Misery Loves Company

But you just love my misery.

A list of things that makes my life difficult, and your life easier or more enjoyable:

1. Grumpiness. Regardless of what you tend to believe, being grumpy is hard work. Those rants, those raves...they take thought and effort to come up with. Today I yelled at the DVD player because it didn't skip past the FBI notice fast enough. Amanda laughed. I was really mad about the whole thing. Bad jokes too. The whole bit. It's killing me. Know what? that just means more grumpiness--lucky you.
2. Sociology essays about the application of Symbolic Interactionism to Automotive Management. You think it's easy to decide to compare the two? You think it's not downright painful to think in such demented ways? My liver thanks you though, it's been looking for a speedy way to go out with a bang--26er for my efforts sounds like the miracle cure.
3. My thesis. It contributes to both my grumpiness, which you find so charming, and my desire to write random papers for those who are depressed because they live in Barrie.
4. London. There's a Marble Slab here. That should make you happy. I spend the majority of my time in London staring at a computer screen and trying to think of synonyms for words like "symbol" and "history" and "identity". Wondering how this place could possibly look more depressing when it's melting than when I'm waist deep in snow. Well fuck.
5. The story I'm going to write. Young girl, at her wits end because everything that usually cheers her up has failed to uncrease the worry line on her forehead. "Ice cream," she thinks. "Ice cream...with baileys." She goes to the fridge only to discover that her bottle of mint-chocolate Bailey's is empty. The bottle smashes on the floor. She runs to the balcony and flings herself off of it. Barely hurt, certainly not dead, she lies in the melting snow imagining that this is how it feels to be dead. She loses her mind completely when she realizes that if this is what it is like to be dead, she'll be lying in her grave wondering whether the maggots and worms enjoy the taste of her heart.

The End.

Boredom Busters

You all are driving me crazy. Me, with 40 pages of just thesis to write over the next couple of weeks, you complaining that you've got nothing to do--you're bored? Well, here it is then, a list of things you can do for me to keep yourself occupied.

1. Find me a job. My freak phone interview was not so hot and I'm looking for something a little closer to home, since the most advice I can get on the age old transportation question is: "You can buy or lease a car." Wow, Dad. No wonder Ford is going to shit. People like him are running the place.
2. Read Midnight's Children for me and take notes on the following broad topics: performativity, identity, nationhood, history, and language. DON'T HIGHLIGHT THE WHOLE BOOK. I could do that myself.
3. Develop a coke habit. Okay, so this wouldn't really help me out. But you might be out of my hair for a while as you struggle with your addiction. Peace. At last. Until the intervention.
4. Help me develop this theory about where people sit on the bus. Can you tell me why some people stand even though there are several seats? Why I always get asked to make space when my bag weighs about 60 pounds? Why does anyone under the age of 60 in excellent physical health ever sit in those front seats reserved for seniors and people with physical disabilities? HUH? How about this: why do some people sit way closer to you than they have to? Why doesn't anyone ever move back as far as they can when the bus is packed? Are people actually afraid of the back of the bus like Rosa Parks was?
   
5. Do some research on Thomas Heywood's theories about comedy or read All's Well that Ends Well and tell me how it unsettles the notion of comedic resolution.
6. Sing me a song. Not everything has to be difficult. I could use some entertainment every now and then. Be prepared though, I will almost definitely end up telling you that I hope you die. You can hope we both die. I won't mind.
7. Tell me why I'm supposed to feel bad about eating ice cream. Think on it for a while because you will have to be damn convincing. I don't want to hear any of this "but it's cold outside" bullshit. Real reasons. Tell me how fat I am. Tell me it's killing my insides. Tell me it's too expensive. Tell me something I don't know.
8. Figure out what the ties between identity and place are. Can you change your identity just because you change the place you've been sitting for the last twenty minutes? Because you move from the place you lived for the last 20 years? Can you transform yourself like Saleem did during the Bangladesh war? I think I'm going to switch between first and third person for a while. Talk about myself like she is someone I don't know all that well. Retarded.
9. Go to Antigua. Take a copy of A Small Place on your trip and tell me how the locals reacted when you offered to fix up their library. That is all I want to do after rereading that book--build them a nice new library, or fix up their old one. Fucking earthquakes are even worse than imperialists.
   
10. Try to get your few remaining friends to give up on trying to save you. Start with me. I'm sick of the lot of you.
11. Don't be one of the dumb few that forgives me. (Can you tell I'm listening to that song right now? I hope you lie and tell everyone I was a good wife...)
12. Get a job and start sending me money in the mail. I think if I think about it for long enough you will probably do it for me. It worked for Jeff, he didn't do a single thing and Georgian sent him 1500 bucks in the mail. Now he can do even less.
13. Come up with a scientifically valid argument that proves the number thirteen is actually unlucky. Or lucky. I don't want you to prove that superstition is stupid. I want you to prove it makes sense. That should take a while.
14. Figure out how to excuse the worst thing you've ever done and the worst thing that you ever saw someone doing. Prepare a speech about it. Prove you are a better person for doing that terrible thing.
15. Argue with someone for over a half an hour about which shade of blue the sky is today. If it's cloudy, argue about which shade of blue you think it is beneath (above?) the clouds. Obviously, I will need a typed account of this for my records.
    
