Free Socks for All!

I wish I could have grown up in the shadow of someone, preferably someone tall, mostly due to my fair skin and wanting to limit my exposure to the sun.

I wish that my capacity for jealousy was limitless because nothing gets my goat more than limits placed on jealousy. He's like that, silly goat.

I wish my children could convincingly act as if they were frozen and that they would "practice" this every night when I'm rushing trying to get dinner ready and then to at least clean up part of the mess after they thaw.

I wish that I could wear twenty pairs of socks, one on top of the other, all at the same time and, when an audience finally gathers organically around the multi-socked guy who is waving his limbs frantically in the food court, start slowly peeling them off providing dynamic play-by-play and insightful and humorous colour commentary before, during and after each layer is removed. I am fully prepared for the audience to be somewhere on the disappointed spectrum between vastly and abrasively.

I wish that my back door could experience life as a front entrance way just for a few, fleeting moments because I misguidedly believe strongly that everything should feel like an entrance at some point in my existence.

I wish the way I dressed reflected exactly the way that I feel but I have to say that it is really hard to find a shirt that captures my feelings of ambivalence all the while distinguishing it from the times (and the shirt) when I just feel bored.

I wish I occasionally had to literally eat my way out of a tough situation and that when that does occur I happen to be trapped in a room full of peeled, unsweetened mango as I refuse to peel my own mango especially when in the middle of tough situations.

I wish that a large cat would pick me up when I'm feeling low and after cuddling with me while purring loudly, give me a long, slow and rough lick.

I wish that I could join a private group of well-meaning citizens that meet biweekly to develop, plan and discuss the implementation of new conspiracy theories meant to keep the general public from knowing the truth all the while sampling exceptional local artisan cheeses and crackers.

I wish that I could take a break from my busy day and slowly walk out to the end of the long pier and stand there looking out at the boats on the water all the while attempting to convince anyone else who may look my way that I am "up to something" before rushing to a nearby rental shop to borrow a boat so that I can watch someone else take a break from their busy day and walk slowly on the same pier and stand there looking at me as if I am "up to something" before I move on to step 2 of my grand scheme. But then I'd have to check my watch and go pick up the kids from school and get some groceries forcing me to either put the plan on hold or stop wishing such elaborate, and ultimately pointless, plans in the first place.

I wish that I could accompany at least one cow on its' way home. It just seems fitting for some reason. Could be all of those times those cows, mostly imagined under duress, aided me on my way home from my friend Charlie's house even after they consumed a meal of steak which could have been their way of saying thanks for your years of service as a vegetarian. 

I wish that where there was smoke there wasn't fire that singed my eyebrows making me consider a less-haired existence; that burned my fingers making  me reconsider the juxtaposition of my flesh and heat sources; that fried only proverbial eggs as they are entirely inedible and regular edible eggs are sitting a few steps away in the refrigerator; and that didn't look like...

I wish that my father was a hard-working maker of salami so I could storm into his office (I'm unsure if the makers of salami work in offices, and yes, maybe I should have "done my research" and "tried harder to come across as smart" and "stopped making smiley faces on the mirror with the tooth paste", but I was busy compiling a list of ridiculous and bordering-on-ridiculous things that I either wish or wish that I wished for but am having a hard time faking it right now. You are right, I should just have done my research.) and let him know how unhappy I was that he spent a few hundred hours teaching me everything he knew about kite making and flying, even delving into the intricate and devious kite manufacturing and distribution business when all I wanted was a pony. All I wanted was a pony, dad. A freakin' pony. And what did I get? Hours upon hours of kites and salami!?!?! Now I'm a freak and a weirdo! Are you happy dad? You and your salami and your strange and troublesome fascination with kites!

I wish that being in hot water wasn't so strict and that warm water could be allowed instead for those of us with sensitive skin.

I wish that my hands were massively large for those times when people offer me "as much chocolate as you can hold in your hands."

I wish that I could drift off into a deep sleep at the drop of a hat, but not any hat as I could see that getting out of control really quickly especially when I visit those backyard Hat Only parties on windy days or when others "just want to see the guy who drifts into sleep if we drop our hat and...oops! Dropped it again! Sorry! Oh right, he can't hear me as he is asleep. Why oh why do I keep doing that?" But really sometimes it is hard to fall asleep due to the humidity or thoughts in my head or the humidity in my head and being instantly and suddenly asleep would be so nice, but I'm only signing up for that if I keep total control over the hat aspect of this.

