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A.J. Daulerio

Columnist

Parting Ways

Columns

I could see how it would rub people the wrong way. But was he a bad guy? He couldn’t be in my eyes. Because I’d heard some of the most gloriously incomprehensible noises come out of his ass.

8.3.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

Summertime Rolls, Part 2

Columns

Apparently, Kathy's family had not only been riddled with a messy divorce, but also had some tremendous, albeit absurd, tragedies befall them. My father asked her who would be walking her down the aisle and she said she didn't know. She began to tear up. She said her father was killed in a hotel fire a few years ago. She became close with her stepmother after her father died. Unfortunately, while vacationing in St. Augustine, her stepmother was eaten by an alligator.

7.20.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

Summertime Rolls, Part 1

Columns

It is the perfect season for an unwieldy existential crisis. I brood over summers past coming to the sad realization that whacking lightning bugs out of the sky with a tennis racket is no longer acceptable behavior.

7.15.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

Shaving Grace, Part Two

Columns

And the worst part, was, that there was a conference the next day, one where he was scheduled to speak at in front of 200 people -- his boss, his boss's boss, other regional managers -- and he would, it seemed, have to do it without his hair.

6.15.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

Shaving Grace, Part One

Columns

But he was smiling in the picture. A confident smile, one that showed invigoration, one that welcomed opportunity, and one that knew he had hair. This was who he was. There was nothing to hold him back anymore.

6.8.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

Sick Kid Karma Gun

Columns

At night I would pray for cancer. I didn't want to die, but I did want the idolatry that seemingly came from being a kid with a terminal illness. I'd try to cough really loud and I made my mom take my temperature every night with the secret hope that it would read 106.

5.25.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

Arrow Spent

Columns

From there on out, I was swinging for the fences. And for the rest of the season each seldom at-bat was a free swinging display of desperation; the cruelty of having hit that homerun, but not having circled the bases with the sun shining on my face in front of frenzied crowd just like that fucking John Fogerty song ate me up.

5.11.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

My Heart Will Go On

Columns

It was beautiful day outside when my mother drove me to UPENN to have my heart surgery. I wasn't nervous or anxious, but more curious than everything. Yeah, fix my heart. Make me shiny and new.

4.27.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

The First Male Crush

Columns

You wish your friends could be more like this guy. You wish you could be more like this guy. But, you don't want to have sex with this guy. Seriously, you don't. You wouldn't want to ruin the possibility of having a friendship.

4.13.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

The Women at the Gym

Columns

Unfortunately, part of the initial fitness assessment was a body fat test, which required use of a plastic tool called a caliper. This cruel, humiliating three-dollar piece of plastic resembles an instrument used for solving algebra problems and an unwieldy pair of salad tongs. But it had the ability to make woman weep openly if used properly.

3.30.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

Fight Test

Columns

Now, most often these type of silly little line-in-the-sand type exchanges went nowhere in my upper-middle class high school. However, throughout the week the momentum for this particular fight escalated and before we knew it, it was an event. Friday came and all the activity around the school was focused on Brian's fight

3.16.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

The Firing Range

Columns

My employment history from ages 16 to 23 could be opening chapters for a how-to book for people who wish to be the worst employees possible. I thought about it and realized that I’d been fired seven times in my life. Seven.

3.2.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

Reality Soup

Columns

There was a time, however, when I was just a writer, a famous one, no less, and the only explanation that was needed was in the local bookstores.

2.17.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

Out Here In The Field...

Columns

There was a sign posted at the top of the stairs written in black magic marker that said Ventco Sports Marketing. I went through the door to find a dull, lifeless office with temporary wall-to-wall carpeting the color of cat vomit, one chair, 3 magazines resting on a cheap end-table, and a boom box sitting on the carpet pumping classic rock.

2.3.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

Ribs

Columns

I was a pussy, I knew that, but at the time that didn’t matter to me because when you’re 16, love struck for the first time, deloused of virginity, there is an unenviable fear of the unknown, the future, and growing up. Would I ever be able to have sex again?

