bookguy calls it noun-challenged. to be noun-challenged is to be someone who can't remember people's proper names. between he and i, it's unclear who is more severely afflicted. as per usual, he would claim the title and i would claim he is wrong. either way, it is a fierce race.

as evidence to my condition allow me to turn to my proclivity for nicknames. i give people such monikers for three reasons; (1) to insulate them from embarrassing things i may say about them online, (2) because i can't remember their name at all, or (3) because i can't remember the version of their name (mike, michael, mikey, m-bag) they prefer or more importantly, they greatly dislike. and on that last item, i've argued many a time that mike, michael, mikey and m-bag are entirely synonymous and should be freely interchangeable.

to recap, some of the past characters, several of which you've heard of countless times ...

• bookguy
• bookpimp
• e-love
• man who screams like woman
• doctor j
• the way with words girl
• chavez
• smart ryan
• buddy james
• thin when tan girl
• the why the hell wouldn't ya guy
• the doctor of diss
• guy with mussed hair
• and of course, girl who dates guy with mussed hair

here's a few i've never shared online and use mostly when talking with walt (or rather marty) ...

THE FAKE MOMS
a group of highly augmented ladies who hang out at our pool.

NEWSPAPER DAD
a guy who sits at the park with his four young children reading the ny times and shooing his kids away anytime they near him.

HOLD MY BABY
actually bookguy-coined this gem but it is a fast staple in our home and i'm not really in a position to speak to its origin.

SMILING LADY
i see this lady all over the place and she makes the joker look morose.

BAD, DRUNK MOM
she's not just bad and she's not just drunk, she's both and therefore gets the double-bill.

YELLING MOM
the yelling mom scares me and is not too surprisingly married to ...

THE QUIET GUY
i got ten bucks that says this fella comes out soon.

this is what could have happened and this is what did happen.

not only am i baltimore-bound to serve as best man to the doctor of diss, but earlier this week i was asked to do the same for bookpimp in his upcoming knot-tieing-fest later this decade.

question: how many people think they could dress me up, stand me on a perch in front of hundreds of people, hand me a microphone and hope for the best? if you answered two, you would be correct.

another question: should these guys be concerned of what might get said on their behalf? only if the terms severed foreskin, private place, first time and drifting methane swill cause you, your family and/or closest friends any sort of discomfiture.

i'm sure all will go swimmingly.

i'm sure all will go memorably at the least.

UPDATE 3: we may have 2 more slots filled on the taos ski bonanza.

UPDATE 4: now i know this will be the second time i've talked about it after saying i would no longer talk about it, but the everyman made usa today's top sites.

the market may be down but marriage is booming. three of my finest friends have either gotten married or engaged this year. as you can imagine, with them being friends of mine and all, this is quite the thing.

as mentioned previously, doctor stevie, is to wed the marty-troy girl. while most would think this couldn't be beaten given her likeness to walt and i, you would be right.

then bookguy tied the knot in a hippie free love kind of ceremony in his backyard. don't believe me? e-love and i both wore shorts to the affair. granted we were the only ones not wearing dry-cleaned garments, but neither of us were willing to turn down an opportunity to wear our bermudas and daisy dukes to a wedding. i'll let you guess who wore which.

and now michaelcosm joins the ranks of the soon-to-be betrothed. when chavez reminded him that this means christine is the only girl he will ever know in that way again, michael reminded him that christine is the only girl who ever expressed an interest in knowing him at all. so in the end, i guess everyone's happy.

i wish them all great humor and hope that they don't wake sweating and screaming in the night at the realization of what a terrible and irreversible mistake they made years ago. oh, i don't mean i do that. i was thinking/talking about someone else. actually, i was speaking hypothetically. marty and i are very happy. marty is very supportive. and nice. she's pretty too.

can you tell she's standing behind me right now?

dearmitt.com's most eligible bachelor, the dr of diss, stevie williams himself, is no longer eligible and will shortly no longer be a bachelor, simply leaving the 'most' descriptor to describe him which i think he will retain with little issue. stephen and his bride-almost-to-be floated through town for dinner and stories after visiting his family in walnut grove a few months back. after leaving, and i never told steve this, marty and i compared notes and each voiced that we thought rachel was a bit of blend of marty and i thus allowing her to stroll about as an astoundingly bright and witty and wholly attractive and quintessentially pleasant young lady.

and this engagement holds special import for me because i occasionally feared the worst for stevie ever finding that one right lady given a horrible event which occurred in college. during a night of drunken tomfoolery in the dorms, steve found himself sleeping on an elevator, naked and adorning black permanent marker art on his rear quarters which included several inordinately large daisy's, a farm house in the distance and words defining who was here, and there, and basically just about anywhere an arrow could be drawn. and did i mention that he visited every floor of the tower in this comfortable state before regaining enough wit to return to his own.

at a later point in time i thought steve was drawn to medicine to divine a method of permanently removing the faint remnants of those indelible glyphs from his person. i gather he succeeded in that i don't know anyone would necessarily pursue a relationship with someone who's body logged a preverbal who's who of hudson hall in the 90-91 academic term.

good work steive-poo (and that by the way is what i wrote in elongated cursive on his inner thigh ... although it was two full years after the naked elevator incident).

Doctor Stevie stopped in town last night on his way to San Francisco. He claims to be going to a medical conference on infectious diseases, but he looks rather suspicious about it all.

In a conversation between he, Marty and I, the term PDA came up in reference to a young couple. I admitted to not understanding the meaning of this inference. They looked at each other in that 'are you kidding me kind of way' and explained that it stood for "Public Display of Affection." Thinking they were joking I asked what it really meant and after exchanging sideways looks again, the mocking began. What do you think it means, personal digital assistant, they asked. Well yes, I replied. They then informed me that I shouldn't wear my dork badge so loudly on my sleeve. A lot they know, we carry them in our wallet.

Who better to contribute to this week's body theme than doctor stevie. In this latest installment of prolapsed, the doctor of diss pays his respects to the often ignored but highly valuable organs we all regularly take for granted and in some cases didn't even know we had.

I have always been very particular about both who/what I touch and what/who touches me. I eat pizza and fries with a fork, pour movie popcorn in my mouth and hit hand dryers in the bathroom with my clothed elbow. Now I know why, I'm just protecting one of my most valuable organs. Still not convinced, let Dr. Stevie have a crack in our second installment of his maneater column Prolapsed.

A friend of mine wrote a column for his university paper while in med school a few years back. i remember following his work via the web while he was at it and enjoyed the articles very much. i happened upon them the other day and thought that you all would find his wit as entertaining as i did. therefore, i will be offering them up from time to time for your amusement and edification. the first selected installment, A Probing Issue deals with the digestive tract, something we all use and also take for granted. carry on and happy digesting.

i need to send huge props out to my good friend stevie williams. first, he got himself into the best shape of his life via a strong type-a discipline. second, he successfully conquered the chicago marathon. see the most eligible bachelor in action. way to go stephen.