I wish I was more buoyant, so I could go find that lifeguard from my youth and show her a thing or two, with one of those things being my extreme ability to float.

I wish I could wake up in the morning, just one time and get up, get dressed and go to work without having to deal with all of the glaring and groaning and hate-filled tirades as well as the loud sarcastic sighs and "whatever"s emanating from my sock drawer.

I wish I had some magic dust that I could sprinkle on myself so that I could be somewhere between 1 and 100% better at everything with the only side effect being occasional itchiness and sneezing due to all of the dust residue.

I wish that I was 200 feet tall, but only on Tuesdays and the occasional Friday afternoon.

Sitting On My Bed

I am sitting here on my bed and I am thinking about life and by that I don’t mean to come across as clichéd at all as I am actually sitting on my bed and thinking about life something I almost never do unless my wife is being particularly bossy. If it makes you feel any better, and it is sort of odd if it does, I’m not just pondering my own life and existence, but also the lives and existences of the sushi chefs who moved here from Japan with dreams of vinegared rice that will almost certainly turn to nightmares. I am also thinking about the filling dinner I just ate and am attempting to digest as we speak.

I am aware that “we” are not speaking at the moment – I’m not sure what exactly I did to make you give me the silent treatment, I mean I don’t even know who I am talking to, I mean typing for, at the moment. But, that too is a good question – who am I typing for? Myself? Friends and family? Our alien saviours? A young boy sitting in his room, on his bed, somewhere in Indonesia? For some reason, I am always imagining a boy in Indonesia sitting on his bed, although, to be honest, I cannot say with total certainty that it is his bed – it just isn’t clear in my imagination. It could be a pullout couch or a hammock. I hope it's a hammock.

I am typing for myself! And for freedom and also for frozen blocks of ice – not sure exactly what the plan is for all of those blocks of ice, but I believe in ordering large blocks of ice first and coming up with a purpose for said ice later on. If nothing else, we’ll be drinking really cold water at my house tonight! Come on down if you want to be near all of my ice! When I say I am typing for freedom what I mean is...actually I've probably already said too much and I should be continuing to focus on finishing those first year Econ papers they requested so I can see my family again. To be honest, I'll miss the rice dishes - damn these kidnappers/people I met on the bus/cactus aficionados with gourmet chef skills who seem to like my writing!

In the big picture I am typing for myself as writing what I write makes me feel a satisfaction that I can’t find or buy or stumble upon in the woods at night. There are plenty of smaller pictures as well and teeny tiny pictures as well and after that the pictures just get so small making the shows so hard to watch I may as well go out and get some fresh air. 

And tonight, as I sit here on my bed, I am thinking about my life and thinking about all that I have accomplished up to this point and where I want to go in the next year and the years after that. Next I want to reorganize my sock drawer in order of friendliness. I often assign personality traits to my socks and try to figure out which socks would be standoffish if I met them in line at the local butcher. After the massive sock drawer overhaul, I plan to read the remaining socks the riot act, which in my mind is a valuable how-to list on staging and carrying out a riot in case their master (me) starts slipping into a deep and dark phase where sock abuse would invariably be at the top of my list.

Up to this point in my life I have done well. Good thing I invested heavily in pork futures! If I was my mom, I would be proud; if I was my cat, considerably less so. My cat has unrealistically high expectations for me that I find both flattering and hard to live up to.  But, I have done well. I have a beautiful wife with whom I have helped create two children and a chest of drawers that looks more like a pile of kindling, or at least infinitely more so that my children who more closely resemble small humans like myself. I hope they fulfill their destiny and become taller as well as being able to cook their own breakfast and pack their own lunches so that I can sit at the table and review the need to plot any revenge or plant a garden or somehow kill both of those birds with one stone. Note to self: start collecting stones just in case. 

