How I simplified my New Years resolution.

This year I had a lot to think about, and a correspondingly large number of resolutions to consider. I wanted to quit binge drinking (yes, even in the presence of friends [sorry for being a party pooper!]), learn to manage my time accordingly, get my sorry hobo butt a job, stop swearing so much, *coughmeetsomeonenewcough* ... and those were just the simple ones. I had more complicated ones to figure out, such as the paradoxical piece of advice, "Don't be so mean, but stop being so nice" that I was handed by several people near the end of 2008 (I won't even bother explaining this one).

Then I thought, "Why am I making this so hard on myself when it could be so much easier?" So I boiled it down to the following:

Rule 1. Don't be such a dumb-ass.
Rule 2. There are no rules.

...[/Fight Club starring Brad Pitt who is not really that hot, whateverrrr]

But honestly, is it not the perfect resolution? All I have to do is stop before I do anything that feels debatable and ask myself, "Am I being a dumb-ass here?" Look, I've even made a flowchart for the rest of you to follow!!


I'm serious. This shit stuff will work for real, yo.

My love affair with humanity is over.

I'm a huge proponent of teamwork. I believe that if you offered a hand to people, they would remember it, and God forbid, even consider crediting you where due as well. I always believe in the benefit of the doubt. I'm tired of it biting me in the ass for the nth time, though.

I guess somebody finally smacked those damn rose tinted lens off my face.

Yes, life isn't fair, but there's no point in making it even more unfair for yourself. I'd love to have principles regarding my attitude towards the general public, but you know, when in Rome...

Starting now, those who want my trust, my help, and yes, even my limited expertise, will have to earn it. No more doormat. I will demand credit where I deserve it. And you can bet I'll be saying "no" a lot more often now.

I'm not saying that I'm going to become a jaded cynic. I'm just going to be a little more realistic. I don't think I could live without a little happy place inside me...and hopefully my true friends will help keep that place thriving and alive.

Breaking the Law of Contradiction

I don't want to be jaded, but I don't want to be naive either. I don't want to defend the status quo, but I don't want to be a fool either. I want to discover Atlantis, but only because I need to know that it exists. I want to be self-sufficient, but I'm afraid of what I'll become without mirrors. I'd like to want money, or fame. Instead I just want to be able to get by, and be happy, love everybody I care about, and be loved back with that same intensity. I'd like to want what everybody else wants. For some reason, nobody ever seems to wants what I want. I think being a satisfied dot on this world isn't so bad, but why does everybody else want to be a giant? The things people do to fulfill their aspirations frightens me. I want to help. But I'm not cutthroat enough to gain the capacity to do so - I don't want to risk getting lost and losing sight of myself. Lastly, I want to be of use, but not be used.

I think I was put together wrong.


I also want to believe that humanity is better than this.
But Utopia exists in the middle of nowhere, and unfortunately I have lost both my map and compass.

Advice to Boys: Part I. I'm talking to you, Shaggy.

I know it isn't a recent production of yours...but are you trying to screw over the male population with your hit song featuring Ricardo Ducent, "It Wasn't Me"?

Boys, I am going to do you a favour RIGHT NOW. I don't want to insinuate that I am pro-twotimer, but Shaggy's song is just...I can't even...wow. This song actually makes me WANT to teach guys how to cheat properly.

Okay, perhaps I should reword that last sentence. Just to counter the horrible ramifications that this song must have had upon the male demographic of the English-speaking world (given that the translators were too busy ROFLing to translate this song into other languages, GOD WILLING), I would like to teach guys what NOT to say if they get caught "creeping" with someone other than your designated significant other.

Namely, the title of this song.

"It wasn't me" is just about the most ineffective, lamest, most pathetic thing a guy can say after he gets "caught red-handed" doing the horizontal tango with some ho(e). It's not even rational. No girl will ever take that as a valid excuse, MUCH LESS let you off the hook.

Let's take a look at the lyrics:

"Honey came in and she caught me red-handed,
Creeping with the girl next door.
Picture this, (insert horrendous, gratuitous verbal description of crude sex, and trust me, you so do not want to picture Ricardo Ducent doing this).

How could I forget that I had
Given her an extra key?
All this time she was standing there
She never took her eyes off me."

This is the predicament that one of Shaggy's double-timing apprentices presents the boss with. The patented Shaggy Solution?

"It wasn't me."



NO, SHAGGY, NO!

Boys, when she walks in on you IN THE ACT, please do not say "it wasn't me".

"Uh, hi there! Look, I know I TOTALLY look like me right now, but trust me when I say I am not me right now."

...

I think I might physically explode if I further attempt to put the feelings I have about "It Wasn't Me" into words. This song is so ridiculous that I had to actually justify it being a popular hit by drafting the following theory up.

Shaggy is actually trying to teach men not to cheat by showing them the hard way. When they try to use Shaggy's advice and the affronted girlfriend (1) beats him to a pulp and (2) leaves him, he'll renounce Shaggy as his foster godfather-slash-pimp-advisor. But Shaggy will shed a single tear as all his protégés, one by one, turn away from him and he'll whisper to himself, "You'll understand when you're older."

God, that's beautiful.