1.20.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

The Other Side of The Room

Columns

However clear I think I’m being about my hearing impediment, the fact that I don’t have a clunky hearing aid jutting out of the side of my head or warbled speech gives most people the impression that I have 100% hearing and am just being effusive, flighty, or indignant toward their attempts at socializing with me. Most of the time this is not the case, unless the slighted person in question is stupidly holding their hand up waiting for a high-five.

1.6.2004

Tiny Hands Typing

Those Funny Things You Used to Do

Columns

Instead of a life burdened by debilitating social anxiety and uncertainty I probably could've been a successful heart surgeon or corporate lawyer had I not been raised like a vaudeville performer.

12.16.2003

Tiny Hands Typing

Dog

Columns

Could other people come home from work and talk about how they had to buy 50 cans of Rediwip for Ugly Kid Joe so they could do whippets in the studio? Did they get to drop off the laundry for Dishwalla's drummer? Or could they talk about how they had to blow off Richard Marx on the telephone because the producer didn’t want to be pestered by him?

12.2.2003

Tiny Hands Typing

Feet for Hands

Columns

My mother is the one who hangs shelves in their house, assembles entertainment centers, and finds all the appropriate input/outputs for the personal computer. My father's excuse is he lacks patience and that he was never mechanical. My excuse is to blame him.

11.18.2003

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The Objects of My Affection

Columns

But, what would I do with them, when they arrived? What could a 6-year-old boy do with a group of women parading around in nightgowns and white socks?

11.4.2003

Tiny Hands Typing

14 Things I Still Do That I Know Ladies Absolutely Hate

Features

Sure, he may be in love, but he's not changing for anyone. AJ Daulerio lists the habits he'll never give up.

10.27.2003

Sweet Talkin'

For Those About To Fail, We Salute You

Columns

It almost happened for me. I'm convinced that had I been given the proper guidance, been put up for adoption, and allowed to move to Los Angeles like I'd told my parents, I would've been a full-fledged, washed-up rock star by now.

10.21.2003

Tiny Hands Typing

Mom goes down

Columns

One of the most horrifying falls was on Christmas Eve a few years back when my mother did a header down the stairs (again) at my uncle's when her heel got caught in the rug.

10.7.2003

Tiny Hands Typing

Sheep

Columns

One day I came home from school and sure enough, there it was -- a lawn sheep. It was one of the smaller versions, only about a foot high, but it had big eyes and a smile drawn on its face. It had a blue ribbon around its neck with two tiny bells hanging from it.

9.23.2003

Tiny Hands Typing

Do Not Call

Columns

A telemarketing job is palpably depressing, strangled by monotony and the aroma of wasted time. It's one part hospital waiting room, one part DMV.

9.9.2003

Tiny Hands Typing

Give Me Your Forever

Columns

Bottom line is, forever only lasts as long as it's good, and then forever becomes this 10-pound lump of dog shit sitting on your chest right underneath your nose while you sleep.

8.26.2003

Tiny Hands Typing

Sleep, Please

Columns

After 20 minutes I'd be in my bedroom in the dark listening to "The Girl from Ipanema" played on the clarinet and I'd lose my mind. I would run to my parent's room demanding I sleep on their floor for the night.

8.12.2003

Tiny Hands Typing

The Art of Storytelling

Columns

Many people still consider me a compulsive liar. This is fine -- there are worse things to be called. I just consider it honing my creative skills -- working on my game, so to speak.

7.29.2003

Tiny Hands Typing

A Summer Job Story: 42 Fucks and a Melon Truck

Columns

I told a black woman trying to pay with food stamps that we didn't accept foreign currency. She called me a dick-nosed Italian and walked out.

7.1.2003

Tiny Hands Typing

The Lovebirds and the Bees

Features

... I feel inadequate that for the first time since I was 16 years old there's no long-term relationship to anchor me, while all my friends are getting married and having kids. Yeah, it sucks to go home sometimes. It sucks to be alone, idling, it seems, at 29.

6.9.2003

Quarterlife Crisis

Puerto Ricans, Infertility, and Straight-Shooting Politics

Columns

A.J. returns after discovering Hanukah.

12.10.2002