For those that have not met her, my wife is tall and even more so when I ask her to stand on a kitchen stool while I cower in the corner or in front of the heating vent to at least stay warm as cowering gives me a chill. We own a cat. Our cat is heavy. We are trying to either feed her less or add to her exercise regime of laying around the house all day. I’m not sure if own is the politically correct term these days for my relationship with my cat, and I am trying to downplay that term aside from when we play chess and I win and jump around the room pointing at her saying “I own you!” I also point to random cupboard doors and lamps and exclaim the same thing, only with significantly less confidence.

I find my work as a school guidance counsellor rewarding and enjoyable. I haven’t always been a counsellor mostly due there being some rules barring pre-teens from holding the position and in a past life I am fairly sure I was a merchant somewhere in the vicinity of Venice and before that I was a particularly funny and financially conservative wildebeest. I'm unsure if that is foreward progress, but I hope I am playing my cards right so in my next life I am either a financial advisor or the pope. If I was the pope right now all of time spent in my formative years working on my posture wouldn't have been a total waste.

I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of my work with young students and I value personal satisfaction quite high, but lower than I rank gold bars. I wish I had more gold. I am attempting at this moment to put all joking aside but I am also trying to declutter my room and "be more zen". I'm not entirely sure what being more zen really entails, but in those efforts I am reducing my carbon footprint as all of that carbon dust was clogging my pores and was a total hassle to clean up too.

My life could be shinier, especially if I had more gold, and not just my forehead and I imagine that if I was to legally attain a lot of gold all of a sudden and stand next to it, my forehead would appear quite dull by comparison. Instant savings on face creams! Each weekday, I show up to work, aside from holidays where I stay home and "work it" and I do not work like a dog as that would just not be appropriate unless the dog was good at listening, giving advise and word processing and if it was, I could sit back and sip my water with a curly straw – those things are so cool – and occasionally pet my dog and feed him a doggie treat. No, I would describe my work ethic as more similar to that of a llama or a rare Asian song bird on a slow day and like a farm animal being led to "the sausage room" on a busy one. I don't eat meat, but I imagine that I would love the sausage room as it just sounds like the dance club to end all dance clubs. Seriously, that would possibly shut down all existing dance clubs.

With my wife, I own a townhouse in a large metropolitan city coming to a country near you in the near future. I know, I know, that makes no sense – trying telling my city that! Well, more accurately we have a large, mostly unpaid mortgage on a townhouse, making our owning it more metaphysical that I'd prefer. If we owned a percentage of our house at this point, I think we’d own a bathroom and the stairs, which would make for some interesting dinner parties that our guests would never forget. Never. 

Of course, we’d love to pay off our house and be free from owing the bank so much money, but maybe we’d miss the bank and all of the lovely walks and flower gardens although it is highly possible I’m once again confusing the bank with our local botanical garden. I love it there – it’s too bad they don’t do mortgages. We’d also love to have a bigger house, because I’ve been brainwashed to believe that bigger is better in all senses – boot size, frying pans, hickeys, and have that bigger house be located more centrally in our city, because I’m growing tired of living on the fringe. Life on the fringe can be cold and dangerous and often windy. Once I heard voices that instructed me to go to the library and read some historical essays so that I would feel smarter. 

I imagine a large, central house would change some people, but not me – I’ve already changed and I never change twice unless it has been unseasonably warm.

I am in my mid-40s and all of the self help websites tell me to get off my butt and stop spending all of my time on the internet. "Age is just a number" they tell me, to which I reply "10010000111101" as I once heard that machines all speak binary. Suprisingly, not only did nothing happen, but a man knocked on my door selling hotdogs door to door which is quite rare though I did cook them well done as the last time I served my kids rare hotdogs my younger one tried to hijack her daycare and sell it to China. 

I am trying to get off my butt more often and to "share the wealth" by sitting on other body parts too with my new favourite being that area between my shoulder blades. The clock on the wall reads 1:30pm which means it is way too soon for dinner and that I should have had more to eat for lunch if I am hungry, which I'm not, and the clock also reads "midlife" which means my regularly scheduled crisis is overdue. Just so you know, I try to have a good crisis every year around April to coincide with my seasonal allergies as the sneezing gives me a welcome break from all of the yelling and scrunching of face muscles and reading of periodicals.