Oh, a moral? Right. Don't cheat, stupid.

Random Anecdote.

Here's something quick to tide over my silence.

So tonight, after dinner, I take my dishes to the sink. The phone rings and after two rings, I pick up.

"Hello?" I say into the receiver. Silence.

Then, a fog horn toots. I look at the phone in confusion - is this some new dial tone that I don't know of? Nope!

"Hello, this is your captain speaking!" says a nancy-sounding fellow on the other side, who's probably hopped up on Prozac. I start thinking that the expression on my face must be priceless now. The fog horn blasts in the background again, as he continues speaking. "You could win two all-exclusive cruise tickets to the Bahamas if you answer these easy 10 questions -"

"Not with you as the captain, creepo," I say scathingly into the telephone, then I hang up.

That might have been the creepiest automated call I've ever gotten in my life.

Boredom.

I'm going to write this down before I forget it and it is lost in my mind forever, a floating memory associated no tags with which I can access it.

One day I was at my friend's house with her boyfriend. (Totally felt like a third wheel - but whatever.) Now, her boyfriend liked tussling and fighting with me because I am pretty much like a dude to him. Of course, it wasn't like pro-wrestling, more like spraying his girlfriend's perfume into each other's eyes.

Anyway after a long fight of perfume spraying, which I admittedly lost, I decided to exact sweet, sweet revenge. After painting my own nails a bizarre variety of colours from my friend's extensive nail polish collection, I took a pink bottle and smiled wickedly.

Turning to her boyfriend, I said, "You know, I really respect guys who are so sure of their masculinity that they can paint their nails and not be bothered by it." Then I held up the bottle and let his puny male mind make the connection.

"Fine," he said, after a few moments of what must have been intense thinking for him. "But you can only paint the pinky." Snickering, I agreed.

So in the end I painted his finger nail pink. And he didn't notice until we left her house and all chances of him taking it off via the nail polish remover (without totally embarrassing himself in front of his mom) were extinguished. He was all like "OH SHITE! I forgot to take the nail paint off!"

Secretly, I think he forgot on purpose. All boys are secretly infatuated with trying nail polish and/or lingerie and stilletto heels on. Don't even try to deny. But seriously, I totally respect the ones who can do it with pride. You know who you are. ;)

Exposé (Not Really) #5: Ode to The College Weirdo

I promise that this post will be shorter than my gardening experience.

Along with me, my fellow classmates of year 2006 are also fast approaching a large change in their lives. Whether it be a merging into the fast paced highway we call life (Life is a highway! I'm gonna ride it all night long- NOT! Just a friendly reminder not to drive when you're suffering from fatigue and not to drive at all if you're a truck driver on a sandy road) or continuing to endure- I mean, suffer- I mean ... ah, forget it; self-flagellate yourself into 4+ more years of expensive education, you are definitely due for a whole new look - a scrutiny of all the faults, more like - at life.

Well, that was a long sentence. That aside, I'm a big fan of metaphors and similes. I like to imagine moving from secondary school to university as kind of...an exchange of chalkboard slates, if you will. You get to toss out the old one - you know, the one with doodled genitalia and immature misspelt profanities scrawled across the surface - and in return, you get a clean slate. Too bad that new slate cost you an arm and leg. Expenses aside, at least your new friends won't know about how you mooned your maths teacher back in Grade 9.

What I'm trying to say is, most people try to take this opportunity to mould themselves into something they're not. Let me also take the time now to say to those few individuals...

IT'S NOT WORKING!!

Becoming more mature doesn't entail not being able to act like a fool. Okay, of course you're not supposed to blow raspberries in class and blame it on somebody else anymore, but it also doesn't mean that you suddenly have to restrict yourself from laughing at something funny just because it is considered "childish". It also doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to make mistakes and then laugh about the silliness of them.

Putting up a wall between the outside classy sophisticated person and the inside goofy fool ultimately gives everyone the impression that you're erecting a façade - a showy fake interpretation of who you want to be - and hiding from the world. Even if it is the other way around and you're actually a cold son of a b**** attempting to be nominated as the nicest university student of your year, that's no reason to pretend to be something you aren't. Save the acting for the drama club - you'll only feel fulfilled if you are loved for who you are.

Whether I'm trying to insinuate that it's not exactly a good idea to just leave your past life behind due to possibly blackmailing or that you can't hide from your friends who know about the incident with the ire-fay and the ysics-phay eacher-tay's oupee-tay, the point is that it's your life. The memories that inevitably come along with it are something that should be remembered and treasured no matter what. Pretending to be someone you're not is literally like chopping off a deformed goiter off the side of your neck. The lump of strange flesh might symbolize some unfriendly memories, but it's still a part of you and ridding yourself of it, no matter how mutated it (or your past) was, will definitely be something you will live to regret.

So I promised that this would be a short post. In closing: if, in the next while, you're walking around on campus and you see someone skipping around screeching songs in a foreign language, running after a bus and then realizing that they were chasing the wrong one or laughing loudly at inappropriate things in public ... remember that they're just being themselves and enjoying life without any inhibitions. (Unless, of course, they get really disruptive. Then ... feel free to tell them to shut up.)

Represent! Especially the bus chasing thing. Don't laugh!