16. Hang out with someone and do nothing but look into their eyes. Don't stop until you're in love.
17. Go to the World's Biggest Bookstore and make a list of at least 20 books I would love to have. Buy them for me.
18. Determine the cure for insanity. Go insane and test it for me.
19. Paint your nails the darkest shade of red you can find. Work hard to find out what people say about it without saying a word. Stick your hand in front of the faces of cashiers, doctors, dentists...do something interesting that would make me proud to know you. This plan is that much better if you never wear nail polish.
    
20. Join the Polar Bear Club. Then you can be depressed that the ice caps are melting. Awww, poor little guy. No more hypothermia for you freaks. Polar bears are actually crazy for the extent that they need to stay cool. I did a project on it once in grade 10 (and incidentally cried through the presentation) and found out that even in the freaking tundra they roll around in the snow because they are ridiculously hot. People in the Polar Bear Club aren't really like that though...they just turn blue.
21. Find Shane's keys. Seriously I don't know where they went.
22. Convince your best friend and your worst enemy to do at least 5 things on this list. Take pictures. Use them for blackmail purposes, or just for kicks. I will need at least one copy.
    
23. Try sleeping upside down on your bed (head where your feet usually go) but don't change the sheets to make it work, wrap them around you still tucked in. You will get more sleep I guarantee it. More sleep equals less time awake equals less time to be bored.
24. Record your dreams in the smallest notebook you can find (use one book per dream) and then in the biggest notebook you can find, writing with the biggest pen or pencil you can find, turn your dreams into novels. Read them for me and tell me what I need to know to have you committed.
25. Drink some... I don't care what you drink. I suggest avoiding rye though. Tummy killer. Death. I mean it just avoid that stuff.
26. Contact Ryan Brady. He is just fun. You don't have to do it for me. Do it for you. He will make you laugh.

Good luck, weiners and weinists. Make me proud and let me get this crap taken care of. Clearly I don't need to take much time thinking of ways to keep you occupied--just the hour I was supposed to spend researching for 2 of my 4 essays. Brilliant. Have a good weekend.

The Sountrack of My Life

After a few drinks, you become sure that some sinister composer has written half a dozen songs that represent each episode of your life--and you're not even being compensated for it. I'd like to take it one step further: these are all the songs that make up the soundrack of my life:

1. "Anthem for the Already Defeated": for the nights my friends can't make it to where I am (so long as I am in London and they are too cheap to take the train). Don't worry though, Rory. This way we dont have to worry about locking our eyes forever, because that would mean we are in love. I'll just shake my rump alone.
2. "Stay with You". This is the song they will play at our reception when Shane and I are reintroduced as the McGinnes (pluralize that how you will)-- "I'll stay with you. The walls will fall before we do." Now we just need to find some reception walls that look cheap; if they fall at the reception there's no pressure on our marriage from there on out. Sounds like something that would happen to us--freak hurricane blows off Lake Ontario and destroys a single wedding hall. Perfect.
3. "Lips of an Angel," by Hinder. Not because I like it. Not because it has any bearing on me life. Because I hear it everywhere I go. Everywhere.
4. "Chicago" from the "Little Miss Sunshine" movie. I would totally drive to Chicago for the sake of a new love. And if you see me crying, in the van, with my friends, it is almost always for freedom. Plus I freaking love that movie.
5. "Cold Hard Bitch." There is no stretch here. I'm sure you can make the connection on your own.
6. Sarah Silverman's song from "Jesus is Magic". One of them anyway. I read an article the other day that said she was only funny because she was a chick that acted like a man (wow, Times, way to perpetuate stereotypes--good work) and I thought (loudly and to everyone in the GM waiting room), "No way, she is hilarious because she inspired me to create a painting for Rory that reminded him not to fuck children because it is against the law." And screw Times...the reason that women aren't funny to young men is because young men are stupid. Women are more subtle. Men have no sense of humour. I, for the record, am goddamn hilarious.
7. Which brings me to my next point. "Absence of God" another of Rory's favourites that was clearly written with me in mind. Because I'm not happy but I'm funny. Line of my life. Or so I am told.
8. Any song by the Spice Girls but particularly "Spice up Your Life" or "Wannabe" because those songs are on Shane's ipod and I don't think I will ever escape them. Ever.
9. "Unwell." Shane has music on the brain. I called him to tell him that we won a free trip to Florida and a cruise through the Bahamas for the low low price of $798 and whatever is left of our sanity and he said, "Don't worry, honey. You're not crazy you're just a little unwell." To which I muttered, "Too bad right now you can't tell." We're the coolest.
10. "No Children." It's just kind of what I hope for in my life. I really do hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow and I hope it will bleed all day long (the last time I hoped that I sliced a big chunk out of my armpit and spent the day, not checking to see if it was still bleeding, but terrified that Ford dirt would infest it and I would have to have my whole arm amputated.) More than that, I hope you die.