’m also delightful to have around an office. First of all, I’m tall, which is nice for getting files and such from top shelves. Secondly, I’ve never been convicted of any serious crimes, which will make your HR people happy. And, lastly, and more specifically, I possess just the right blend of sarcasm and subtle disinterest that any high-functioning business team needs to reach its true potential.

I mean, seriously, can your company afford not to hire me? I don’t think so.

Oh, and, did I mention that I’d like to work at home as much as possible? And, if I’m being totally honest, I really hardly ever do anything constructive on Fridays, so it’s probably best if we work out a Monday-through-Thursday thing. But, you know, our people can discuss all that later. I prefer to keep things high-level. Call me!

*This is just one small example of the important-sounding words you can expect when you hire Matt Norman to write your crap.

Congratulations, It’s a Spider Monkey

2009-05-27T12:22:00.003+01:00

This past weekend, my wife and I re-visited one of our favorite places here: the London Zoo. Like a lot of places in England, the zoo would probably be more fun if it weren’t for the soul-crushing lack of sunshine, but, all things considered, it’s a pretty cool place. The animals are different, more polite and bumbling than their American counterparts. The giraffes, for example, wear ascots, and the penguins work part-time as waiters in the zoo’s café.

Halfway through our day, though, as I stood happily eating what the Brits call an “ice lolly,” I came to a startling realization. There’s a pretty good chance that my daughter, who is due in October, is going to look like a spider monkey.

Allow me to explain.

We were in the monkey house, and, like we all do in monkey houses, we were staring at the chimps. There were two of them there. One was mugging shamelessly for the camera, smiling and blowing kisses, while the other was scratching its butt to the delight of children. That’s when I looked over at a much smaller, less celebrated glass enclosure. There, reclusive behind some leaves and holding a plum with its foot, dangled the oddest member of the monkey family.

I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog blogging about how devastatingly good-looking I am, but I’ve done so ironically. The truth is, my body looks like something that farmers set out in their fields to frighten crows away in the 1930s. And my wife, although she wears her lankiness far more elegantly than I do, is, shall we say, significantly taller than necessary. I’m no geneticist—nor do I have anything beyond the vaguest understanding of what DNA is—but I’m fairly certain that our now-combined genes will have no choice but to produce what will only be able to be described as a freakish marvel of modern science.

“What are you looking at?” my wife asked.

I pointed through the glass. The spider monkey—a little female, of course—hung upside down now, as if swinging from the light above our future kitchen table. Perhaps it was my imagination, but she seemed to be looking directly at us as she ate her plum.

“What is that?” asked my wife.

“It’s the most adorable thing ever,” I said.

Yellow Lab Goes on Murderous Rampage in Park

2009-05-22T16:16:00.003+01:00

My dog and I just returned from Hyde Park, and a strange thing happened there. We were walking along, enjoying the rare sunshine, sniffing trees and trying to think of good opening scenes for novels, when my dog noticed a large group of Middle Eastern children and their mothers picnicking in the grass.

As he often does when he sees strangers eating, he trotted over to see if perhaps they might want to give him some of their food or, at the very least, throw his tennis ball for him over and over again so he can repeatedly fetch it until the end of time.

I thought nothing of it. Most people welcome my dog, often making complete fools of themselves by rolling around on the ground and telling him in baby voices how adorable he is. And so, as you can imagine, I was a little surprised when the dozen or so children and women leapt to their feet and started screaming and running in every conceivable direction. It was as if he weren’t a smiling yellow lab at all, but the prop snake from that movie Anaconda, and instead of a tennis ball in his mouth, he held a severed human head.

As the crying children hid behind trees and the panic-stricken mothers prayed in their exotic language, my dog looked back at me, a little confused, and then, like any innocent man would, he stole what appeared to be a piece of cheese naan and walked away.

Now, I understand that not everyone loves dogs, and some cultures are grossed out at the idea of sharing a bed with them or kissing them on the mouth or buying them designer t-shirts. But, to run in fear—in absolute terror—from a yellow lab? Really? This isn't Cujo here, people, my dog is a breed that is often featured nuzzling babies in toilet paper commercials and seen guiding the blind through traffic.

As a tall, white, male, heterosexual, sort-of-Catholic from the very middle of the middle of the United States, I’m the first to admit that I’m no expert at diversity or the many cultural customs and beliefs in this world. So, if there’s anyone out there who might know why those poor women and children were so terrified of my dog and me, please let me know. I would certainly like for a scene like this one never to happen again.

Oh, and I’d also love a good recipe for cheese naan. That stuff is great.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Reader Mail is Insightful and Sexy

2009-05-20T17:33:00.004+01:00

I received an interesting question today at The Norman Nation’s official e-mail address, thenormannation@gmail.com. Assman1410 asked, “Hey, Matt Norman, you unemployed bastard, for the love of God, what in the hell do you do all day long?”

Well, Assman, that’s a good question. It’s no secret that I was recently let go from a prestigious position aboard The Death Star—a company known around the universe for destroying the souls of the innocent with its deadly SuckRay®. As an unemployed person living in a foreign country during a global financial crisis, it’s fair to say that I’ve had a bit of time on my hands lately.

At first, I was so happy to be free of the unholy empire that was my Godless former employer that I filled most days drunkenly running around the city giggling and knuckle-bumping confused strangers. However, after a month or so, I curtailed my daytime drinking and found more constructive ways to spend time. Here, Assman, is a typical day in the life of Matt Norman. As you can see, I’ve broken it down into four stages:

Stage 1: Waking Up
This might sound easy, but, I assure you, it’s more complicated than you think. You see, it’s absolutely essential to wake up at the exact same time as my employed wife. Furthermore, I must pretend to be chipper, productive and fully in charge of all of my emotions—including crushing sadness—otherwise she’ll inevitably begin desperately regretting her decision to marry me. I’ve looked at the video footage from our wedding; unfortunately the vows mentioned nothing specifically about unemployment.

Stage 2: Working Out
An unemployed person can kill many hours half-heartedly running on the treadmill or lifting weights at the gym. Although incredibly confusing due to the fact that the weights and distances here are listed in kilograms and kilometers—which I don’t even think are real things—exercising presents the all-important illusion of productivity. “Hey, look at that unemployed guy over there lifting those weights. He must not at all feel like a worthless drain on society.”

Stage 3: Eating Lunch
Every day I go to lunch at Subway, and I order the exact same thing. The store manager, a lovely man from Pakistan, doesn’t know any other Americans, and so he often asks me questions about my homeland. “In the United States, are dogs allowed to ride in the passenger seat of cars?” he asked me yesterday. I told him that they are, and that in a state called Georgia they’re allowed to actually drive, provided they pass a simple eye test. Convincing him that I’m not making things like this up is usually good to fill at least an hour.

Stage 4: Being a Writer
As the author of two unpublished novels, dozens of unpublished stories and an internationally famous blog with a following of more than 73 people, I know a thing or two about writing things that very few people will ever read. It’s pretty exhausting. Today, after merely five hours of work—and only two fits of uncontrollable crying, which is way fewer than usual—I managed to write the first four sentences of my new novel. Of course, I can’t show them to you yet because I’m totally going to rewrite them tomorrow, but I can assure you that I’m off to a really good start and that I’m not even thinking about that half bottle of Jack Daniels sitting in the kitchen. Things are going super!

Do you have a question? Send it to thenormannation@gmail.com today.