I should be pulling my hair out or crying over spilled milk or using more cliches and outdated expressions. I should be regretting not "living it up" in my 20s and investing well in my 30s and filling my freezer with fillets of halibut. But I'm not. I should be grilling some burgers or attaching plastic gills to toilet paper rolls or being less ironically random. But instead I am trying to face this period of my life head on as my shoulder is sore and my head is up for the task as long as he hasn't been pulling my leg which would be quite the impressive feat to say the least seeing as he has no hands or arms.

Existence is fleeting which makes much more sense than to say it is fleecing which makes none. I have looked at my life and then set up some mirrors and looked at its reflection and then I hired an artist to draw its portrait which is sitting somewhere deep in my storage room at the moment gathering dust. I don't always know where I am going or where I have been or why I seem to alway be surrounded by somber moustachioed men strumming guitars. But I am happy in this moment on my bed, digesting my dinner looking forward to some sleep and the days to come.

He and she

He planned to surprise her with a candlelit dinner complete with roses and an exquisite wine in order to sweep her off her feet and, if all went well, to generate enough momentum to also sweep the floors at the same time thus freeing up his morning tomorrow for a light jog.

She laughs at all of his jokes and impressions as they are quite funny and as a way to keep him occupied while she silently and stealthily invades his fort made of couch cushions.

He adores the way she eats and, when he has some time, plans to turn it into a three-act musical comedy about the surrealist artistic movement of the early 20th century.

She is like a beast in the kitchen which explains the amazing five-star entrees, the exquisite desserts and the total and complete mess he spends hours cleaning up afterwards.

He surprised her with a bouquet of flowers at work and performed a long dramatic soliloquy, which was enjoyed by her and her coworkers, up until the moment when he started amorously kissing the wall.

She ironed his shirts with a care and attention to detail that he truly appreciated but that he honestly only expected when she performed ritualistic ancient sword dances that kept him mesmerized to say the least.

He wept uncontrollably and blubbered nonsensically when watching romantic movies which touched her a great deal and gave her multiple ideas for plots in the series of children's books she planned to create in the new year.

She blushes when he leaves her original poems of love in her lunch bag and only wishes that the poems were either a tad bit shorter, less blush-inducing and that he didn't insist on actually making the poems out of her lunch.

He lightly massages her neck after a long tiring day and feels her melt into his hands which momentarily makes him panic as it is reminiscent of a recent series of detailed nightmares he had where she actual melted just before he got around to massaging her neck which left him alone and with no neck to massage.

She often imagines that he is sculpting a life-sized model of her out of soap for purposes unknown to him at this point but with seemingly limitless potential uses  with being unexpectedly cleaner all the time. 

He loves hearing his own voice and, to a lesser degree, the two of them speaking in perfect harmony as it frankly creeps him out a whole lot.

She has taken acting passive-aggressively to whole new heights which just happens to coincide with when he cleaned out the attic and converted it to a reading room.

He opens the car window as she is driving to the airport for their vacation enjoying both the breath of fresh air and the effect the sudden burst of wind has on her hair which had been previously invading his personal space.

She has recently taken to chopping her vegetables more finely making the resulting soup more texturely-pleasing unless you happen to love gnawing on large chunks of vegetables as he famously does.

He notices that his hair is receding and turning gray and while she displays a modest amount of sympathy he can tell that she far more interested in her new ant farm.

She climbs the tree in the park for both the better vantage point and because it is step four in his newly-formulated 12 step program for the two of them.

He goes out of his way never to push her buttons, and when he accidentally depresses one while going about his usual evening routine, he always makes sure that he obeys all of her obscure traffic hand signals afterwards.

She sings songs of love to him in a Spanish that is so broken that if the wrong person heard her and that person also just happened to have a splitting headache at least partially caused by a result of his nails-on-chalkboard nails on a chalkboard as the violin needs tuning and if that person just happened to be their waitress on a weekly basis at the brunch place they frequent then her Spanish omelette would be arrive a tad brown resulting in a slight grimace. 

He planted a tree in her honour as he knew she both appreciated newly-planted baby trees and when he performed tasks in her honour except those done out of spite.

She loves his face and always remembers to tell him so but she has to catch herself before laying on the praise for his ears too thickly as that always results in his feeling both loved and appreciated as well as super self conscious about his larger-than-average ears which is never truly her intent aside from those times after he has gloated too loudly after cooking an undeniably amazing brunch full of her favourite comfort foods.